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Government · head to head

NEOGOV vs Very Good Security

NEOGOV logo

NEOGOV

Government

Public sector HR suite covering civil service recruiting, onboarding, training and policy management

From
On request
Free plan
No
Full reviewWebsite
Very Good Security logo

Very Good Security

Cybersecurity

Tokenisation proxy that keeps card and personal data out of your own systems and out of PCI scope

From
$1000/month
Free plan
No
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: NEOGOV each module is shallower than the specialist product it competes with, so agencies buying the full suite for coherence accept weaker performance management and learning than they would get separately.; Very Good Security vGS sits in the live path of every request carrying sensitive data, so its latency and availability become yours, and an outage in the proxy is a payment outage no matter how healthy your own systems are.
  • They diverge on capability: NEOGOV covers Civil service recruiting, Very Good Security covers Aliasing proxy.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which NEOGOV and Very Good Security actually diverge.

Attributes where NEOGOV and Very Good Security differ
AttributeNEOGOVVery Good Security
Starting priceOn request$1000/month
Pricing modelquotePer month
PlatformsWeb, iOS, AndroidWeb, API
CategoryGovernmentCybersecurity

Identical on both: free tier (No), user rating (Not yet rated).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in NEOGOV

  • Civil service recruiting
  • Veterans preference handling
  • GovernmentJobs.com posting
  • Onboarding workflows
  • Learning and training records
  • Policy management

Only in Very Good Security

  • Aliasing proxy
  • PCI scope reduction
  • Network tokenisation
  • Processor optionality
  • Card issuing data
  • Vault and access controls
  • Data residency options
  • Compliance artefacts

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

NEOGOV

  • A city or county HR department that must run scored examinations and ranked eligibility listsnot Very Good Security
  • A public safety agency needing policy acknowledgement records that stand up in litigationnot Very Good Security
  • An agency replacing a commercial applicant tracking system that cannot handle veterans preferencenot Very Good Security
  • A school district or university consolidating recruiting, onboarding and mandated training recordsnot Very Good Security

Very Good Security

  • A marketplace facing its first PCI DSS Level 1 assessment that wants to keep card data off its own estate rather than harden a dozen servicesnot NEOGOV
  • A merchant negotiating with a second acquirer that needs card credentials portable so the negotiation is real rather than theoreticalnot NEOGOV
  • A fintech collecting bank account and identity documents that wants sensitive fields absent from logs, backups and analytics warehouses by constructionnot NEOGOV
  • A card issuer that must display a full PAN in its own mobile app without the app or its backend touching cardholder datanot NEOGOV

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

NEOGOV

  • Each module is shallower than the specialist product it competes with, so agencies buying the full suite for coherence accept weaker performance management and learning than they would get separately.
  • Policy management arrived through the PowerDMS acquisition rather than being built in, and the join between it and the rest of the suite still reads as two products.
  • Implementation is long and configuration heavy because the civil service rules that make the product valuable have to be encoded for your jurisdiction, and that work is billed.
  • Pricing is not published and scales with headcount, so a large agency can pay several times what a comparable one pays without knowing it unless someone reads the public contracts.
  • Private equity ownership since the Warburg Pincus investment has coincided with an acquisition led strategy, and buyers should expect further products bolted on rather than deeper integration of the existing ones.

Very Good Security

  • VGS sits in the live path of every request carrying sensitive data, so its latency and availability become yours, and an outage in the proxy is a payment outage no matter how healthy your own systems are.
  • Token portability is the whole selling point yet leaving VGS means migrating tokens back out, a project the vendor has no incentive to streamline, so the lock-in you removed from your acquirer partly moves to VGS.
  • Entry pricing at around one thousand US dollars a month is real money for a pre-revenue fintech, and it buys volume-limited throughput, so cost scales with exactly the growth that made you buy it.
  • Scope reduction is not scope elimination: your QSA still assesses how you integrate, and teams regularly discover that a support tool or an internal admin screen pulled plaintext back in and dragged systems into scope again.
  • Proxy-based interception constrains how you design request flows, and non-standard payloads, streaming uploads or binary formats often need custom routing rules that make debugging production issues noticeably harder.

Pricing, plan by plan

NEOGOV

On request
  • NEOGOV Suite$undefined/year
    • Quoted per module and scaled by employee headcount
    • Implementation and data migration priced separately from the subscription
    • Available through cooperative purchasing and state term contracts

Very Good Security

$1000/month
  • Starter$1000/month
    • Aliasing proxy
    • Vault storage
    • PCI scope reduction
  • Growth$undefined/month
    • Network tokenisation
    • Multiple processors
    • Data residency options
  • Enterprise$undefined/year
    • Custom vault architecture
    • Dedicated support and SLA
    • Contractual compliance coverage

Which should you pick?

Choose NEOGOV if

  • You need civil service recruiting.
  • You work on Web, iOS, Android.
  • You also want veterans preference handling.
NEOGOV review

Choose Very Good Security if

  • You need aliasing proxy.
  • You work on Web, API.
  • You also want pci scope reduction.
Very Good Security review

Questions people ask

Is NEOGOV or Very Good Security better?
Neither clearly leads. NEOGOV starts at On request and Very Good Security at $1000/month, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, NEOGOV or Very Good Security?
NEOGOV starts at On request and Very Good Security at $1000/month.
Does NEOGOV or Very Good Security run on more platforms?
NEOGOV runs on Web, iOS, Android. Very Good Security runs on Web, API.
What is NEOGOV best used for?
NEOGOV is most often used for a city or county hr department that must run scored examinations and ranked eligibility lists, a public safety agency needing policy acknowledgement records that stand up in litigation, an agency replacing a commercial applicant tracking system that cannot handle veterans preference, a school district or university consolidating recruiting, onboarding and mandated training records. Of those, a city or county hr department that must run scored examinations and ranked eligibility lists and a public safety agency needing policy acknowledgement records that stand up in litigation are not what Very Good Security is typically brought in for.
What can NEOGOV do that Very Good Security cannot?
NEOGOV covers Civil service recruiting, Veterans preference handling, GovernmentJobs.com posting, Onboarding workflows. Very Good Security covers Aliasing proxy, PCI scope reduction, Network tokenisation, Processor optionality.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

NEOGOV: Why not use a commercial applicant tracking system?

Because civil service rules such as ranked eligibility lists, rule of three certification and veterans preference are not expressible in commercial products, so the statutory steps end up in spreadsheets.

Very Good Security: Does VGS make me PCI compliant?

No. It removes cardholder data from your systems so your assessment covers a far smaller boundary, but you still complete an assessment and your integration is part of it.

NEOGOV: Can I find out what other agencies pay?

Yes. These are public procurements, so executed contract values appear in council agenda packets and state term contract listings. Read several before negotiating.

Very Good Security: Can I move to another processor without re-collecting cards?

Yes, that is a core reason people buy it. The vault reveals stored credentials to whichever processor you route to.

NEOGOV: What did NEOGOV acquire?

PowerDMS, a policy management and accreditation product, in 2021, which is now sold as the policy module of the suite.

Very Good Security: What does it cost?

Published entry pricing is about one thousand US dollars per month; growth and enterprise tiers are quoted.

NEOGOV: Is it only for the United States?

Effectively yes. The value is in encoding US civil service and public safety requirements.

Very Good Security: Is it only for card data?

No. The proxy handles any sensitive field, including bank details, national identifiers and documents, though payments is where the product is now focused.

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