Compare
Vanta vs Guard
Vanta manages your compliance program. Guard produces the runtime evidence inside it. Complementary, not competitive.
Why this comes up
Vanta is a strong GRC platform. It automates evidence collection for SOC 2, ISO 27001, and increasingly local frameworks like APRA CPS 234, connecting to your cloud accounts, HR system, and ticketing tools to show auditors that policies and controls are in place.
But Vanta sits at the program level. It doesn’t sit in your AI data path. It can record that you have an AI acceptable-use policy and a third-party register; it cannot tell you that on a given Tuesday a staff member pasted a customer’s TFN into a prompt bound for an overseas model, or prove that your PII controls fired on that call.
Guard works at inference time. It generates the per-call, cryptographically signed evidence that a GRC register can point to. Vanta says "this control exists." Guard says "this control ran; here’s the signed proof, on this call, at this time."
The difference
Vanta tracks that a control exists. Guard produces the per-call evidence that the control actually ran.
Side by side
| Capability | Vanta | 40° South Guard |
|---|---|---|
| Framework readiness (SOC 2, ISO 27001) | ✓ | ✗ |
| Automated policy and control tracking | ✓ | ✗ |
| Sits in the AI request path | ✗ | ✓ |
| Australian personal data detection at inference time | ✗ | ✓ |
| Per-call signed proof | ✗ | ✓ |
| CPS 234 Section 15 runtime evidence | register-level | ✓ |
| 7-year tamper-evident AI audit trail | ~ | ✓ |
✓ = supported · ~ = partial · ✗ = not supported
Reflects publicly available information as at July 2026. Tools change; check current vendor documentation.
Download the full comparison (PDF)Could you run them together?
Absolutely, this is the recommended pairing. Keep Vanta as your compliance command centre for frameworks and policies. Use Guard to generate the runtime AI evidence that makes the entries in Vanta defensible.
If your auditor asks for the proof behind a control, Guard’s signed attestations are what you hand over.
See Guard on your own AI calls
Book a demo and we’ll show you a signed attestation for a real call, mapped to your obligations under CPS 234, the Privacy Act, and AI transparency.