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November 6, 2026
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The main Hellios alternatives are Risk Ledger, Achilles, ProcessUnity, Prevalent, Venminder, Omnea, UpGuard, and scanning tools such as SecurityScorecard and Bitsight. They differ less on features than on how supplier evidence is supplied, checked, paid for and kept current once the contract is signed.
Most teams start looking for one of three reasons: a renewal date is close, DORA has put the supplier register under scrutiny, or a critical supplier has stopped answering. Plenty of teams run third-party risk with one or two people, so the questions are practical ones. Which platform gets suppliers to respond? Which shows you the suppliers that matter most? And which keeps assurance going after signature, rather than letting it stop when procurement closes the file? You also need a choice you can defend to an auditor or a board. That holds whether you use Hellios today or are weighing it against something else. For some teams the right answer is to keep Hellios for broad financial services qualification and add a security-focused platform alongside it.
Alternatives covered in this guide
- Risk Ledger: best for security teams that want suppliers to answer once, share with many customers and work through remediation in one place.
- Achilles: best for buyers who want a sector supplier community similar in model to FSQS.
- ProcessUnity: best for teams that need broader third-party risk workflow plus a shared assessment exchange.
- Prevalent: best for teams that want a platform combined with managed assessment services.
- Venminder: best for teams that want vendor assessments carried out by outsourced analysts.
- Omnea: best for procurement-led teams that want supplier intake and approvals with risk checks built in.
- UpGuard: best for teams combining outside-in monitoring with supplier questionnaires.
- Scanning and ratings tools (SecurityScorecard, Bitsight, BlueVoyant): best for outside-in technical signals that need no supplier participation.
This is not a ranking. The right choice depends on your regulatory duties, your supplier base and how many people you have to run the programme.
How we compared: each vendor’s own documentation, hellios.com, reviews on G2 and Gartner Peer Insights, and patterns from our conversations with financial services and public sector buyers. Risk Ledger wrote this guide, so our own platform gets the same structure and evidence bar, drawbacks included.
What does Hellios do?
Hellios Information runs shared supplier qualification communities, and the best known is FSQS for financial services. Suppliers complete one validated profile that every participating buyer can view, instead of answering each buyer’s questionnaire separately.
Hellios runs three communities. FSQS covers financial services across the UK and Ireland, Spain, Northern Europe, Asia Pacific and North America. JOSCAR covers defence, aerospace and security, and ESSCAR covers energy.
FSQS does two jobs. The first is qualification. Stage 1 asks suppliers for organisation details, policies and core compliance information, and it is free for suppliers. Stage 2 is a more detailed assessment for suppliers whose services warrant it. Hellios’s validation team reviews submitted questionnaires before buyers rely on them.
The second job is deeper assurance. A pooled audit is a single review of a supplier, carried out once and shared with every buyer that needs it. FSQS Stage 3 is Hellios’s version of this. Buyers nominate their critical suppliers, and Hellios manages the review with delivery partners. The review builds on existing FSQS answers and on certifications such as ISO 27001 and SOC 2. It covers areas including cyber security, data privacy, business continuity and AI, and the supplier decides who can see the report.
FSQS suits financial services firms that want broad supplier qualification, beyond cyber alone, through a process their peers and suppliers already recognise. Hellios markets it to procurement leaders as well as risk and resilience teams. Before planning any change, check who owns it in your organisation.
How do the alternatives to Hellios compare?
The alternatives to Hellios differ more by model than by feature count. Hellios runs a sector qualification community, Risk Ledger runs a collaborative security network, scanning tools observe suppliers from outside, and GRC suites run the buyer’s own workflow. Each model produces a different kind of evidence, so start with the job you need done.
There are two kinds of question to separate before you compare anything...
The first is qualification: is this supplier fit to do business with us?
The second is ongoing security assurance: is this supplier managing cyber risk well now, and what do we do when something changes?
FSQS was built mainly for the first. Security-focused networks and scanning tools were built mainly for the second. GRC suites hold the workflow and reporting for both, but they still need the supplier data to come from somewhere.
