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Cybersecurity · head to head

ThetaRay vs Very Good Security

ThetaRay logo

ThetaRay

Cybersecurity

Unsupervised AI transaction monitoring for cross-border and correspondent banking

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Very Good Security logo

Very Good Security

Cybersecurity

Tokenisation proxy that keeps card and personal data out of your own systems and out of PCI scope

From
$1000/month
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: 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.; Very Good Security vGS sits in the live path of every request carrying sensitive data, so its latency and availability become yours, and an outage in the proxy is a payment outage no matter how healthy your own systems are.
  • They diverge on capability: ThetaRay covers Unsupervised detection, Very Good Security covers Aliasing proxy.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which ThetaRay and Very Good Security actually diverge.

Attributes where ThetaRay and Very Good Security differ
AttributeThetaRayVery Good Security
Starting priceOn request$1000/month
Pricing modelquotePer month
PlatformsWebWeb, API

Identical on both: 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 ThetaRay

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

Only in Very Good Security

  • Aliasing proxy
  • PCI scope reduction
  • Network tokenisation
  • Processor optionality
  • Card issuing data
  • Vault and access controls
  • Data residency options
  • Compliance artefacts

What people use each for

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

ThetaRay

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

Very Good Security

  • A marketplace facing its first PCI DSS Level 1 assessment that wants to keep card data off its own estate rather than harden a dozen servicesnot ThetaRay
  • A merchant negotiating with a second acquirer that needs card credentials portable so the negotiation is real rather than theoreticalnot ThetaRay
  • A fintech collecting bank account and identity documents that wants sensitive fields absent from logs, backups and analytics warehouses by constructionnot ThetaRay
  • A card issuer that must display a full PAN in its own mobile app without the app or its backend touching cardholder datanot ThetaRay

Where each one falls short

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

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.

Very Good Security

  • VGS sits in the live path of every request carrying sensitive data, so its latency and availability become yours, and an outage in the proxy is a payment outage no matter how healthy your own systems are.
  • Token portability is the whole selling point yet leaving VGS means migrating tokens back out, a project the vendor has no incentive to streamline, so the lock-in you removed from your acquirer partly moves to VGS.
  • Entry pricing at around one thousand US dollars a month is real money for a pre-revenue fintech, and it buys volume-limited throughput, so cost scales with exactly the growth that made you buy it.
  • Scope reduction is not scope elimination: your QSA still assesses how you integrate, and teams regularly discover that a support tool or an internal admin screen pulled plaintext back in and dragged systems into scope again.
  • Proxy-based interception constrains how you design request flows, and non-standard payloads, streaming uploads or binary formats often need custom routing rules that make debugging production issues noticeably harder.

Pricing, plan by plan

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

Very Good Security

$1000/month
  • Starter$1000/month
    • Aliasing proxy
    • Vault storage
    • PCI scope reduction
  • Growth$undefined/month
    • Network tokenisation
    • Multiple processors
    • Data residency options
  • Enterprise$undefined/year
    • Custom vault architecture
    • Dedicated support and SLA
    • Contractual compliance coverage

Which should you pick?

Choose ThetaRay if

  • You need unsupervised detection.
  • You also want cross-border focus.
ThetaRay review

Choose Very Good Security if

  • You need aliasing proxy.
  • You work on Web, API.
  • You also want pci scope reduction.
Very Good Security review

Questions people ask

Is ThetaRay or Very Good Security better?
Neither clearly leads. ThetaRay starts at On request and Very Good Security at $1000/month, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, ThetaRay or Very Good Security?
ThetaRay starts at On request and Very Good Security at $1000/month.
Does ThetaRay or Very Good Security run on more platforms?
ThetaRay runs on Web. Very Good Security runs on Web, API.
What is ThetaRay best used for?
ThetaRay is most often used for a correspondent bank that cannot see the ultimate originator and needs behavioural signals rather than counterparty lists, a cross-border payments fintech whose rules engine produces more alerts than its compliance team can clear, a bank under a regulatory consent order needing demonstrable improvement in detection within a fixed period, a payment institution entering a high-risk corridor where existing thresholds were calibrated on domestic traffic. Of those, a correspondent bank that cannot see the ultimate originator and needs behavioural signals rather than counterparty lists and a cross-border payments fintech whose rules engine produces more alerts than its compliance team can clear are not what Very Good Security is typically brought in for.
What can ThetaRay do that Very Good Security cannot?
ThetaRay covers Unsupervised detection, Cross-border focus, Sanctions screening, Alert triage. Very Good Security covers Aliasing proxy, PCI scope reduction, Network tokenisation, Processor optionality.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

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.

Very Good Security: Does VGS make me PCI compliant?

No. It removes cardholder data from your systems so your assessment covers a far smaller boundary, but you still complete an assessment and your integration is part of 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.

Very Good Security: Can I move to another processor without re-collecting cards?

Yes, that is a core reason people buy it. The vault reveals stored credentials to whichever processor you route to.

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.

Very Good Security: What does it cost?

Published entry pricing is about one thousand US dollars per month; growth and enterprise tiers are quoted.

Very Good Security: Is it only for card data?

No. The proxy handles any sensitive field, including bank details, national identifiers and documents, though payments is where the product is now focused.

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