7 Best Very Good Security Alternatives and Competitors for 2026 (Compared)

The best Very Good Security alternatives for 2026: 1. Enigma Vault, 2. Basis Theory, 3. Spreedly, 4. Evervault, 5. TokenEx / IXOPAY, 6. PCI Proxy, 7. Skyflow.

Most comparisons of VGS argue about features. The decision is usually made one layer down, on architecture: Do you want a proxy sitting in your payment path, or do you want to call a vault directly?

VGS answers that one way. Its platform aliases sensitive data through a reverse proxy before it reaches your systems, then re-inserts the real value in real time on the way out. That design is why teams with a working payment flow pick VGS, and it is also why some of them leave.

If you are here, you are likely weighing whether an inline proxy in your payment path, and a four-figure floor, are still the right trade for your volume, your latency budget and the data you now need to protect.

Disclosure: Enigma Vault publishes this comparison and appears in it, first. Every competitor fact comes from that vendor's own public pages checked on 16 October 2026. Where a vendor publishes nothing, we say so rather than guessing.

VGS Alternatives Compared At A Glance

TL;DR

• Enigma Vault (4.1/5): Four vaults covering cards, fields, files and customer intake, every tier published, permanent free tiers. First paid tier is $49.99 rather than $1,000. Payments features are thinner.
• Basis Theory (4.1/5): The closest like-for-like swap. Developer-first vault with network tokens, Account Updater, 3DS and multi-PSP routing, called directly rather than proxied. $995 a month including 20,000 tokens, but the entry plan is US-only.
• Spreedly (4.0/5): PCI Level 1 vault from $750 a month with unlimited storage, built around token portability, with orchestration on a higher tier.
• Evervault (3.8/5): Encryption-based dual custody, and it publishes a price for every individual operation, so you can work out the bill before you sign.
• TokenEx / IXOPAY (3.4/5): Universal Tokens across processors plus PCI-validated P2PE for card-present. No public pricing.
• PCI Proxy (3.4/5): The swap that changes least if you like the proxy model and not the bill. No public pricing, free trial offered.
• Skyflow (3.1/5): The right move if the audit driving your search is about personal data rather than payments. Longest certification list, no public pricing.

Why Teams Look For Very Good Security Alternatives

VGS earns its place. Processor-agnostic aliasing, network tokens, Account Updater, 3DS and wallet payments add up to the deepest payments feature set in this comparison. The reasons buyers evaluate alternatives are about price, architecture and scope, not the depth of the platform.

• The price floor: VGS publishes plans starting at $1,000 a month. There is a free tier to begin, but the first real step is the highest published entry price in this market, and for a team tokenizing modest volume that is a lot of fixed cost before anything else happens.
• The proxy is a dependency: Routing payment traffic through an external proxy adds a hop and a vendor your checkout now depends on. For many teams that trade is worth it. For teams with strict latency budgets or unusual message-signing requirements, it is the reason to look elsewhere.
• It is payments-weighted: If your problem turned out to be customer documents, structured PII or intake, much of that payments breadth goes unused while you keep paying for it.

If those points match your evaluation, the alternatives below sort cleanly by how they answer them.

How We Evaluated These VGS Alternatives

We scored every provider on the same six criteria, weighted for a team already running VGS and deciding whether to move. Weights sum to 100%, and the Overall score in the table is the weighted result.

• Entry cost and pricing transparency (25%): What the first real tier costs, and whether it is published.
• Architecture fit (20%): Proxy, direct vault API, or encryption-based, and what that does to your request path.
• Payments depth (20%): Network tokens, Account Updater, 3DS, BIN lookup, card-present.
• Processor independence (15%): Do tokens move between gateways, or lock to one?
• Compliance evidence (10%): What the vendor publishes on its own trust pages.
• Coverage beyond cards (10%): Structured PII, files and intake.

This is an editorial comparison published by one of the vendors in it. Re-weight it and the order moves: Drop payments depth and raise coverage, and Enigma Vault and Skyflow climb.

On review scores: G2 and Capterra ratings here were checked on each product's page on 16 October 2026, and every one is reported with its review count. An average drawn from six reviews and an average drawn from forty-seven are not the same claim.

Where a vendor has no published reviews, we say so plainly rather than filling the gap with something softer.

On PCI scope: Moving between two PCI DSS Level 1 providers does not by itself widen or narrow your scope. Scope is determined by your environment and integration, and your acquirer or a QSA confirms it.