That split explains a pattern we see among some financial services buyers. They keep FSQS for qualification and add a scanning or ratings provider for technical depth. That’s a reasonable stack, and it sometimes leaves a different problem in place. Neither tool may show how your suppliers depend on each other, and running two contracts adds reviewer effort for a small team. The category columns in the table describe typical models, not every vendor. On external scanning depth and breadth beyond third-party risk, Risk Ledger is not the strongest option in the table.
Forward this table with the evaluation checklist further down if you’re building the case internally. If you want to see where your own supplier base is exposed first, run the Supply Chain Risk Exposure Assessment.
How to test a platform’s supplier coverage claims
A coverage claim tells you how many of your suppliers a vendor says it already holds, and it is only as useful as its definition of “covered”. Buyers regularly dispute coverage percentages because each vendor counts something different. Test the claim with your own supplier list, and ask for results broken down by critical suppliers rather than an overall figure.
A supplier can appear “covered” at seven different stages, and each one means less work for you than the one before it:
- The vendor has matched the right legal entity.
- The supplier exists on the platform or in the community.
- The supplier has connected with you or agreed to share.
- Its assessment is substantially complete.
- Its evidence is attached, accessible and current.
- The specific service you buy, and its criticality, are captured.
- Your own team has reviewed it.
Ask each vendor to report against each stage separately. Also ask how old the answers are, how they are refreshed, and who pays for an uncovered supplier to join. That last answer affects whether the gaps ever close.
Who are the main alternatives to Hellios?
The main alternatives to Hellios are Risk Ledger, Achilles, ProcessUnity, Prevalent, Venminder, Omnea and UpGuard, plus the scanning and ratings tools that some buyers run alongside Hellios. They don’t all do the same job. Some are sector communities, some are shared assessment exchanges or security networks, some are managed assessment services or procurement platforms, and some only monitor suppliers from outside.
Risk Ledger
Risk Ledger is a collaborative security network. Suppliers complete one standardised security assessment, share it with every connected customer, and pay nothing to take part.
Strengths
- Suppliers already on the network don’t have to fill in the same assessment again for each new customer.
- Free supplier participation removes a common objection to joining.
- Suppliers can declare their own suppliers (fourth parties), which shows where your suppliers depend on the same providers.
- Emerging threat workflows let you ask the affected suppliers about a specific incident directly.
Drawbacks
- External scanning is lighter than in specialist tools.
- It does not cover broad procurement qualification or wider GRC.
Best use case
Security teams that need suppliers to respond, want assurance to continue after signature, and need to see shared dependencies.
Achilles
Achilles runs supplier qualification communities across several sectors, including a Banking & Insurance community it positions for Southern Europe.
Strengths
- The model is close to FSQS. Suppliers complete a sector questionnaire with evidence, and Achilles reviews and validates it.
- Buyers can add their own requirements on top of the shared questionnaire.
- External cyber intelligence from Orpheus supplements the questionnaire answers.
- Coverage spans cyber, financial, compliance, ESG, geopolitical and health and safety risk.
Drawbacks
- The banking community’s stated focus is Southern Europe, so test how many of your UK suppliers it already holds.
- Like FSQS, it leads with broad qualification. Cyber depth depends on the scope you buy.
Best use case
ProcessUnity
ProcessUnity is a configurable third-party risk platform. It runs the Global Risk Exchange, a shared assessment network formerly known as CyberGRX.
Strengths
- ProcessUnity reports more than 18,000 validated assessments and 370,000 vendor profiles in its exchange.
- Workflow covers the full third-party lifecycle.
- It publishes solution pages for DORA and the PRA’s SS2/21.
- AI control review and threat and vulnerability response modules are available.
Drawbacks
- Its configurability brings setup and administration effort.
- How much of the exchange covers UK financial services suppliers needs testing against your own list.
Best use case
Mature programmes with dedicated resource that want lifecycle workflow and exchange data in one platform.
Prevalent
Mitratech Prevalent is a third-party risk platform for assessment, monitoring and remediation across the vendor lifecycle. It comes with vendor intelligence networks and managed services.
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Strengths
- You can hand assessment collection and analysis to Mitratech’s managed services team.
