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Vanta automates the compliance paperwork. WinSentinel hardens the Windows machine behind the controls — finding and one-click fixing the misconfigurations, free.
| Capability | WinSentinel | Vanta |
|---|---|---|
| Primary job | Find & fix Windows misconfig | Collect audit evidence |
| Auto-Remediation | ✓ One-click fix on the endpoint | ✗ Reports control status only |
| Windows Config Depth | ✓ 33 native audit modules | High-level via MDM/agent checks |
| Posture Score | ✓ 0–100 | Control pass/fail % |
| Compliance Mapping | ✓ CIS L1 / SOC 2 / HIPAA per finding | ✓ SOC 2 / HIPAA / ISO 27001 frameworks |
| Real-Time Monitoring | ✓ Continuous, on-machine | Periodic integration checks |
| Auditor Workflow | PDF/CSV/SARIF export | ✓ Auditor portal & evidence |
| Windows-Native | ✓ Built for Windows | Platform-agnostic integrations |
| Open Source | ✓ MIT | ✗ Proprietary SaaS |
| Setup Time | 30 seconds (dotnet tool) | Integration onboarding |
They are complementary, not mutually exclusive: a compliance platform manages the audit and evidence, while WinSentinel actually hardens the Windows endpoints so those controls pass in the first place.
$0/forever
All features, no limits, one machine. Full power.
Pro fleet: $29/25 nodes · $79/100 nodes
$$$/year (quote-based)
Subscription compliance platform, priced by frameworks & company size.
Evidence & audit workflow, not endpoint remediation.
WinSentinel finds the Windows misconfigurations behind your controls AND fixes them. Free forever.
dotnet tool install --global WinSentinel.Cli
They solve different halves of the same problem. Vanta is a compliance automation platform that collects evidence and tracks controls for SOC 2, HIPAA, ISO 27001 and similar audits across your SaaS and cloud. WinSentinel is a free Windows agent that actually finds and fixes the endpoint misconfigurations behind many of those controls, and maps every finding to CIS Windows L1, SOC 2 and HIPAA. Many teams run WinSentinel to harden the machines and a platform like Vanta to manage the audit paperwork.
Vanta monitors and reports whether a control is satisfied and gathers evidence for auditors; it does not remediate a misconfigured Windows machine for you. WinSentinel audits the Windows configuration directly with 33 native modules, gives a 0-100 posture score, and one-click fixes the findings. It is remediation-first on the endpoint rather than evidence-collection-first for the auditor.
WinSentinel is free for unlimited use on a single machine. Vanta is a subscription compliance platform typically priced in the several thousands to tens of thousands of dollars per year depending on frameworks and company size (pricing is quote-based). WinSentinel Pro - which adds fleet-wide posture, remote fixes and cross-node compliance rollups across many machines - is $29/mo for up to 25 nodes or $79/mo for up to 100 nodes, with annual billing saving 17%.
Yes. WinSentinel maps its Windows findings to CIS Windows L1, SOC 2 and HIPAA control areas so you can see which endpoint controls pass or fail and fix the failures. On a single machine this is free. WinSentinel Pro aggregates those findings across an entire fleet into organization-level compliance rollups you can export - complementary to an audit platform like Vanta rather than a replacement for it.
Yes. The CLI and every audit module are free and open source under the MIT license, installed with dotnet tool install --global WinSentinel.Cli. A single machine gets the full power - all audit modules, the real-time monitor, scheduled scans, and PDF reports - with no limits and no account required. Pro is only for organizations that want to manage many machines from one control plane.