The 7 Best VGS Competitors And Payment Tokenization Alternatives

Each entry below covers what the tool is built for, what it actually does in detail, what it costs or how to find out, and where it falls short. Scores come from the weighting above.

1. Enigma Vault

Best for: Startups, SMBs and enterprise teams for whom the $1,000 floor is the problem, or whose scope reaches past cards.

Enigma Vault is a vault-based platform covering cards, structured fields, files and customer intake through one REST API, with every tier published and a permanent free tier on each vault.

For a VGS buyer, two things differ. The first paid tier is $49.99 a month rather than $1,000. And Card Vault charges through any REST gateway via a proxy you call deliberately for a payment, rather than a proxy all your traffic routes through.

The honest trade is payments depth. VGS has Account Updater, BIN lookup and network tokens. Enigma Vault does not.

Key features

• Card Vault: Hosted forms, Twilio Pay IVR or API capture, charge through any REST gateway
• Optional Luhn-passable card tokens; CVVs held encrypted at most 30 minutes, then deleted
• Data Vault: AES-256 field encryption with exact-match lookup, batch to 5,000 secrets
• File Vault: Files to 5 GB, presigned URLs, WebSocket status
• Customer Vault: Branded no-login intake, staff inbox, e-signatures
• OAuth2 M2M auth, per-customer AES-256 keys, full audit logging, domain allowlisting
• Live Swagger UI at api.enigmavault.io, US and EU regions

Pricing

Usage beyond each tier is billed per request at published overage rates: $0.08, $0.04 and $0.02 per Card Vault request and $0.06, $0.03 and $0.01 per Data Vault request on Lite, Plus and Premium.

Billed through AWS Marketplace against your existing account, which keeps procurement out of it. AES-256, per-customer keys and full audit logging are on every plan, free included, so nothing security-related is gated behind a tier.

Pros

• Roughly a twentieth of VGS's published starting price at the first paid tier, with permanent free tiers
• Four data shapes under one integration, including intake, which nothing else here covers
• PCI DSS Level 1 Service Provider, SOC 2 Type II, BAA available, 99.99% uptime SLA

Cons

• The narrowest payments feature set here. No Account Updater, no BIN lookup, no network token product. If you rely on those in VGS today, this is a real downgrade.
• Public reviews are few, so there is less independent evidence to lean on than with the older vendors here.
• No self-hosted option. SaaS in US and EU regions only.
• Lite tiers cover roughly 1,000 to 1,500 requests a month.

What users say

• Likes: Simple API and clear PCI scope: A CEO reviewer rates Card Vault the best card tokenization option their team found, citing a simple API, no surprises on PCI DSS de-scoping, lower cost than other vendors, and support that added their domestic card type in under 24 hours. (source)
• Likes: Cards, personal data and files in one place: Another reviewer says the structured vaults make card data, personal information and multi-GB files easy to handle from one platform. (source)
• Dislikes: Pricing and documentation: One reviewer finds pricing a bit high for the product (source), and another sees room for more documentation (source).

Rated 4.4/5 on G2 from 6 reviews and 4.8/5 on Capterra from 4 reviews, checked 16 October 2026.

Proxy And Gateway Questions, Answered

Watch for: Inventory which VGS payments features you actually use before assuming parity. That list decides whether this is a fit.

Point Card Vault at your own gateway on the free tier and see what the integration really costs you in effort. Compare the plans or book a demo.

2. Basis Theory

Best for: Engineering teams that want VGS-level payments depth without a proxy in the request path.

Basis Theory is the closest like-for-like swap on this list. It is a developer-first vault with tokenization, network tokens, Account Updater, 3DS and multi-PSP routing, called directly rather than sitting in front of your traffic.

For a VGS buyer, the architectural change is the point: You keep comparable payments features and remove a hop from the request path.

Key features

• Raw card numbers held inside Basis Theory's own PCI Level 1 vault with a token returned to you, so your systems never store card data in any form
• Tokenization that extends past cards to bank data and arbitrary data types
• Network tokens and Account Updater native to the vault rather than bolted on, so they work without moving data between systems
• 3D Secure, smart routing and backup-PSP orchestration for multi-processor setups
• Proxy for outbound calls, Reactors for server-side logic and Elements for client-side capture
• Role-based access control over who can read and detokenize what
• A PCI Attestation of Compliance included at the entry tier, which several vendors here charge extra for
• Agentic enrollments on the enterprise tier for AI-initiated payment flows

Pricing

$995 a month including 20,000 tokens, with a production-ready PCI environment, a 1 MB payload limit and 24 hours of logs. The entry plan is US environment only. PII and PHI compliance options sit on the enterprise tier, which Basis Theory says answers 95% of PCI SAQ D.