- Its networks hold thousands of completed, standardised assessments.
- Coverage runs from onboarding to offboarding.
Drawbacks
- Mitratech positions its networks as a complement to one-to-one assessments, not a replacement, so expect to keep collecting directly from many suppliers.
Best use case
Teams that want a lifecycle platform with the option to outsource assessment work.
Venminder
Venminder, part of Ncontracts, combines a vendor risk platform with outsourced control assessments carried out by its own analysts.
Strengths
- Analysts assess vendors’ information security, data protection, cyber security and financial health for you.
- A library of completed assessments is available.
- G2 reviewers rate it 4.7 out of 5 across 115 reviews and highlight its guidance and support.
Drawbacks
- Ncontracts’ customer base is mainly US financial institutions, so check its coverage of UK suppliers and UK regulatory requirements.
- Outsourced assessments add cost per review.
Best use case
Teams short of analyst capacity that want vendor reviews done for them.
Omnea
Omnea is a London-founded procurement and supplier management platform with third-party risk checks built into intake, onboarding and renewal.
Strengths
- Purchase requests, approvals, onboarding and risk reviews sit in one workflow.
- A supplier portal collects information directly from vendors.
- It fits well where procurement owns supplier onboarding.
Drawbacks
- Collection runs through your own supplier portal, so ask whether suppliers’ answers can be reused across Omnea customers.
- Security assessment depth and visibility beyond direct suppliers need testing.
Best use case
Procurement-led organisations that want risk checks embedded in buying.
UpGuard
UpGuard is a cyber risk platform combining security ratings, vendor questionnaires and AI analysis of vendor documents.
Strengths
- UpGuard says its ratings update multiple times a day, with daily scanning between assessments.
- Its questionnaire library includes NIST, ISO, SIG and a DORA questionnaire.
- AI analysis of vendor documents reduces evidence chasing.
Drawbacks
- Ratings are inferred from external signals, so they don’t show how a supplier manages security internally.
- Reviewers most often raise limited reporting customisation.
Best use case
Teams that want ratings and questionnaires in one cyber-focused tool.
Scanning and ratings tools
SecurityScorecard, Bitsight and BlueVoyant rate or monitor suppliers’ internet-facing security without needing the supplier to take part. BlueVoyant adds managed services on top.
Strengths
- They cover suppliers who won’t respond to questionnaires.
- They provide continuous external signals.
- They support peer benchmarking.
Drawbacks
- They give no view of internal controls.
- Findings can be misattributed.
- Resolving a finding still means engaging the supplier.
Best use case
Adding technical depth alongside a community or network, or covering long-tail suppliers. For more detail, see the wider third-party risk vendor landscape.
Hellios plus a scanning tool, or one platform?
Some financial services buyers keep Hellios for breadth and add a scanning or ratings tool for technical depth. This works when the team has the budget and people to run both. The costs are easy to underestimate:
- Two contracts and two renewal dates
- Two supplier experiences
- Two sets of reviewer effort
The larger question is whether either tool shows how your suppliers depend on each other. Smaller organisations tell us they can’t fund two tools at once, and that changes the decision. Before you pair them, separate what each tool tells you. A scan shows the outside-in technical view. A qualification profile shows what a supplier has declared and Hellios has validated. Neither shows that a supplier’s controls changed last month, unless the supplier tells you.
If you want a ranked view instead, see our full shortlist of UK third-party risk software.
What are the limitations of Hellios?
Buyers we speak to raise three limitations of Hellios:
- Supplier fees can slow participation
- A qualification-first scope can leave security teams wanting more cyber depth
- And multi-year contracts delay switching.
Start with what works. Buyers value how many financial services suppliers already sit in FSQS. That is why many keep it alongside other tools rather than replacing it. The community is still growing, too: Hellios launched FSQS in the Nordic region in January 2025 and in North America in late August 2026.
Supplier fees are the limitation buyers raise most often. Hellios says the fees cover the cost of running the system. Stage 1 is free. Stage 2 costs £2,100 a year as standard, £950 for an eligible medium-sized enterprise, and nothing for small or micro enterprises. Stage 3 costs £4,950 a year.
