Ciso Assistant Community

Ciso Assistant Community

Open-source GRC platform for risk, compliance, audit & AppSec teams.

64/100MonitorFree planFreemium

CISO Assistant Community is the strongest open-source GRC option today, covering 156 frameworks with automatic mapping and a pragmatic risk workflow, all at no cost. Self-hosting demands DevOps skills and native integrations are limited to Jira and ServiceNow, so it isn't a plug-and-play replace ment for enterprise suites like OneTrust. But for technically capable teams wanting to avoid vendor lock-in, it's a compelling choice.

Verified 4d ago · liveness 64/100 · cite: rightaichoice.com/tools/ciso-assistant-community

Best for
  • Security teams consolidating GRC into a single platform
  • CISOs managing multiple compliance frameworks
  • Organizations seeking open-source, cost-effective GRC
  • Teams needing on-premises deployment for data sovereignty
Not ideal for
  • Organizations requiring fully managed SaaS with zero setup
  • Users expecting a mature AI engine today (in development until Q3 2026)
  • Teams needing extensive native integrations beyond Jira, ServiceNow, and Power BI
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IntermediateSelf-hosting the Community edition typically takes a few hours for someone comfortable with Docker and basic server admin (expect 2-4 hours for a first install). Once running, basic configuration and framework imports can be done in a day. For the Pro SaaS plan, you can be up and running in minutes after signing up, as hosting and setup are handled for you.Web · API · CLIAPI availableVerified 4d ago
Pricing
Free plan
FreemiumFree tier6 plans5 hidden costs
Learning curve
Intermediate
Self-hosting the Community edition typically takes a few hours for someone comfortable with Docker and basic server admin (expect 2-4 hours for a first install). Once running, basic configuration and framework imports can be done in a day. For the Pro SaaS plan, you can be up and running in minutes after signing up, as hosting and setup are handled for you.
Runs on
WebAPICLI
API available · 3 integrations
Who it's for
CISO at a mid-sized SaaS companyGRC analyst at a financial institution
Live sentiment
Is Ciso Assistant Community actually worth it?

We scan live Reddit threads, YouTube comments, X posts, G2 reviews and other communities — and hand you an honest verdict in under a minute.

  • Honest verdict, not marketing
  • Real pros & cons from real users
  • Attributed quotes with receipts
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Skip it if

Skip CISO Assistant Community if you lack in-house DevOps skills to self-host and maintain it, or if you need a fully managed SaaS with zero setup and extensive native integrations.

The 30-second take
Biggest gripe

Self-hosting the Community edition means you handle your own servers, backups, and updates—costs in time and infrastructure that aren't in the price tag.

Price reality

CISO Assistant Community is free and self-hosted, making it ideal for budget-constrained teams with technical skills. Pro SaaS at €39/contributor/month and Pro On-prem at €2400/year undercut proprietary rivals like OneTrust or ServiceNow, which often cost far more per seat. For unlimited-seat needs, the €8500/year SaaS plan offers predictable pricing, but ensure you compare against open-source alternatives like OpenSCAP or Eramba.

In short

Ciso Assistant Community — Open-source GRC platform for risk, compliance, audit & AppSec teams. Best for Security teams consolidating GRC into a single platform, CISOs managing multiple compliance frameworks, Organizations seeking open-source, cost-effective GRC. Free to start; paid plans from $39/mo.

What's new in Ciso Assistant Community

Checked 4 days ago

Across the latest 5 updates: 5 changelog entries.

What people actually say about Ciso Assistant Community — is it worth it?

We ran a structured research pass across product reviews, community discussions, and post-purchase forum threads to surface the patterns vendors won't publish themselves. Below: the recurring strengths, the hidden costs people mention most, and the cohort that consistently regrets adopting this tool.

1 mentions across 1 source (Hacker News) · researched Jul 3, 2026.

80% positive20% critical
Recurring strengths
  • +Open-source (AGPLv3) with no vendor lock-in.
  • +150+ compliance frameworks with automatic control mapping.
  • +Free community edition with unlimited users.
  • +Active development with regular releases and CRQ addition.
  • +REST API for deep integration and automation.
Recurring frustrations
  • Self-hosting setup is complex and time-consuming.
  • Community edition lacks premium features and support.
  • Limited documentation can slow onboarding for new users.
  • Framework library may not cover niche or regional regulations.
  • UI/UX is functional but not as polished as commercial tools.
Patterns worth knowing
Positive reception of open-source, free GRC alternative
Seen on Hacker News
Appreciation for broad framework support and control mapping
Seen on Hacker News
Concerns about self-hosting difficulty and required DevOps skills
Seen on Hacker News
Learning curve
intermediateProductive in ~A few hours to days for initial setup
Hidden costs people mention
  • Hardware and maintenance costs for self-hosting
  • Time investment for setup and training

