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Government · head to head

Polco vs Semperis

Polco logo

Polco

Government

Civic Engagement and Polling Platform

From
$300/month
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: Polco interface has a formal, academic tone compared to modern civic engagement platforms; 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: Polco covers Scientific Surveys, Semperis covers Active Directory Forest Recovery.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 30 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Polco and Semperis actually diverge.

Attributes where Polco and Semperis differ
AttributePolcoSemperis
Starting price$300/monthOn request
Pricing modelsubscriptionquote
PlatformsWeb, Ios, AndroidWeb
CategoryGovernmentCybersecurity
Founded2015Unknown

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 Polco

  • Scientific Surveys
  • Live Polling
  • Community Benchmarking
  • Priority-Based Budgeting
  • Demographic Analysis
  • NRC Surveys
  • ArcGIS
  • Social Media

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.

Polco

  • Citizen Servicesnot Semperis
  • Records Managementnot Semperis
  • Public Safetynot Semperis
  • Civic Engagementnot 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 Polco
  • Post-incident recovery where domain controllers are compromised and restoring from system-state backup would reintroduce the attacker's footholdnot Polco
  • Continuous detection of privileged group changes and directory-level tampering that domain controller security logs missnot Polco
  • Hybrid estates where AD, Entra ID and Okta all matter and no single tool currently shows changes across the threenot Polco

Where each one falls short

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

Polco

  • Interface has a formal, academic tone compared to modern civic engagement platforms
  • Emphasizes surveys and benchmarking over open discussion forums and idea boards
  • Pricing is custom quote-based without transparent pricing on the website

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

Polco

$300/month
  • Community Engagement$300/month
    • Community Surveys
    • Live Polling
    • Benchmarking

Semperis

On request

No published plan breakdown. See the Semperis review.

Which should you pick?

Choose Polco if

  • You need scientific surveys.
  • You work on Web, Ios, Android.
  • You also want live polling.
Polco review

Choose Semperis if

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

Questions people ask

Is Polco or Semperis better?
Neither clearly leads. Polco starts at $300/month and Semperis at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Polco or Semperis?
Polco starts at $300/month and Semperis at On request.
Does Polco or Semperis run on more platforms?
Polco runs on Web, Ios, Android. Semperis runs on Web.
What is Polco best used for?
Polco is most often used for citizen services, records management, public safety, civic engagement. Of those, citizen services and records management are not what Semperis is typically brought in for.
What can Polco do that Semperis cannot?
Polco covers Scientific Surveys, Live Polling, Community Benchmarking, Priority-Based Budgeting. Semperis covers Active Directory Forest Recovery, Malware-free restore, Replication-stream monitoring, Automated rollback.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Polco: How does Polco ensure survey data quality?

Polco uses scientific survey methodology through the National Research Center, with pre-tested survey questions and verification that participants live in the surveyed area to eliminate outside interference and bad-faith responses.

Source
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.

Polco: What's the difference between Polco and open discussion platforms?

Polco emphasizes scientific surveys and benchmarking over open forums or suggestion boards, prioritizing rigorous data collection for policy decisions over broad community brainstorming.

Source
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.

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.

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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