Fencer vs GRC Tools

What is the difference between a security platform like Fencer and a GRC tool like Vanta or Drata?

GRC tools such as Vanta, Drata, and Secureframe help companies manage compliance. Fencer helps companies run a technical security program that reduces risk across their software and infrastructure while covering the technical security work that compliance often requires.

Security and compliance are not the same thing

Fencer helps you do the technical security work that reduces risk. GRC tools help you manage compliance and prove your controls are in place. Here's how their roles differ.

Run your technical security program with Fencer

Fencer helps you find and fix security risks across your software and infrastructure, not just when an audit is coming up.

What it helps you do

Test applications and run penetration tests
Find vulnerabilities and prepare fixes
Identify cloud risks and monitor for threats
Generate and sync technical security evidence to your GRC tool (or export it to use to answer security questionnaires from your customers)

Manage your compliance program with GRC tools

GRC tools help you organize security controls, track compliance requirements, and gather the evidence needed for audits.

What they help you do

Map controls to frameworks like SOC 2 and ISO 27001
Collect evidence from connected systems
Track compliance gaps and outstanding tasks
Coordinate audit preparation

Your GRC tool tracks the controls, Fencer helps you implement them

Fencer connects to Vanta, Drata, and Secureframe and syncs its scan results and control evidence into them. The practical effect is that the security work shows up in your compliance program on its own, without anyone exporting a report at the end of the quarter and pasting it into an evidence request. Your vulnerability management and penetration testing controls get populated by the system actually doing that work.

The two products solve different halves of the same problem, with the compliance platform holding the record and Fencer doing the work that the record is about connecting ongoing risk reduction with compliance.

Secure your software and infrastructure, not just your compliance posture

Compliance is often what gets security work onto the roadmap. For example, a customer asks for a SOC 2 report, an enterprise deal requires a penetration test, or an audit surfaces gaps that need to be addressed.

You can check the compliance boxes and still leave real security risks unaddressed. Taking ownership means continuously testing what you ship, fixing what you find, and keeping an eye on what's changing. Your code evolves, dependencies introduce vulnerabilities, cloud configurations drift, and your attack surface grows with every new feature.

There's a difference between thinking about compliance as a checkbox and taking genuine responsibility and ownership of your security posture. Passing an audit doesn't mean those risks disappear, and waiting until the next assessment to look for them leaves too much to chance.

Keep security moving between audits

Fencer helps your team find and address security risks as your software and infrastructure evolve. Run penetration tests, scan applications, identify cloud misconfigurations, and monitor for threats without turning every finding into another manual project for your engineers.

When Fencer finds something, your team can investigate the issue, prioritize what matters, and prepare fixes instead of working through an endless backlog of alerts. Meanwhile, relevant security evidence stays connected to your compliance workflow, so preparing for an audit doesn't mean starting from scratch.

Built for teams that have more to secure than time to do it

You don't need a large security team to take security seriously. But as your product grows and larger customers scrutinize your security practices, the work gets harder to manage alongside everything else engineering needs to ship.

Fencer helps lean teams cover more of the technical security work without adding a corresponding pile of manual processes. You can start with the requirement in front of you, whether that's a penetration test or a customer security review, then expand your coverage as your application, infrastructure, and security needs grow.

Common Questions

Can Fencer replace our GRC tool?

No. Fencer focuses on the technical work of securing your software and infrastructure. It helps you test applications, identify vulnerabilities, investigate findings, prepare fixes, monitor for threats, and generate technical security evidence.

GRC platforms like Vanta, Drata, and Secureframe handle a different set of responsibilities. They help you map controls to frameworks, manage policies and training, coordinate audit preparation, collect evidence across your business, and manage Trust Centers and security questionnaires.

Fencer can help you do the security work behind your compliance program, but it doesn't replace the broader process of managing compliance. If you need both technical security coverage and compliance management, the tools can work together.

Can our GRC tool replace a security platform?

Not on its own. GRC platforms can track vulnerabilities, monitor control status, and flag remediation tasks, depending on the product and integrations you use. But tracking a finding isn't the same as discovering it, understanding whether it's exploitable, or fixing it.

Technical security tools do the work that produces those findings. They test applications, scan code, identify cloud misconfigurations, and monitor systems for potential threats. Fencer also helps teams investigate findings and prepare fixes, reducing the manual work between detection and remediation.

The important distinction to make here is between managing the status of security work and actually carrying it out. A GRC tool can help you demonstrate that a vulnerability was addressed. A technical security platform like Fencer helps your team find the problem, do something about it, and provide proof to your GRC tool.

We passed SOC 2. Doesn't that mean we're secure?

“Passing SOC 2” means you completed an assessment against a defined set of controls over a specified period. It demonstrates that your company has implemented and operated controls that an independent auditor evaluated.

But a successful audit isn't a guarantee that your software is free of vulnerabilities or that your infrastructure will remain secure. New code introduces new risks. Dependencies change. Cloud configurations drift. Attack techniques evolve. A control that was working during an audit can also silently fail later.

Compliance and security answer different questions. Compliance asks whether you meet the requirements of a framework. Technical security asks where your systems are exposed, what an attacker could exploit, and what you need to fix.

Fencer helps teams keep doing and proving the security work between audits.

Our cloud provider and dependency tools already scan. Is that enough?

Cloud-native scanners can identify supported infrastructure and configuration issues, while dependency scanners can flag known vulnerabilities in the packages your application uses.

The question is what those checks cover, and what remains untested.

A dependency scan can't tell you everything about how your application handles authentication or authorization. A cloud configuration check doesn't necessarily tell you whether an attacker can exploit a weakness in your running API. And identifying a vulnerable package doesn't automatically establish whether the issue is reachable in your application or how best to fix it.

Depending on your architecture and existing tools, you may also need application security testing, penetration testing, broader external attack-surface coverage, and monitoring for suspicious activity.

Fencer brings several of these technical security capabilities together, helping teams move from finding issues to prioritizing and addressing them without adding work to their plates.

Does Fencer satisfy the penetration testing requirement in our framework?

Fencer provides penetration testing designed to produce audit-ready reports, helping teams meet penetration testing requirements without the delays and overhead of a traditional engagement.

Whether a particular test satisfies your requirement depends on the framework, the applicable control language, and any additional conditions imposed by your auditor or customer. Some requirements may specify the tester's independence, qualifications, methodology, or involvement of a human tester.

Fencer offers AI-led and human-led testing options, so you can evaluate the right approach for your situation. If you're not sure where to start, book a demo with our team and we'll help scope out what is relevant to your exact situation.

Do we need both a GRC tool and Fencer?

If you have formal compliance obligations and need to manage ongoing technical security risks, the two can serve complementary roles.

Your GRC tool helps you organize controls, coordinate audits, and demonstrate that your company meets its compliance requirements. Fencer helps you test your software, find and fix vulnerabilities, identify cloud risks, and monitor for threats. It also helps generate and sync relevant technical security evidence to support your compliance workflow.

The distinction matters because passing an audit and reducing security risk aren't interchangeable outcomes. Your compliance program helps you demonstrate that you meet defined requirements. Your technical security program helps you discover and address weaknesses as your product and infrastructure change.

For a lean engineering team, the combination can be especially useful: keep the compliance workflows you already rely on, while automating more of the technical security work that would otherwise fall on your engineers.

You may not need both immediately. But if you want to maintain compliance while continuously improving the security of the product you're shipping, they solve different parts of the problem.

Build a security program that does more than satisfy an auditor

See how Fencer helps you continuously test your applications, fix vulnerabilities, and monitor your cloud.

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