Cybersecurity · head to head
Resolver vs Semperis
Resolver
Cybersecurity
Risk, incident and investigations platform for corporate security and operational risk teams, owned by Kroll
- From
- On request
- Rated
- -
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
- Rated
- -
The short version
- Each has a real cost: Resolver kroll ownership since 2022 means the product is sold alongside risk consulting services, so buyers who want software with no services attach should expect that conversation and should price the licence separately in negotiation.; 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: Resolver covers Incident management, 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 Resolver and Semperis actually diverge.
Identical on both: starting price (On request), pricing model (quote), free tier (No), user rating (Not yet rated), category (Cybersecurity).
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 Resolver
- Incident management
- Investigations
- Enterprise risk management
- Internal audit
- Compliance and obligations
- Business continuity
- Risk Event Management
- Configurable dashboards
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.
Resolver
- A national retailer consolidating store incident reporting, loss prevention cases and investigations into one system with defensible evidence handlingnot Semperis
- A bank that needs operational risk events captured against a risk and control register rather than in spreadsheets and emailnot Semperis
- A university security operations centre running dispatch, case management and clery-style reporting from a single recordnot Semperis
- An organisation that already retains Kroll for investigations and wants case intake and vendor handoff in the same platformnot 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 Resolver
- Post-incident recovery where domain controllers are compromised and restoring from system-state backup would reintroduce the attacker's footholdnot Resolver
- Continuous detection of privileged group changes and directory-level tampering that domain controller security logs missnot Resolver
- Hybrid estates where AD, Entra ID and Okta all matter and no single tool currently shows changes across the threenot Resolver
Where each one falls short
Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.
Resolver
- Kroll ownership since 2022 means the product is sold alongside risk consulting services, so buyers who want software with no services attach should expect that conversation and should price the licence separately in negotiation.
- Configuration flexibility comes at the cost of implementation time, with deployments commonly running several months and typically requiring vendor or partner services, so the first-year cost is well above the annual licence.
- Module-based pricing means the platform gets expensive quickly once you add audit, compliance and continuity to a security-led purchase, and modules bought later rarely carry the discount of the original deal.
- The IT and cyber compliance side is thinner than dedicated tools, so organisations chasing SOC 2 or ISO 27001 evidence automation will find it does not replace a Drata or Vanta.
- Reporting is capable but the drag and drop builder has a real learning curve, and organisations that do not train an internal administrator end up raising support tickets for changes that should be self-service.
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
Resolver
On request- Resolver Core$undefined/year
- Priced by modules selected and number of users
- Annual or multi-year enterprise agreement
- Implementation and configuration quoted separately
Semperis
On requestNo published plan breakdown. See the Semperis review.
Which should you pick?
Choose Resolver if
- You need incident management.
- You work on Web, iOS, Android.
- You also want investigations.
Choose Semperis if
- You need active directory forest recovery.
- You also want malware-free restore.
Questions people ask
- Is Resolver or Semperis better?
- Neither clearly leads. Resolver 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, Resolver or Semperis?
- Resolver starts at On request and Semperis at On request.
- Does Resolver or Semperis run on more platforms?
- Resolver runs on Web, iOS, Android. Semperis runs on Web.
- What is Resolver best used for?
- Resolver is most often used for a national retailer consolidating store incident reporting, loss prevention cases and investigations into one system with defensible evidence handling, a bank that needs operational risk events captured against a risk and control register rather than in spreadsheets and email, a university security operations centre running dispatch, case management and clery-style reporting from a single record, an organisation that already retains kroll for investigations and wants case intake and vendor handoff in the same platform. Of those, a national retailer consolidating store incident reporting, loss prevention cases and investigations into one system with defensible evidence handling and a bank that needs operational risk events captured against a risk and control register rather than in spreadsheets and email are not what Semperis is typically brought in for.
- What can Resolver do that Semperis cannot?
- Resolver covers Incident management, Investigations, Enterprise risk management, Internal audit. Semperis covers Active Directory Forest Recovery, Malware-free restore, Replication-stream monitoring, Automated rollback.
Answered from the vendors’ own pages
Resolver: Who owns Resolver?
Kroll, which acquired it in 2022. It is marketed as a Kroll business and sold alongside Kroll risk and investigations services.
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.
Resolver: What does Resolver cost?
Pricing is not published. It is quoted by module and user count on an annual or multi-year enterprise agreement, with implementation charged separately.
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.
Resolver: Is Resolver a SOC 2 compliance tool?
No. It is a risk, incident and investigations platform. Automated evidence collection for security certifications is not its strength.
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.
Resolver: How long does implementation take?
Months rather than weeks for a multi-module deployment, and most customers use vendor or partner services to configure it.
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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