The exemptions mean many smaller suppliers pay nothing. The full fee falls on larger organisations, and those include many of the technology providers a bank treats as critical. One financial services security lead put the problem plainly: “If we can’t get people to do it now, we’re definitely not going to get them to do it by charging them.”
A fee is not a refusal, and many suppliers pay it to keep their qualification. It does add one more reason for a slow supplier to stay slow.
Cyber depth is the second limitation, and it starts with a distinction. Validation means someone checks that an answer is complete and supported. Independent testing means someone checks that the control actually works. FSQS validates every Stage 1 and Stage 2 submission. Deeper testing comes through a Stage 3 pooled audit, but only for suppliers that buyers nominate.
Two questions are worth putting to Hellios and to every alternative:
- Is each answer backed by evidence you can inspect, or is it, as one public sector buyer put it, “a better questionnaire, not validation”?
- How does a change to a critical supplier’s security reach you between renewals?
Contract length is the third. One financial services buyer we spoke to had signed a three-year Hellios contract and was adopting other tooling alongside it. Suppliers face a version of the same constraint. If their customers require FSQS, the requirement stays in place whatever else the buyer adds.
Hellios vs Risk Ledger: how the two networks differ
Hellios and Risk Ledger both run shared supplier networks, but they do different jobs.
Hellios’s FSQS is a financial services qualification community, with validation and an optional pooled audit, and some suppliers pay to join. Risk Ledger is a security-focused network. Suppliers maintain one assessment free of charge, and buyers keep working with them on risk after onboarding.
The difference shows most after a supplier joins. In FSQS, the supplier’s profile is validated, renewed against a deadline and followed for status alerts. Buyers can go deeper on nominated suppliers through a Stage 3 audit. On Risk Ledger, the supplier keeps one assessment current, and every connected customer sees changes as they happen. Buyers raise findings with the supplier, ask about specific incidents through emerging threat workflows, and can see the critical suppliers it relies on, if the supplier has declared them.
When Hellios is the better fit, when Risk Ledger is, and when you need both
The quickest way to decide is to start from the problem you actually have.
- “Our procurement team needs suppliers qualified across finance, ESG and compliance, not just cyber.” Hellios fits better. FSQS covers those domains, and Risk Ledger does not.
- “We need independently tested controls for a handful of critical suppliers.” Hellios fits better, through a Stage 3 pooled audit.
- “Our suppliers won’t answer us, and some won’t pay to take part.” Risk Ledger fits better. It costs suppliers nothing, and our team helps bring suppliers onto the platform.
- “Our assurance stops when the contract is signed.” Risk Ledger fits better. Supplier changes reach you through the connection, without a new request.
- “We need to know which suppliers rely on the same cloud provider.” Risk Ledger fits better, as long as suppliers have declared their critical dependencies.
- “Procurement mandates FSQS, but security needs ongoing engagement.” You need both. Keep FSQS for qualification and judge Risk Ledger on what happens after onboarding.
What does “continuous” actually mean?
Continuous monitoring describes how a platform learns that something about a supplier has changed between formal assessments. Vendors use the term for at least six different things, and they aren’t equivalent:
- External telemetry: signals observed from outside, with no input from the supplier.
- External risk feeds: for example, sanctions, adverse media or financial health alerts.
- Supplier-initiated updates: the supplier changes an answer or renews a certificate.
- Workflow events: alerts when a document expires or a review is due.
- Periodic reattestation: the supplier confirms that its answers still hold.
- Human follow-up: a buyer asks a supplier directly about a new threat.
FSQS’s published alerts cover workflow events and a financial health score. Risk Ledger relies mainly on supplier-initiated updates and human follow-up, with lighter external signals. Neither platform covers all six, so ask each one which types it offers and how quickly each reaches you.
Want to know how many of your suppliers you could already see? Run the Supplier Coverage Check.
What should a supplier due diligence platform do?
A supplier due diligence and onboarding platform should replace manual Word and Excel questionnaires with structured assessments, evidence-backed validation of answers, continuous monitoring after contract signature, and a way to reach suppliers who do not respond. For a small team, the real test is how much reviewer effort each of those saves.
