Drata alternative: NIS 2 from the law, not from a control catalog
Drata is one of the two big names in compliance automation. Like its rival Vanta it is US-built, demo-gated and rented. Its NIS 2 support is a control set mapped to CIS Controls v8.1. This page compares that approach with starting from the law itself.
What Drata is, and why people search for an alternative
Drata, founded in San Diego in 2020, automates compliance evidence collection and audit preparation. Its catalog spans SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR, HIPAA, PCI DSS, DORA, FedRAMP, CMMC and more. For NIS 2 it offers a Cybersecurity Core Framework: pre-mapped controls aligned to the directive's requirements and mapped, in Drata's own description, to CIS Controls v8.1.
The reasons to look elsewhere mirror the category. The pricing page shows no tiers and no numbers, only a demo request (checked 8 September 2026). The platform is US SaaS with your compliance record in the vendor's cloud. And the NIS 2 layer is a control-catalog translation of the directive, not the national law: CIS Controls are a respected catalog, but your supervisor audits you against the transposition, in Germany the BSIG.
This page compares Drata with open-isms, the free, AGPL-licensed, self-hostable ISMS behind nisd2.eu, which starts from the 49 requirements of the German NIS 2 transposition and keeps the legal citation attached to every one of them.
Automated evidence collection
Drata's core strength: integrations continuously pull evidence from cloud infrastructure, identity providers and developer tooling, replacing screenshots and spreadsheets for the covered stack.
A broad certification catalog
SOC 2, ISO 27001, PCI DSS, FedRAMP, CMMC and more, with cross-mapping so one control serves several frameworks. For companies collecting certifications to close enterprise deals, that breadth is the product.
Audit workflow
Auditor collaboration, continuous control monitoring and readiness dashboards are mature. The path from monitoring to a completed SOC 2 or ISO audit is well worn.
No public pricing at all
The pricing page carries no tiers and no numbers, only a demo request (checked 8 September 2026). In our May 2026 audit of 150 GRC vendors, 120 published no prices. The price of the tool is an output of the sales process, not an input to your budget.
US SaaS, no self-hosting
There is no option to run Drata on your own infrastructure. Your ISMS, including incident and risk records, lives in a US vendor's cloud. If your own supply-chain assessment weighs vendor jurisdiction, the tool holding that assessment is in scope of it.
NIS 2 through the CIS lens
Drata's NIS 2 framework maps the directive to CIS Controls v8.1. That yields a sensible technical baseline, but NIS 2 duties are legal ones: registration, management accountability, incident reporting stages, supply-chain documentation. A control catalog does not carry paragraph texts, national deadlines or the registration duty.
Built for the certification buyer
Drata's shape assumes you are collecting certifications to sell software. The NIS 2 population is different: utilities, logistics, manufacturing, healthcare, most of them meeting formal cybersecurity regulation for the first time and not preparing for any certificate.
The law is the data model
All 49 requirements of the German NIS 2 transposition, each with its legal citation, cross-mapped to GDPR, the EU AI Act and the CRA. The model is open source and published on npm. Where Drata translates the directive into CIS Controls, open-isms keeps the paragraph you will be audited against.
Evidence while you operate
Owner, deadline and sign-off per requirement, with an append-only audit log underneath. What auditors accept is not a dashboard but a record that cannot be quietly rewritten. That record accumulates as you work.
Open source and self-hostable
AGPL-3.0, full source on GitHub, reference docker compose. Run it on your own hardware or use the hosted version; either way the code is auditable and the exit door is open.
Free platform, paid help
No license, no per-framework surcharge, no negotiation. The platform is free; training and operated hosting are what cost money. Your budget conversation is about implementation work, not tooling.
If your business sells software, your customers ask for SOC 2 or ISO 27001, and your infrastructure lives in the major clouds, Drata automates real work and the investment can pay for itself in closed deals.
If the duty on your desk is NIS 2, the honest question is different: you need the national requirements, a defensible evidence trail and a system your own risk assessment can live with. That is the case open-isms is built for, and it costs nothing to check.
Does Drata support NIS 2?
Yes. Drata offers a NIS 2 Cybersecurity Core Framework with controls mapped to CIS Controls v8.1, plus policy templates. What it does not carry is the national transposition: the German BSIG paragraph texts, registration duty and deadlines.
What does Drata cost?
Drata publishes no prices and no tier names on its pricing page; the only path is a demo request (checked 8 September 2026). We will not invent a number here.
Drata or Vanta?
They are direct rivals with the same shape: broad framework catalogs, deep integrations, demo-gated pricing, US SaaS. If you are choosing between them for SOC 2, ask both for prices in writing and compare EU data handling. If your actual duty is NIS 2, the choice is a different category altogether.
Is there a free, open-source alternative to Drata?
Yes: open-isms (NIS 2 first, EU focus), verinice, CISO Assistant and Eramba. All genuinely open source, with different centers of gravity. This page argues for one of them and is published by its makers, which you should factor in.
Can I migrate or run both?
Running certification frameworks in Drata and NIS 2 in open-isms is a workable split. The open data model keeps NIS 2 requirements mapped to ISO 27001 controls, so evidence effort is visible across both, and exports keep your data portable.
- Drata pricing page, checked 8 September 2026: no tiers, no prices, demo request only. drata.com/pricing
- Drata NIS 2 product page: Cybersecurity Core Framework, controls mapped to CIS Controls v8.1. drata.com/product/nis-2
- Own audit of 150 GRC vendor pricing pages, May 2026: 120 publish no prices. Methodology in the GRC comparison article.
- open-isms source code, NIS 2 data model and reference self-hosting setup. github.com/NISD2/open-isms