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Government · head to head

Periscope Holdings vs Teleport

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
Teleport logo

Teleport

Cybersecurity

Certificate-based access to servers, Kubernetes, databases and apps, replacing shared credentials and VPNs

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.; Teleport pricing is not published and is described as active users plus protected resources, so an autoscaling estate cannot forecast the bill and finance teams discover the true cost only after the first true-up.
  • They diverge on capability: Periscope Holdings covers Sealed bid solicitation, Teleport covers Short-lived certificates.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

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

Attributes where Periscope Holdings and Teleport differ
AttributePeriscope HoldingsTeleport
PlatformsWebLinux, macOS, Windows, Kubernetes, Cloud
CategoryGovernmentCybersecurity

Identical on both: starting price (On request), pricing model (quote), 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 Periscope Holdings

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

Only in Teleport

  • Short-lived certificates
  • Protocol coverage
  • Session recording and replay
  • Access Requests
  • Device Trust
  • Identity provider integration
  • Machine identity
  • FIPS and FedRAMP builds

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 Teleport
  • A large agency needing statutory sealed bidding with a public opening recordnot Teleport
  • A purchasing programme that must report spend and supplier diversity across entitiesnot Teleport
  • A state wanting local governments to buy from its awarded cooperative contractsnot Teleport

Teleport

  • Removing long-lived SSH keys and shared database passwords so that offboarding an engineer takes one action in the identity providernot Periscope Holdings
  • Producing session recordings and per-user database audit trails as direct evidence for SOC 2 or FedRAMPnot Periscope Holdings
  • Giving contractors or on-call engineers time-boxed, approved access to production instead of standing admin rightsnot Periscope Holdings
  • Replacing a flat VPN with per-resource authorisation across servers, Kubernetes and internal web appsnot 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.

Teleport

  • Pricing is not published and is described as active users plus protected resources, so an autoscaling estate cannot forecast the bill and finance teams discover the true cost only after the first true-up.
  • The proxy is a hard dependency on reaching production, so it needs its own high availability deployment and a tested break-glass path or an outage in Teleport becomes an outage in your ability to respond to outages.
  • The open source Community Edition omits Access Requests, Device Trust and the FIPS builds, which are exactly the controls an auditor asks about, so the free tier rarely survives a compliance review.
  • Self-hosting means running and upgrading a certificate authority and its backing store, and Teleport releases frequently enough that upgrade work becomes a standing operational commitment.
  • Coverage across protocols is uneven in depth, so teams with legacy systems, unusual databases or bespoke network appliances find gaps that still require the old VPN to remain in place alongside it.

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

Teleport

On request
  • Teleport Community Edition$undefined/year
    • Open source, self-hosted
    • SSH, Kubernetes, database and app access
    • Session recording
  • Teleport Enterprise$undefined/year
    • Cloud-hosted or self-hosted
    • Access Requests and approval workflow
    • Device Trust and hardware key enforcement

Which should you pick?

Choose Periscope Holdings if

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

Choose Teleport if

  • You need short-lived certificates.
  • You work on Linux, macOS, Windows, Kubernetes, Cloud.
  • You also want protocol coverage.
Teleport review

Questions people ask

Is Periscope Holdings or Teleport better?
Neither clearly leads. Periscope Holdings starts at On request and Teleport at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Periscope Holdings or Teleport?
Periscope Holdings starts at On request and Teleport at On request.
Does Periscope Holdings or Teleport run on more platforms?
Periscope Holdings runs on Web. Teleport runs on Linux, macOS, Windows, Kubernetes, Cloud.
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 Teleport is typically brought in for.
What can Periscope Holdings do that Teleport cannot?
Periscope Holdings covers Sealed bid solicitation, Supplier registration network, Contract catalogues, Cooperative purchasing. Teleport covers Short-lived certificates, Protocol coverage, Session recording and replay, Access Requests.

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.

Teleport: Is the open source edition usable in production?

Yes, but it lacks Access Requests, Device Trust and FIPS builds, which most compliance programmes end up requiring.

Periscope Holdings: Is it suitable for a single city?

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

Teleport: How is it priced?

Not publicly. The vendor prices on active users and protected resources and provides a quote after a sales conversation.

Periscope Holdings: What is BuySpeed?

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

Teleport: What happens if Teleport goes down?

Nobody reaches the resources behind it, so you need a highly available deployment and a documented break-glass procedure.

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.

Teleport: Does it replace our VPN?

For anything you put behind it, yes. Legacy systems and appliances it does not support will keep the VPN alive.

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