Varonis Alternatives: Top 7 Tools for Unstructured Data Management

When security teams begin searching for Varonis alternatives, the motivation is rarely a lack of data; it is usually an excess of noise. Varonis established the market for Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) by excelling at monitoring user behavior and flagging suspicious activity. However, for many organizations, the sheer volume of alerts generated by a security-first approach becomes unmanageable. The root problem often isn’t a lack of monitoring, but that the unstructured data itself is fundamentally overexposed, outdated, and unmanaged.

This guide compares the top Varonis alternatives for 2025, focusing on solutions that help you move from reactive monitoring to preventive data governance. Below, you will find a comparison table, a feature checklist, and a detailed breakdown of tools that help you eliminate risk at the source rather than simply watching it.

Table of Contents

• Key Takeaways
• Quick Comparison
• Why Buyers Look for Alternatives
• Feature Checklist
• The Best Varonis Alternatives (Ranked)
• How to Choose the Right Option
• FAQs

If you are looking to structurally reduce risk by eliminating ROT (Redundant, Obsolete, Trivial) data and enforcing lifecycle policies, explore the Congruity360 platform solutions.

Ready to see how your environment compares? Book an intro call with our governance experts.

Key Takeaways

• Monitoring vs. Prevention: While Varonis focuses on detecting risky behavior (reactive), alternatives like Congruity360 focus on reducing the attack surface by classifying and removing unnecessary data (preventive).
• Unstructured Data Hygiene: Effective risk reduction requires more than access control; it requires eliminating ROT data that clogs storage and increases liability.
• Defensible Actions: A “good” alternative provides automated workflows to move, tier, or defensibly delete data, not just report on it. Learn more about automated actions.
• The Structure-First Approach: Teams seeking sustainable governance often prefer tools that organize and sanitize the data estate before layering on heavy security monitoring.

Quick Comparison (Varonis vs. Top Alternatives)

When evaluating unstructured data management solutions, it is critical to distinguish between tools that monitor access (security focus) and tools that manage the data lifecycle (governance focus).

Why Buyers Look for Varonis Alternatives

Organizations typically look for alternatives when the overhead of maintaining a security-first monitoring tool outweighs the risk reduction it provides.

Cost and Operational Overhead

Varonis is powerful, but its infrastructure requirements can be substantial. The costs associated with on-premises hardware, collectors, and the professional services required for implementation often drive buyers toward lighter, SaaS-native alternatives.

Alert Fatigue and Tuning Burden

A common complaint among security teams is the “noise” generated by behavioral analytics. If your data estate is messy—filled with open shares and millions of stale files—monitoring tools will generate endless alerts. Tuning these systems to distinguish between false positives and genuine threats requires significant ongoing manpower.

Data Sprawl Makes Visibility Harder

As data sprawls across hybrid environments (legacy on-prem NAS, cloud object storage, and SaaS apps), centralized visibility becomes difficult. Buyers often seek solutions that can unify these disparate sources without requiring a massive architectural lift.

Reactive Posture vs. Reducing Risk at the Source

Perhaps the most significant driver is the shift in philosophy. Monitoring a chaotic environment is reactive. Many organizations realize that structurally reducing the amount of sensitive, stale, and overexposed data is a more effective way to secure the enterprise. This “structure-first” approach eliminates the risk rather than just watching it.

Feature Checklist (What to Look for in Varonis Alternatives)

To ensure you select a tool that delivers genuine governance rather than just more reporting, evaluate alternatives against this checklist.

Discovery Coverage

• Does it support hybrid environments (NFS, SMB, S3, Azure Blob, OneDrive, SharePoint)?
• Can it scan petabytes of data without impacting production performance?
• Does it offer auto-discovery of unknown data repositories?

Classification Depth

• Does the classification platform go beyond regex (regular expressions) to understand business context?
• Can it accurately identify ROT (Redundant, Obsolete, Trivial) data?
• Does it utilize machine learning to improve accuracy over time?

