Is Sardine or ThetaRay better?

Neither clearly leads. Sardine starts at On request and ThetaRay at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.

Which is cheaper, Sardine or ThetaRay?

Sardine starts at On request and ThetaRay at On request.

Does Sardine or ThetaRay run on more platforms?

Sardine runs on Web, iOS, Android. ThetaRay runs on Web.

What is Sardine best used for?

Sardine is most often used for a neobank losing money to authorised push payment scams where the customer genuinely approved the transfer, a crypto exchange trying to detect accounts being operated by remote access rather than by their owner, a fintech seeing synthetic identity signups that pass document verification but share device characteristics, a lender wanting first party fraud signals at application time that a credit bureau file does not contain. Of those, a neobank losing money to authorised push payment scams where the customer genuinely approved the transfer and a crypto exchange trying to detect accounts being operated by remote access rather than by their owner are not what ThetaRay is typically brought in for.

What can Sardine do that ThetaRay cannot?

Sardine covers Device intelligence, Behaviour biometrics, Scam detection, Onboarding risk scoring. ThetaRay covers Unsupervised detection, Cross-border focus, Sanctions screening, Alert triage.

Cybersecurity · head to head

Sardine vs ThetaRay

Sardine

Cybersecurity

Device intelligence and behaviour biometrics for fraud and compliance

From: On request
Rated: -

Full review Website

ThetaRay

Cybersecurity

Unsupervised AI transaction monitoring for cross-border and correspondent banking

From: On request
Rated: -

Full review Website

The short version

Each has a real cost: Sardine signal quality depends on the SDK being embedded in your own web and mobile clients, so fraud improvements become dependent on your app release cycle and any coverage gap is a blind spot.; ThetaRay unsupervised models are harder to justify to an examiner than explicit rules, and some regulators still expect documented threshold logic, which can force you to run both systems.
They diverge on capability: Sardine covers Device intelligence, ThetaRay covers Unsupervised detection.
Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Sardine and ThetaRay actually diverge.

Attributes where Sardine and ThetaRay differ
Attribute	Sardine	ThetaRay
Platforms	Web, iOS, Android	Web

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 Sardine

Device intelligence
Behaviour biometrics
Scam detection
Onboarding risk scoring
AML transaction monitoring
Dispute and chargeback handling
Rules editor

Only in ThetaRay

Unsupervised detection
Cross-border focus
Sanctions screening
Alert triage
Customer risk scoring
Cloud native

What people use each for

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

Sardine

A neobank losing money to authorised push payment scams where the customer genuinely approved the transfernot ThetaRay
A crypto exchange trying to detect accounts being operated by remote access rather than by their ownernot ThetaRay
A fintech seeing synthetic identity signups that pass document verification but share device characteristicsnot ThetaRay
A lender wanting first party fraud signals at application time that a credit bureau file does not containnot ThetaRay

ThetaRay

A correspondent bank that cannot see the ultimate originator and needs behavioural signals rather than counterparty listsnot Sardine
A cross-border payments fintech whose rules engine produces more alerts than its compliance team can clearnot Sardine
A bank under a regulatory consent order needing demonstrable improvement in detection within a fixed periodnot Sardine
A payment institution entering a high-risk corridor where existing thresholds were calibrated on domestic trafficnot Sardine

Where each one falls short

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

Sardine

Signal quality depends on the SDK being embedded in your own web and mobile clients, so fraud improvements become dependent on your app release cycle and any coverage gap is a blind spot.
Behavioural and device telemetry collection needs a documented lawful basis under GDPR, and EU privacy reviews frequently delay rollouts that were scoped as engineering work.
Pricing is per session or per active user, so a consumer product with many low value sessions pays in proportion to traffic rather than to fraud exposure.
As a younger private company it lacks the enforcement-tested audit history that a bank examiner expects, which makes it a harder sell inside a regulated bank than inside a fintech.
It is strongest on session-time signals and weaker as a system of record for long horizon AML typologies, so larger institutions end up running it alongside a traditional monitoring platform rather than instead of one.

