An open-source GRC alternative that keeps what you chose it for¶
Teams pick an open-source GRC tool for a reason that has little to do with price. Nobody can hide the record from you. You can read every table and export every row. You can even audit the tool itself. Kanonik keeps that, and takes away the typing you still do by hand. Your own AI drafts the controls and policies and proposes the risks. Kanonik checks each draft before a person on your team approves it. Your auditor can check the result without asking us anything.
Kanonik is security compliance software. It keeps every promise you've made to customers and auditors in one record. Each promise carries its proof and its approver. Questionnaires and audits run on it, so they stop holding up deals. And it warns you when a change puts a promise at risk.
What you chose open source for, and what it looks like here¶
You never have to trust the vendor¶
Every Auditor Export carries a signed chain root: the events, the chain root, the public key, and a checker that runs in the browser with nothing sent anywhere. Your auditor recomputes the hash chain on their own machine, offline if they like. Anyone can run the same check at kanonik.ai/verify, with no account.
The record is a plain event log¶
The record is an append-only, hash-chained log of typed events, exported as JSON with its schemas. There is no proprietary report format between you and your own data, and a point-in-time query returns exactly what the record held on any date.
We run it, and the record stays yours¶
We host the service, in the United States, and your record exports as plain JSON with its schemas whenever you want it. Private deployment is offered on Enterprise; talk to us.
A published price¶
Starter is $3,000 a year or $300 a month, and starts with a 14-day trial (card required, one trial per organization). Audit-Ready is $6,000 a year with one audited framework of your choice: SOC 2, ISO 27001 or HIPAA. Enterprise starts at $18,000 a year. Another audited framework is $3,000 a year. Users are unlimited, and the plans as listed are for organizations up to 200 people. Your compliance work runs on the AI you already pay for, so we don't charge you for one. No per-user fees, no per-questionnaire fees. Your own AI subscription is separate. Private deployment is offered on Enterprise; talk to us.
Your AI does the typing¶
In an open-source GRC tool you write every control, risk and policy by hand and the tool stores it. With Kanonik you connect Claude or any AI client that speaks MCP, and ask it to draft the work from what you actually run. The Verifier on Kanonik's servers checks every draft before it can land: fixed rules first, then Kanonik's own model compares it with your record. A named person on your team then approves it in the Kanonik web app, through a signed link that works once. Only then does the change go on the chain.
Your team doesn't have to open the app to use the record. Anyone can ask their connected AI "do we encrypt data at rest?" and get the approved answer, with who approved it and when, or a plain "no approved answer yet". And before you move a database, change a vendor or switch on a new tool, Foresight checks the change against the promises in your record and tells you which ones it would break.
Frameworks load as versioned packages. Kanonik works with 17: SOC 2, ISO/IEC 27001, HIPAA, GDPR, NIST CSF 2.0, NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5, NIST SP 800-171 Rev. 2, NIST SP 800-171 Rev. 3, FedRAMP Rev. 5 baselines, GovRAMP Rev. 5 baselines, CCPA/CPRA, DORA, NIS2, NYDFS Part 500, EU AI Act, NIST AI RMF 1.0 and NIST SSDF. Controls and evidence are written once and mapped onto every framework you turn on, so adding a framework doesn't mean rebuilding your program.
Kanonik has no connector to any open-source GRC tool. You move by handing your existing exports to your own AI: it reads them and drafts the same items in your record, and your team checks each one against evidence before it counts, so nothing comes over marked as passing.
Who this is for¶
A 25 to 200 person team that chose open source to control its own record and now spends more time typing controls into forms than running its security program. If you rely on years of built-in workflow modules for incident handling or policy review cycles, the open-source tools have those, and Kanonik runs that work through skills your AI follows instead. Kanonik is for teams that want a record nobody can quietly edit, and an auditor who can check the whole chain offline.
Questions open-source GRC teams ask us¶
Kanonik as an alternative to an open-source GRC tool¶
For a 25 to 200 person team, yes. Kanonik replaces the GRC tool rather than sitting beside it. Your own AI does the drafting, the Verifier checks every change, a person approves it, and the result goes into a hash-chained record you can check without trusting the vendor.
Integrating with your open-source GRC tool¶
No. There is no connector to any GRC platform, by design. To move, hand your existing exports to your own AI and ask it to draft the equivalent controls, risks and policies in Kanonik. Each one goes through the Verifier and your approval before it lands.
Self-hosting Kanonik¶
We host the service. Private deployment is offered on Enterprise; talk to us and we test it with you.
Whether Kanonik is open source¶
The product is commercial. The checker that ships inside every Auditor Export is plain code you can read before you run it, and the same checks run at kanonik.ai/verify. That is the part that matters for trust: you never need Kanonik's servers, or Kanonik's word, to confirm the chain.
What Kanonik costs¶
The plans, from Starter at $3,000 a year to Enterprise from $18,000 a year, are on the pricing page. Your AI runs on your own account with your AI provider, and the Verifier's model use is included in your plan.
Which frameworks Kanonik works with¶
All 17: SOC 2, ISO/IEC 27001, HIPAA, GDPR, NIST CSF 2.0, NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5, NIST SP 800-171 Rev. 2 and Rev. 3, FedRAMP Rev. 5 baselines, GovRAMP Rev. 5 baselines, CCPA/CPRA, DORA, NIS2, NYDFS Part 500, EU AI Act, NIST AI RMF 1.0 and NIST SSDF. NIST CSF 2.0 and GDPR are included on every plan. For ISO/IEC 27001:2022 and SOC 2, you or your audit firm hold a licensed copy of the standard, and you confirm it before Kanonik builds your audit package. Kanonik itself holds only the clause numbers and its own descriptions.
Check a proof yourself at kanonik.ai/verify. Start your 14-day trial.