Viability Score

64/100
Monitor

How well maintained and how widely used is Ciso Assistant Community? Built from what the vendor actually publishes (docs, changelog, tutorials, integrations, pricing), whether the site is live, and how much real users discuss it. How we calculate this

Recent activity
90
Traction
20
Site health
95
User sentiment
80
What the vendor publishes
60

Last calculated: August 2026

How we score →

Key Features

  • Risk assessment with pragmatic workflow and UI
  • Audit management with evidence centralization and reuse
  • Compliance with 156 frameworks including ISO 27001, NIST CSF, SOC 2
  • Automatic control mapping via NIST OLIR standard
  • Scoring and maturity assessment
  • Third-party risk management (TPRM)
  • Business impact analysis (BIA)
  • GDPR processings capture
  • Incident tracking with timeline and evidence
  • EBIOS RM support with five workshops
  • Periodic tasks tracking with assignments and reminders
  • Controls auto-suggestion via recommendations engine
  • Local AI engines - offline-ready (in development)
  • REST API for automation
  • Toolbox and CLI for customization

About Ciso Assistant Community

FreemiumIntermediateAPI availableWeb · API · CLI

CISO Assistant Community is a free, open-source governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) platform for security teams that are done juggling Excel sheets across risk, audit, and compliance work. It brings risk management, audit management, compliance with 156 frameworks (ISO 27001, NIST CSF, SOC 2, PCI DSS, NIS2, DORA, GDPR, HIPAA, CMMC, EBIOS RM), third-party risk, business impact analysis, privacy, and incident tracking into one tool. The Community edition is self-hosted, AGPLv3-licensed, and supports unlimited users—organizations can deploy on-premises or in the cloud and migrate later.

Behind the Verdict

CISO Assistant Community delivers a surprisingly complete GRC toolkit for a free, open-source product. The breadth of frameworks—156 at last count—is remarkable, and the automatic control mapping via NIST OLIR genuinely cuts the pain of adopting new standards. The risk assessment workflow is refined and pragmatic, and features like maturity scoring, business impact analysis, and incident tracking mean you can consolidate most of your GRC work here. The Community edition is self-hosted, so you control your data, which is a big plus for sensitive security information. The recent releases add technical posture management, a library builder, SCIM provisioning, and offline AI models—signs of an active roadmap. On the downside, self-hosting requires real DevOps effort: you manage your own infrastructure, updates, and backups. The AI engine and automation engine are still in development, and integrations beyond Jira and ServiceNow are thin. If you're a small team without dedicated security tooling expertise, the setup cost might outweigh the savings. For CISOs with technical staff who want to avoid lock-in and high licensing fees, though, CISO Assistant Community is hard to beat.

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Real-world workflow fit

Concrete scenarios for the personas Ciso Assistant Community actually fits — and what changes day-one when you adopt it.

CISO at a mid-sized SaaS company

You need to achieve ISO 27001 certification and also maintain SOC 2. You install the Community edition, import your existing risk register, and use automatic mapping to align controls across both frameworks.

Outcome: Within a week, you have a single source of truth for controls and evidence, and you can generate compliance reports for auditors without spreadsheet juggling.

GRC analyst at a financial institution

You're asked to assess third-party vendors for DORA compliance. You use CISO Assistant's TPRM capabilities to capture each provider's compliance status and link findings to your risk register.

Outcome: You centralize third-party risk in days, with clear visibility into vendor postures and remediation tracking via Jira integration.

Use Cases

Models Under the Hood

Offline-ready local AI models (exact names not specified in sources)

as of 2026-08-19

Limitations

  • CISO Assistant is an open-source GRC platform.
  • The Community plan is self-hosted and managed by the user, under the AGPLv3 license.
  • Cloud hosting is available with paid plans.
  • Various integrations and frameworks are supported, with recent additions including a native Power BI connector, ServiceNow asset sync, and multiple new frameworks.

as of 2026-08-19

Verification history

We have re-verified Ciso Assistant Community 6 times since . Each pass re-reads the vendor's own pages and re-checks every listed field against that evidence; passes where nothing had changed are marked as such.

  1. re-verified summary, description, our verdict, our analysis, pricing model, pricing tiers, features, integrations, who it suits, who should skip it
  2. re-verified summary, description, our verdict, our analysis, pricing model, pricing tiers, features, integrations, who it suits, who should skip it
  3. re-verified summary, description, our verdict, our analysis, pricing model, pricing tiers, features, integrations, who it suits, who should skip it
  4. re-verified summary, description, our verdict, our analysis, pricing model, pricing tiers, features, integrations, who it suits, who should skip it
  5. re-verified summary, description, our verdict, our analysis, pricing model, pricing tiers, features, integrations, who it suits, who should skip it
  6. re-verified summary, description, our verdict, our analysis, pricing model, pricing tiers, features, integrations, who it suits, who should skip it

Free to cite with attribution — this page re-verifies continuously.