Structured assessments come first. Questionnaires remain a useful way to gather evidence. The problem is collecting the same answers one supplier and one customer at a time, in a different format each time. One public sector security lead summed it up: “We all have to do our own due diligence and it’s like, well. But why?” A platform should let a supplier’s answers be reused, and it should let you compare suppliers against the same baseline.
Evidence matters more than answers. An answer tells you what a supplier says it does. Evidence, such as a certificate, a policy or a test report, shows whether that claim holds. AI is now changing both sides of this exchange. Vendors sell tools that draft questionnaire answers for suppliers: UpGuard offers Questionnaire AI and ProcessUnity offers Assessment Autofill. They also sell tools that review those answers for buyers. When software writes the answer and software reads it, the attached evidence is what an auditor will still ask for.
Assurance has to continue after signature. “It was really strong up until they signed the contract. And then we just walked away and forgot about it completely,” one public sector buyer told us. The fix isn’t an annual questionnaire. It’s a way for changes to reach you between reviews.
Some suppliers will never answer, and a platform should account for that. Some sit behind a managed service provider that nobody can reach. Others refuse outright. In parts of the public sector there’s no contractual lever to make them comply. Ask each vendor what happens with these suppliers: whether its team chases them, whether it supplies any external view, and how a gap is recorded.
Treat AI claims with care. “Companies tend to over promise and under deliver when it comes to AI,” one financial services security lead said. That scepticism is useful. Ask which steps AI performs and what evidence it cites. Ask who checks its output before a risk decision is recorded. An AI summary you can’t trace back to the supplier’s evidence is a liability in an audit.
Size the platform to the team you actually have. Many organisations run third-party risk with one or two people. “It is a team of one right now,” one public sector lead said. For a team that size, the features that matter most are the ones that remove work: reused supplier answers, evidence attached to answers, supplier chasing handled for you, and alerts only on changes that matter. Features that add configuration, custom scoring or bespoke reporting only pay off once someone has time to maintain them.
For background, see what third-party risk management software does. For the practical next step, see supplier due diligence and onboarding with Risk Ledger.
How to evaluate a Hellios alternative: a checklist to take to your manager
Evaluate a Hellios alternative in two passes. First, rule out any vendor that fails a requirement you can’t move on. Then score the rest on evidence, supplier participation, how answers stay current, visibility, operating effort and exit terms, before you look at price. That way the final choice is one you can explain to an auditor or a board.
Mandatory gates come first, because a weighted score can hide a fatal gap. A vendor shouldn’t win on average if it fails something you need:
- A customer or regulator requires FSQS qualification
- Specific suppliers need independently tested controls
- You must produce a set reporting output, such as your register template
- Your own security, privacy or procurement policies set conditions
Agree the weights before any vendor presents. In a weighted RFP, each vendor gets a quality score from criteria like the ones below and a separate price score, combined using a split agreed in advance. Fixing the split and the weights early stops a strong demo or a low price from reshaping the criteria afterwards. The weights shown here are a starting point. A team running a low-friction cyber programme might weight supplier participation higher. A regulated procurement team might put more on assurance breadth and independent audit.
Test on your own suppliers, not the vendor’s demo data. Pick a small sample of your critical suppliers that includes four kinds:
- suppliers already on the platform
- suppliers with incomplete profiles
- suppliers new to it
- suppliers you know are slow to respond
For each one, record the time from invitation to usable evidence, the hands-on hours on both sides, the number of follow-ups, and how old the evidence is. Then run a simulated incident and time how long it takes to get answers from the affected suppliers. A test made up only of suppliers who already have complete profiles will flatter whichever vendor happens to hold them.
What drives the cost of a Hellios alternative?
Third-party risk platforms rarely publish buyer prices, so expect to ask for a quote. The quote will depend on:
- How many suppliers are in scope
- How deep each assessment goes
- Which modules you take
- Whether you add managed services
Who pays on the supplier side varies more than buyers expect. Hellios publishes its FSQS supplier fees, with exemptions for smaller suppliers. Risk Ledger is free for suppliers. Scanning tools need no supplier participation at all.