Governance Workflows

• Does it facilitate centralized governance where data owners can review access rights?
• Can you route decisions to business units rather than bottling them up in IT?
• Is there a complete audit trail of all decisions made?

Defensible Actions

• Can the tool take direct action: delete, move, quarantine, or tier data?
• Are these actions defensible (logging exactly what was done and why)?
• Does it integrate with archive solutions to move cold data to cheaper storage?

Reporting for Audit Readiness

• Can you generate immediate reports for GDPR, CCPA/CPRA, or HIPAA compliance?
• Does it visualize risk reduction over time (e.g., amount of sensitive data deleted)?

Ongoing Governance

• Does the platform support policy automation (e.g., “automatically delete logs older than 7 years”)?
• Can you set recurring schedules for scanning and classification?

The Best Varonis Alternatives (Ranked)

1. Congruity360 (Best overall “structure-first” alternative)

Best for: Enterprises seeking to reduce risk and storage costs by structurally managing the data lifecycle, rather than just monitoring access.

What it does: Congruity360 is a comprehensive unstructured data management platform. It moves beyond simple observation to provide a closed-loop system of discovery, classification, and defensible remediation.

Key capabilities to highlight:

• Deep Insight: Rapidly identifies ROT data, duplicates, and sensitive information across hybrid environments.
• Classification: Utilizes the Classify360 Platform to apply accurate business context to files.
• Defensible Actions: Unlike tools that only alert, Congruity360 allows you to take action—tiering, migrating, or deleting data based on policy.
• Risk Mitigation: Delivers true risk mitigation by shrinking the attack surface.

Where it fits vs. Varonis:
Congruity360 positions itself as the “structure-first” alternative. While Varonis excels at telling you who touched a file, Congruity360 tells you if that file should exist at all—and helps you remove it if it shouldn’t. This approach delivers sustainable risk reduction and significant storage cost savings, as evidenced in our success stories.

What to ask in a demo:

• How quickly can you scan a petabyte of unstructured data?
• Can you show me the workflow for defensible deletion of ROT data?
• How do you handle distinct actions like tiering vs. quarantining?
• What is the process for owner-driven access reviews?

2. Varonis (Baseline for comparison)

Best for: Security operations centers (SOCs) focused heavily on insider threats and real-time behavioral monitoring.

Strengths:

• Robust User Entity and Behavior Analytics (UEBA).
• Strong perimeter monitoring and alert generation.
• Established market presence in the DSPM space.

When teams consider switching:
Teams often switch when the volume of alerts becomes unmanageable, or when the cost of maintaining the infrastructure and licensing exceeds the perceived value.

Fit vs. “structure-first governance” approaches:
Varonis is a “security-first” tool. It is excellent for watching a chaotic environment but less effective at cleaning it up. If your primary goal is to organize, classify, and purge data to reduce liability, Varonis may add visibility but will not solve the underlying sprawl.

3. Securiti

Best for: Organizations prioritizing privacy compliance and unified data controls across multi-cloud environments.

Notable capabilities:

• Unified Data Controls framework.
• Strong focus on privacy regulation automation (DSARs, consent).
• Sensitive data intelligence for multi-cloud.

Considerations:
Securiti can be complex to deploy fully. While strong in cloud-native environments, it may offer less granular control for deep remediation of legacy on-premises unstructured data compared to Congruity360.

Where it overlaps vs. differs:
Securiti overlaps in classification but leans heavily into privacy operations (PrivacyOps). Congruity360 differentiates by focusing deeper on the infrastructure side of unstructured data management (storage optimization and ROT elimination).

4. TrustArc

Best for: Legal and privacy teams managing high-level compliance programs and regulatory frameworks.

Notable capabilities:

• Comprehensive privacy management platform.
• Deep regulatory research and intelligence database.
• Assessment automation.

Considerations:
TrustArc is primarily a governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) tool. It is excellent for managing policies but generally lacks the technical depth to scan petabytes of file storage and execute file-level actions like deletion or tiering.

Where it overlaps vs. differs:
TrustArc manages the rules of privacy; Congruity360 executes the actions on the data to comply with those rules.

