--- title: "PolicyCortex vs Drata: evidence compared" description: "Drata assigns findings to your team from its SaaS product. PolicyCortex keeps hash-chained evidence in your tenant with approval-gated remediation." url: https://policycortex.com/compare/policycortex-vs-drata sealed: 2026-03-17 amended: 2026-09-02 register: compare/policycortex-vs-drata records: 6 digest: sha3:4eb9d32d1664584e6edcc1dbd8976db991ed221c1aa56699b5fd2b5fa2127260 --- # PolicyCortex vs Drata Register / Compare / Drata Drata monitors compliance and collects evidence for commercial certifications as a multi-tenant SaaS product, and routes each gap to your team as a finding. PolicyCortex records what your cloud was, what changed it, and what machines were allowed to do, hash chained in your tenant, with approval-gated remediation on the same chain, so an assessor recomputes the record. [Request Access](https://app.policycortex.com/auth?mode=request-access) ยท [All comparisons](https://policycortex.com/compare) ## Where the evidence lives, and who can check it. Both products, asked the same eight questions. PolicyCortex cells restate the register; Drata cells restate what Drata states about itself in public documentation, and say so where it does not. **PolicyCortex and Drata, eight questions** | Question | PolicyCortex | Drata | |---|---|---| | Where the evidence lives | The customer's tenant. Collectors, policy engine, evidence store, decision layer and export surface all run there. No telemetry pipeline to PolicyCortex servers and no egress of evidence. | Vendor cloud. Drata is a multi-tenant SaaS deployment. | | Verifiable by a second party | By recomputation. Export the stream, recompute SHA3-256 over each record plus the digest of the record before it, compare: INTACT, or the first sequence number where integrity fails. No PolicyCortex account or API in the loop. | Monitored and collected by Drata; posture is shared through a trust center. Recomputation by a second party is not stated. | | Tamper evidence | Hash chained and append-only. There is no update or delete verb in the store; an edit breaks the edited record and every digest after it. | Not stated by vendor | | Gaps declared | Declared. When a collector is down or a scope is unobserved, the chain carries a gap record: stream, interval, reason, declared_at. | Not stated by vendor | | Remediation model | Approval-gated proposals. The reasoning layer proposes and cannot execute. SHADOW executes nothing; GATED, the default, puts a named human on each action; AUTONOMOUS is limited to narrow, well-tested action classes with all three policy gates still run. | None. Drata creates a finding and assigns it to your team. | | AI agent coverage | Proof of agency: the envelope that permitted each autonomous action, the chained record of what it did, and the counterfactual that would have blocked it. Models and agents in scope are inventoried and mapped against 64 MITRE ATLAS techniques, with unbounded techniques recorded as declared gaps. | Not stated by vendor | | Federal packaging | OSCAL 1.1.2 export with SSP, SAR, POA&M, eMASS XML and evidence indexes generated from one implementation record. AWS and Azure boundaries for ATO packaging. | Limited CMMC support is stated. SSP, POA&M or ATO package generation is not stated. | | Evaluation | Request Access. Our team reviews your requirements and agrees on scope and commercial terms before onboarding in your tenant. | Not stated by vendor | PolicyCortex cells restate the register pages. Competitor cells restate the vendor's public product documentation as read in March 2026; where it does not state a fact, the cell says so. Corrections to hello@policycortex.com. The register facts are stated on the [architecture](https://policycortex.com/architecture), the three proof records, and the [federal record](https://policycortex.com/federal). ## What is on record about Drata Drata automates compliance monitoring and evidence collection for growing companies pursuing commercial certifications, as a multi-tenant SaaS deployment. It offers a trust center for sharing security posture with customers and risk management workflows, and it covers AWS, Azure and GCP. It states limited CMMC support. When it detects a gap, it creates a finding and assigns it to your team. ## Where the two differ Drata's unit of work is the finding: monitor, detect, assign. PolicyCortex's unit of work is the record. The observation is a hashed record in your tenant. The proposal to fix it is a record that cannot execute on its own. The approval is a record carrying the approving identity. The execution carries before and after state hashes and a rollback identifier, and verification recomputes the delta. All of them sit on one chain that an assessor recomputes without either vendor in the loop, and a collector outage is a declared gap on that chain rather than a quiet interval. Drata shows you posture. The register shows an assessor what was true, on a date they pick, and how they can check it. ## When to choose which Choose Drata if you are a commercial company pursuing commercial certifications, you want a trust center for customers, and a finding routed to your team is the right unit of work. Choose PolicyCortex if your system has to be authorized or assessed under ATO, CMMC Level 2, FedRAMP 20x or NIST 800-53 and 800-171, you need SSP, SAR and POA&M generated from one record, and you need the evidence kept in your own tenant, including GovCloud and GCC High. ## Questions buyers ask about the two. **Q: Can Drata handle CMMC compliance?** A: Drata states limited CMMC support and was built for commercial compliance monitoring. The register was built to hand an assessor recomputable evidence for the 110 requirements of NIST 800-171, with SSP, SAR and POA&M generated from one record. **Q: What happens after detection in each product?** A: Drata creates a finding and assigns it to your team. PolicyCortex records a proposal that cannot execute on its own; in GATED mode, the default, a named human approves it and becomes part of the record; execution carries before and after state hashes and a rollback identifier; verification recomputes the delta and rolls back on mismatch. **Q: Does PolicyCortex replace our GRC tool?** A: It replaces the part of the work that should be a record rather than a document: the evidence, the change history, and the packages generated from them. Trust centers, questionnaires and policy workflows are not on the register. **Q: Which is right for a startup?** A: If you are a commercial startup pursuing commercial certifications, Drata fits that need. If you handle CUI or have to authorize a system for a federal customer, the register is built for the evidence you will be asked for. ## What this comparison is not. **Stated limit.** This page compares what Drata states in public documentation, as read in March 2026, with what the register pages state about PolicyCortex. It is not an assessment of Drata and it does not certify anything. Where Drata does not state a fact, the cell says so rather than guessing. Ask us the same eight questions, in your own tenant. [Request Access](https://app.policycortex.com/auth?mode=request-access) ## Register colophon | Seq | Label | SHA3-256 | Prev | |---|---|---|---| | REC 0000 | THE EVIDENCE TABLE | 6bf8967d7792 | 6039415ed4e6 | | REC 0001 | WHAT IS ON RECORD ABOUT DRATA | ce404fb72275 | 6bf8967d7792 | | REC 0002 | WHERE THE TWO DIFFER | 7ded957ecd54 | ce404fb72275 | | REC 0003 | WHEN TO CHOOSE WHICH | 7bb664a2e1fd | 7ded957ecd54 | | REC 0004 | QUESTIONS | 577aa4de9540 | 7bb664a2e1fd | | REC 0005 | STATED LIMIT | 4eb9d32d1664 | 577aa4de9540 | Head sha3:4eb9d32d1664584e6edcc1dbd8976db991ed221c1aa56699b5fd2b5fa2127260. Each digest is SHA3-256 over the previous digest, the register key, the record label, and the record copy; a second party can recompute it from this document.