The real comparison is total cost, not licence cost. Running Hellios alongside a scanning tool means two licences, two renewal dates and two sets of reviewer effort. Internal analyst time is usually the largest cost of all, and it rarely shows up in a quote. Smaller organisations feel this most. “The cost model is just prohibitive for an organisation our size,” one public sector buyer told us.
Ask for indicative pricing early, before a long evaluation commits you to a vendor you can’t afford. For the business case, give directors two figures: the cost per supplier assured, and the analyst time saved compared with your current process.
In contract with Hellios? When and how to switch
Plan any switch around your contract end date, not around a vendor’s sales cycle. Check your notice period first, then work backwards. Finish the evaluation before notice is due, export your records, run both tools side by side for a short period, and re-engage your suppliers early.
Switching isn’t always the right move. If your customers or your procurement policy require FSQS, leaving Hellios won’t remove that requirement. Your suppliers may also still need FSQS for their other customers. In that case the decision is whether to add a security platform alongside Hellios, and the steps below still apply. You’d be adding a tool rather than replacing one.
Timing your switch around a Hellios contract
The notice deadline drives everything else, so find it before you speak to any vendor. Multi-year terms are common in this market. We’ve seen a financial services buyer adopt new tooling while still tied into a three-year Hellios contract. Running two tools in parallel at that point means paying for both.
Start the evaluation well before your notice deadline. A sample test on your own suppliers takes longer than a demo, and procurement approval adds more time on top. If you sign a new multi-year deal, ask for exit clauses and a data export commitment in writing. Buyers we speak to ask for exit terms even on long contracts, and a vendor that resists is telling you something.
Migration pitfalls to avoid
Most problems in a switch come from five avoidable mistakes:
- Leaving the export too late: Download supplier records, assessment history and supporting evidence before your access ends. Get confirmation of what you can take, and in what format.
- Losing assessment history: Auditors will want to see why a supplier was approved two years ago, not just its current status. Keep the old records somewhere you can still produce them.
- Re-onboarding fatigue: Suppliers who have just completed FSQS won’t want to start again from scratch. Tell them what’s changing and why. Ask first for anything they already hold, such as certifications, and prioritise your critical suppliers.
- Skipping the parallel run: Running both tools in parallel means keeping the old one live while suppliers move to the new one. Without it, you lose cover for any supplier still in transition.
- Surprising your auditors: Brief internal audit and, where relevant, your regulator contact before the change. Explain how continuity of assurance is maintained.
Where we fit at Risk Ledger, and where we don’t
Risk Ledger is a collaborative supplier security network for teams that need three things: suppliers who respond, assurance that continues after signature, and visibility beyond direct suppliers. It isn’t a GRC suite, a procurement qualification scheme or a deep external scanning tool. Many of our customers run it alongside one of those.
We built it around a simple idea. Risk Ledger adds a collaborative network that lets suppliers answer once and share with many customers, free to the supplier. Supplier answers stay connected after onboarding, so changes reach every customer without a new round of requests. When a new threat emerges, you can ask only the affected suppliers about it.
Because suppliers can declare who they rely on, connected customers can see where several of their suppliers depend on the same provider. Buyers evaluating us have described that view as something “nobody else does”. It is only as complete as the declarations behind it, and we show you who declared each relationship.
There are clear cases where we’re the wrong core choice:
- You need broad supplier qualification across finance, ESG and compliance: FSQS or another sector community does that better.
- Specific suppliers need independently tested controls: A pooled audit or a specialist assessor fits better.
- You need wide governance and policy workflow: A GRC suite does that. Your security evidence can feed into it from us.
- Outside-in technical depth matters most: Pair us with a scanning provider rather than expecting us to replace one.
What security teams ask next
- 8 Best Third-Party Risk Management Software 2026: TPRM Tools Compared
- Third-Party Risk Management Software and Tools: How to Choose in 2026
- TPRM Solutions for Financial Services: 2026 UK Comparison
- Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA): A Guide to Third-Party Supplier Risk
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