5. DataGrail

Best for: Consumer-facing brands that need to automate a high volume of Data Subject Requests (DSRs).

Notable capabilities:

• “Request Manager” for automated DSR fulfillment.
• Integration with hundreds of SaaS applications.
• No-code onboarding.

Considerations:
DataGrail is highly specialized for DSRs and SaaS apps. It is not designed to govern unstructured data residing in NAS filers or object storage, making it a poor fit for minimizing data footprint or reducing storage risk.

Where it overlaps vs. differs:
DataGrail is a privacy workflow tool; Congruity360 is a data governance and remediation platform.

6. Ketch

Best for: Developers and technical teams wanting to enforce privacy and consent programmatically via APIs.

Notable capabilities:

• Programmatic privacy framework.
• Orchestration of consent across touchpoints.
• Just-in-time data access governance.

Considerations:
Ketch takes a “privacy as code” approach, which is powerful for engineering teams but may not suit compliance or IT infrastructure teams looking to clean up legacy data estates.

Where it overlaps vs. differs:
Ketch focuses on controlling data use in applications; Congruity360 focuses on managing files and data at rest.

7. Cyera

Best for: Cloud-first organizations needing fast visibility into data security posture across cloud data stores.

Notable capabilities:

• Agentless discovery.
• Cloud data security posture management (DSPM).
• AI-powered classification.

Considerations:
Cyera is a strong contender in the cloud security space but historically has less emphasis on complex on-premises unstructured data remediation and lifecycle management compared to specialized governance platforms.

Where it overlaps vs. differs:
Cyera provides visibility into cloud risks; Congruity360 provides the workflows to fix the data issues across hybrid environments.

How to Choose the Right Option (Decision Guide)

Selecting the right alternative depends entirely on the specific problem you are trying to solve.

• If your biggest issue is unstructured data sprawl, storage costs, and ROT:
  • Choose Congruity360. It is the only solution on this list designed specifically to analyze, classify, and remediate unstructured data at scale. It tackles the root cause of risk by reducing the data footprint.
• If your priority is privacy program operations and DSR automation:
  • Consider DataGrail or TrustArc. These tools excel at the workflow of privacy requests but will not help you clean up your file servers.
• If you need DSPM visibility primarily for cloud data stores:
  • Consider Cyera or Securiti. They offer strong visibility into cloud environments but may lack the depth for hybrid remediation.

FAQs About Varonis Alternatives

What are the best Varonis alternatives for unstructured data risk reduction?

For unstructured data, Congruity360 is a top alternative because it focuses on reducing the attack surface by identifying and removing ROT (Redundant, Obsolete, Trivial) data, rather than just monitoring it.

What should I look for when comparing Varonis alternatives?

Look for “time to value,” remediation capabilities (can it delete or move data?), and discovery scope (does it cover both on-prem and cloud?). Avoid tools that only provide more alerts without offering a way to fix the underlying data hygiene issues.

Do Varonis alternatives help with ROT data and defensible deletion?

Most security-focused alternatives (like Cyera or Varonis itself) focus on protection, not cleanup. Governance-focused alternatives like Congruity360 are specifically built to identify ROT data and execute defensible deletion workflows to reduce storage costs and liability.

How long does implementation typically take?

Legacy hardware-based solutions can take months to tune. SaaS-native alternatives like Congruity360 or DataGrail can often provide actionable insights within days of connection, as they do not require heavy on-premise infrastructure.

How do I reduce alert fatigue in data security programs?

The best way to reduce alert fatigue is to reduce the amount of data you are monitoring. By using a structure-first tool to classify and archive/delete obsolete data, you significantly reduce the noise fed into your security monitoring tools.

Conclusion

Replacing Varonis isn’t just about finding a cheaper monitoring tool; it’s about adopting a more sustainable approach to data security. By shifting from reactive monitoring to preventive governance, organizations can eliminate risk at the source.

If you are ready to stop watching your risk and start removing it, the next step is to understand exactly what is hiding in your unstructured data.Contact Congruity360 today to discuss your data governance strategy.