ThetaRay

Unsupervised models are harder to justify to an examiner than explicit rules, and some regulators still expect documented threshold logic, which can force you to run both systems.
The alert reduction claim depends heavily on your data, so a parallel run is essential and adds months and cost before you can decommission the incumbent.
Coverage is strongest in cross-border and correspondent flows; institutions whose risk is domestic retail fraud will find the fit weaker than a general-purpose monitoring platform.
It is a smaller vendor than the incumbents, so integration connectors into legacy core banking systems are often bespoke work rather than a supported adapter.
Model retraining and tuning are vendor-led, which means changing detection behaviour is a support conversation rather than something your own analysts can do that afternoon.

Pricing, plan by plan

Sardine

On request

Sardine$undefined/year
- Priced per user session or per monthly active user
- Annual contract with volume commitment
- SDK for web, iOS and Android

ThetaRay

On request

ThetaRay Sonar$undefined/year
- Priced by monitored transaction volume and number of monitored entities
- SaaS on Azure with regional data residency options
- Parallel run and model tuning included in onboarding

Which should you pick?

Choose Sardine if

You need device intelligence.
You work on Web, iOS, Android.
You also want behaviour biometrics.

Sardine review

Choose ThetaRay if

You need unsupervised detection.
You also want cross-border focus.

ThetaRay review

Questions people ask

Is Sardine or ThetaRay better?: Neither clearly leads. Sardine starts at On request and ThetaRay at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Sardine or ThetaRay?: Sardine starts at On request and ThetaRay at On request.
Does Sardine or ThetaRay run on more platforms?: Sardine runs on Web, iOS, Android. ThetaRay runs on Web.
What is Sardine best used for?: Sardine is most often used for a neobank losing money to authorised push payment scams where the customer genuinely approved the transfer, a crypto exchange trying to detect accounts being operated by remote access rather than by their owner, a fintech seeing synthetic identity signups that pass document verification but share device characteristics, a lender wanting first party fraud signals at application time that a credit bureau file does not contain. Of those, a neobank losing money to authorised push payment scams where the customer genuinely approved the transfer and a crypto exchange trying to detect accounts being operated by remote access rather than by their owner are not what ThetaRay is typically brought in for.
What can Sardine do that ThetaRay cannot?: Sardine covers Device intelligence, Behaviour biometrics, Scam detection, Onboarding risk scoring. ThetaRay covers Unsupervised detection, Cross-border focus, Sanctions screening, Alert triage.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Sardine: Does Sardine do document verification?

It focuses on device, behavioural and transaction signals, and integrates identity verification providers rather than being one. Treat it as complementary to a KYC vendor.

ThetaRay: Does it replace a rules engine entirely?

Rarely on day one. Most institutions run it alongside existing rules during a parallel period, and some keep specific regulator-mandated rules permanently.

Sardine: What does it need from us to work?

An SDK in your web and mobile applications plus transaction feeds. Without the client side collector you lose the signals that differentiate it.

ThetaRay: Where is the data processed?

SaaS runs on Microsoft Azure with regional deployment options, which is the mechanism for meeting data residency conditions in regulated markets.

Sardine: Is pricing published?

No. It is quoted, typically per session or per monthly active user with an annual volume commitment.

ThetaRay: Is sanctions screening included?

Screening is available on the same platform but licensed as part of the commercial package rather than bundled by default. Confirm it is in your quote.

Sardine vs ThetaRay

Sardine

ThetaRay

The short version

Where they differ

What each one covers

Only in Sardine

Only in ThetaRay

What people use each for

Sardine

ThetaRay

Where each one falls short

Sardine

ThetaRay

Pricing, plan by plan

Sardine

ThetaRay

Which should you pick?

Choose Sardine if

Choose ThetaRay if

Questions people ask

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Related pages

More on Sardine

More on ThetaRay

Keep looking

Other head to heads