12-month cost

Project the real annual outlay, including the implied monthly cost when only an annual tier is published.

Annual total
Contact sales for a quote
Effective monthly

Vendor list price only. Add-on usage, seat overages, and contract minimums are surfaced under Hidden costs & gotchas.

Plans compared

For each published Ciso Assistant Community tier: who it actually fits, and what it adds vs. the previous tier. Cross-reference the cost calculator above for projected annual outlay.

Community

€0 forever

Ideal for

Budget-constrained individuals or small teams with DevOps skills who can self-host and want a free, open-source GRC tool for personal or internal use.

What this tier adds

Starting tier - free forever, self-hosted, unlimited users, but no cloud hosting or priority support.

Pro SaaS

€39 per contributor/month (billed annually)

Ideal for

Small teams that want a managed cloud solution with support, predictable per-contributor pricing (€39/month), and don't want to handle their own hosting.

What this tier adds

Adds cloud hosting, priority support, premium features, 10 GB storage, and 100 readers, compared to the self-hosted Community edition.

Pro On-premises

€2400 per instance/year (1-5 seats, billed annually)

Ideal for

Mid-sized teams that need on-premises deployment with deployment assistance and priority support, and have 1-5 seats.

What this tier adds

Provides deployment assistance and priority support for a fixed €2400/year per instance, instead of per-user cloud pricing.

Unlimited Seats SaaS

€8500/year

Ideal for

Large organizations that want unlimited user access on the SaaS plan without per-seat costs, at a predictable €8500/year.

What this tier adds

Removes the per-contributor pricing model, allowing unlimited users, but with standard compute resources.

Storage Bundle

€960/year

Ideal for

Teams using the SaaS plan that need extra storage beyond the initial 10 GB, with snapshot support.

What this tier adds

Adds +100 GB storage and snapshot support to your SaaS plan for €960/year.

SecNumCloud Instance - Unlimited

€14500/year

Ideal for

Organizations in regulated sectors requiring the highest level of data sovereignty and compliance, with SecNumCloud certified hosting.

What this tier adds

Provides unlimited users on a dedicated SecNumCloud certified node for isolation and compliance, at €14500/year.

Hidden costs & gotchas

What the public pricing page doesn't put in bold. Captured from pricing-page footnotes, contract terms, and recurring complaints.

  • Self-hosting the Community edition means you handle your own servers, backups, and updates—costs in time and infrastructure that aren't in the price tag.
  • If you want cloud hosting with support, the Pro SaaS tier costs €39 per contributor/month billed annually, and you pay for extra storage beyond the included 10 GB.
  • Pro On-premises starts at €2400 per instance/year, but that only covers 1-5 seats; adding more seats or instances raises the bill, and volume discounts require contacting sales.
  • For unlimited users on SaaS, you'll pay €8500/year, and the SecNumCloud certified option jumps to €14500/year—a significant step up if you need highest compliance hosting.
  • The AI Engine and Automation Engine are sold as future add-ons; when they launch (Q1/Q3 2026), expect extra costs if they're not included in your tier.

Where the pricing makes sense

The company stage and team size where Ciso Assistant Community's pricing actually pencils out — and where peers do it cheaper.

CISO Assistant Community is free and self-hosted, making it ideal for budget-constrained teams with technical skills. Pro SaaS at €39/contributor/month and Pro On-prem at €2400/year undercut proprietary rivals like OneTrust or ServiceNow, which often cost far more per seat. For unlimited-seat needs, the €8500/year SaaS plan offers predictable pricing, but ensure you compare against open-source alternatives like OpenSCAP or Eramba.

Setup time & first value

How long it actually takes to get something useful out of Ciso Assistant Community — broken out by persona, not the marketing-page minute.

Self-hosting the Community edition typically takes a few hours for someone comfortable with Docker and basic server admin (expect 2-4 hours for a first install). Once running, basic configuration and framework imports can be done in a day. For the Pro SaaS plan, you can be up and running in minutes after signing up, as hosting and setup are handled for you.

Switching to or from Ciso Assistant Community

How to bring data in from common predecessors and how to get it back out — written for the switcher, not the buyer.

Migrating in
  • From Excel spreadsheets: Import your risk register and audit evidence using the built-in import features to centralize your GRC data quickly.
  • From other GRC tools: Use the REST API to automate data migration, or manually import frameworks and assessments via standard formats like JSON.
Migrating out
  • To another GRC platform: Use the export features to download your data, and the REST API to automate extraction, ensuring you're not locked in.
  • To a different deployment: You can migrate from cloud to on-premises (or vice versa) since the Community and Pro editions share the same data formats.

Integrations

JiraServiceNowPower BI

Resources & Guides

Tutorials & Learning

Tools that pair well with Ciso Assistant Community

Common stack mates teams adopt alongside Ciso Assistant Community, with the specific reason each pairing earns its keep.

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Frequently Asked Questions

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