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Government · head to head

Periscope Holdings vs Semperis

Periscope Holdings logo

Periscope Holdings

Government

Statewide e-procurement systems and supplier networks for large public agencies

From
On request
Free plan
No
Full reviewWebsite
Semperis logo

Semperis

Cybersecurity

Identity threat detection and Active Directory forest recovery for AD, Entra ID and Okta, from a privately held US vendor.

From
On request
Free plan
No
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Periscope Holdings it is scaled and priced for statewide programmes, so a single city or county typically finds both the implementation effort and the cost out of proportion to its needs.; Semperis scope is limited to Active Directory, Entra ID and Okta, so an organisation whose critical identity lives elsewhere gets little from it, and the recovery value declines in direct proportion to how much has already moved off on-premises AD.
  • They diverge on capability: Periscope Holdings covers Sealed bid solicitation, Semperis covers Active Directory Forest Recovery.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Periscope Holdings and Semperis actually diverge.

Attributes where Periscope Holdings and Semperis differ
AttributePeriscope HoldingsSemperis
CategoryGovernmentCybersecurity

Identical on both: starting price (On request), pricing model (quote), free tier (No), platforms (Web), 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 Periscope Holdings

  • Sealed bid solicitation
  • Supplier registration network
  • Contract catalogues
  • Cooperative purchasing
  • Spend and compliance reporting
  • Supplier diversity tracking

Only in Semperis

  • Active Directory Forest Recovery
  • Malware-free restore
  • Replication-stream monitoring
  • Automated rollback
  • Attack indicator scoring
  • Entra ID and Okta coverage
  • Purple Knight
  • Forest Druid

What people use each for

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

Periscope Holdings

  • A state building a central procurement portal serving many agencies and local entitiesnot Semperis
  • A large agency needing statutory sealed bidding with a public opening recordnot Semperis
  • A purchasing programme that must report spend and supplier diversity across entitiesnot Semperis
  • A state wanting local governments to buy from its awarded cooperative contractsnot Semperis

Semperis

  • An organisation that cannot answer an auditor or insurer asking how long it would take to rebuild Active Directory after a destructive attacknot Periscope Holdings
  • Post-incident recovery where domain controllers are compromised and restoring from system-state backup would reintroduce the attacker's footholdnot Periscope Holdings
  • Continuous detection of privileged group changes and directory-level tampering that domain controller security logs missnot Periscope Holdings
  • Hybrid estates where AD, Entra ID and Okta all matter and no single tool currently shows changes across the threenot Periscope Holdings

Where each one falls short

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

Periscope Holdings

  • It is scaled and priced for statewide programmes, so a single city or county typically finds both the implementation effort and the cost out of proportion to its needs.
  • The interface reflects the age and regulatory weight of the platform, and suppliers routinely describe registration and bidding as harder than on newer portals, which can suppress bid response.
  • Ownership has changed twice since 2021, from independent to mdf commerce to KKR, so roadmap and support continuity should be written into the contract rather than assumed.
  • Sibling products inside mdf commerce cover adjacent procurement ground, which means an apparently competitive shortlist may contain two products with the same owner.
  • Statewide implementations are multi year projects with heavy configuration and change management, and the professional services cost commonly exceeds the software over the contract term.

Semperis

  • Scope is limited to Active Directory, Entra ID and Okta, so an organisation whose critical identity lives elsewhere gets little from it, and the recovery value declines in direct proportion to how much has already moved off on-premises AD.
  • The licence buys tooling, not a proven runbook: forest recovery is only worth what your last rehearsal demonstrated, and a plan that has never been executed end to end in a lab is an untested assumption regardless of what was purchased.
  • It overlaps with backup and directory management products from Quest, Veeam, Commvault and others, so the buyer must argue internally why a dedicated product is needed alongside a backup contract that already claims to protect Active Directory.
  • Running Directory Services Protector well requires someone who understands AD internals, replication metadata and Tier 0 attack paths, and without that person the alerts on privileged changes are either ignored or auto-reverted in ways that break legitimate administration.
  • Licensing is driven by identity object counts, so directories carrying years of stale user accounts and service principals pay for objects that should have been deleted, and the cleanup project that would reduce the bill is the one nobody has time for.

Pricing, plan by plan

Periscope Holdings

On request
  • BuySpeed$undefined/year
    • Quoted per programme, scaled to entities served and transaction volume
    • Multi year statewide contracts with implementation priced separately
    • Supplier side registration fees form part of the commercial model on some programmes

Semperis

On request

No published plan breakdown. See the Semperis review.

Which should you pick?

Choose Periscope Holdings if

  • You need sealed bid solicitation.
  • You also want supplier registration network.
Periscope Holdings review

Choose Semperis if

  • You need active directory forest recovery.
  • You also want malware-free restore.
Semperis review

Questions people ask

Is Periscope Holdings or Semperis better?
Neither clearly leads. Periscope Holdings starts at On request and Semperis at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Periscope Holdings or Semperis?
Periscope Holdings starts at On request and Semperis at On request.
Does Periscope Holdings or Semperis run on more platforms?
Both run on Web, so platform support will not decide this one for you.
What is Periscope Holdings best used for?
Periscope Holdings is most often used for a state building a central procurement portal serving many agencies and local entities, a large agency needing statutory sealed bidding with a public opening record, a purchasing programme that must report spend and supplier diversity across entities, a state wanting local governments to buy from its awarded cooperative contracts. Of those, a state building a central procurement portal serving many agencies and local entities and a large agency needing statutory sealed bidding with a public opening record are not what Semperis is typically brought in for.
What can Periscope Holdings do that Semperis cannot?
Periscope Holdings covers Sealed bid solicitation, Supplier registration network, Contract catalogues, Cooperative purchasing. Semperis covers Active Directory Forest Recovery, Malware-free restore, Replication-stream monitoring, Automated rollback.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Periscope Holdings: Who owns Periscope Holdings?

mdf commerce acquired it in 2021, and mdf commerce was itself acquired by KKR in 2024.

Semperis: Does this replace my backups?

No. It replaces the Active Directory recovery procedure specifically. You still need backups for everything else, and the point of Semperis is that a generic system-state backup of a domain controller is a poor way to recover a forest because it restores the operating system along with whatever compromised it.

Periscope Holdings: Is it suitable for a single city?

Usually not. It is built and priced for statewide or very large agency programmes.

Semperis: Is it useful if we are cloud-only on Entra ID?

Partly. Directory Services Protector covers Entra ID and Okta for change tracking and posture, but the forest recovery product, which is the strongest reason to buy, applies to on-premises Active Directory. A genuinely cloud-only organisation should weigh it against Microsoft's own tooling.

Periscope Holdings: What is BuySpeed?

The e-procurement platform behind its statewide deployments, covering solicitation through catalogue ordering and reporting.

Semperis: Are Purple Knight and Forest Druid really free?

Yes, both are free downloads with no licence requirement, and they are widely used by organisations that are not Semperis customers. They are also, transparently, the top of the sales funnel.

Periscope Holdings: Can we see what a state paid?

Yes. State procurement awards are public records and typically disclose the full multi year contract value.

Semperis: How long does forest recovery actually take?

The honest answer is whatever your rehearsal took. The vendor's case is hours instead of days, and automation genuinely removes most manual steps, but the number that matters for your board is the one from a test in your own environment.

Semperis: Does it require agents on domain controllers?

It collects directory changes from the AD replication stream, which is what lets it see changes that bypass the security log. Deployment details vary by product and version, so confirm the exact architecture against your domain controller change-control rules.

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