Pros

• Direct API rather than a proxy, so nothing extra sits in the payment path
• Published entry price with a stated token allowance and a PCI AOC included
• Payments feature parity close to VGS

Cons

• At $995 you are swapping one four-figure floor for another
• US-only at the entry tier
• PII and PHI coverage is an enterprise purchase, not entry-level

What users say

• Likes: No independent reviews yet: Basis Theory has listings on G2 and Capterra but no published reviews, so its own pricing and compliance pages carry more weight than usual.
• Dislikes: Nothing to validate against: With no peer feedback available, ask for reference customers in your own segment before you commit.

No published reviews on G2 or Capterra as of 16 October 2026.

Watch for: The US-only constraint. If data residency is part of why you are moving, this decides it before anything else.

For how a vault issues and charges card tokens with nothing sitting in the request path, read our guide to card vault tokenization.

3. Spreedly

Best for: Merchants that want portable tokens and orchestration from one vendor.

Spreedly sits a payments orchestration layer on top of a PCI Level 1 vault. The pitch is ownership: Your tokens belong to you rather than to whichever processor happens to be storing them.

Key features

• Token portability as the core promise, with one universal token that is not tied to a single gateway
• Network tokenization alongside it, so you can run both models together
• A PCI Level 1 vault with unlimited storage underneath the orchestration layer
• PSP-agnostic routing and smart retries for recovering declines through a second processor
• Account Updater and 3D Secure 2 for the recurring-payment lifecycle
• Vault health insights covering the state of every stored credential
• An agentic commerce kit for AI-initiated checkout

Pricing

$750 a month buys the vault with unlimited storage, the lowest published entry price among the payments-led options here. Routing, retries and the rest of the orchestration layer sit on a higher tier priced through sales.

Pros

• $750 published with unlimited vault storage, below VGS's floor
• Token portability is the explicit product promise
• Strong compliance footprint including network token certification

Cons

• The published $750 covers the vault; the routing and retry features sit behind a quote
• Cards only, so PII, PHI and documents stay someone else's problem
• The gap between the two tiers means the advertised price is rarely the final one

What users say

• Likes: One vault across many gateways: A founder values one centralized vault while processing across more than a hundred gateways (source), and another reviewer praises quick, detailed support (source).
• Dislikes: Slow dashboard and per-call pricing: Reviewers report a slow dashboard (source), per-API-call pricing that makes automated testing costly (source), and one long-time customer describes a sudden 3x price increase (source).

Rated 4.4/5 on G2 from 35 reviews and 4.5/5 on Capterra from 13 reviews, checked 16 October 2026.

Watch for: The gap between the vault tier and the orchestration tier. Price the one you actually need before comparing to VGS.

Token portability is the whole argument here. Our roundup of the best payment tokenization software compares the field on exactly that.

4. Evervault

Best for: Payments teams that need to model cost per operation.

Evervault is encryption-based rather than vault-based, with a dual-custody model: You hold encrypted cards without the keys, Evervault holds keys without your cards.

It publishes a rate for every operation, which matters if your read and write pattern is unusual.

Key features

• A dual-custody split: The encrypted card sits with you, the key sits with Evervault
• Card capture and reveal through secure iframes, so your frontend never sees raw data
• Relay, which decrypts data in transit immediately before it reaches an external API
• Enclaves on AWS Nitro, running your own logic against data that stays encrypted
• Network Tokens API, 3D Secure and Account Updater for recurring payments
• Wallet support through Apple Pay and Google Pay
• Fingerprint for card metadata and BIN lookups without touching the number

Pricing

Platform is $995 a month plus usage, recommended for under 25,000 transactions a month. Encrypts, relays and functions are unlimited. Decrypts are $0.005 each, file decrypts $0.02, fingerprints $0.005, successful 3DS $0.03 with nothing charged for failures. Custom tier above 25,000 transactions adds volume discounts, 24/7 support and SAML SSO.

Pros

• Per-operation rates published in full, so the bill is modellable in advance
• Dual custody is a genuinely different security posture from VGS
• Enclave-backed processing for sensitive compute

Cons

• The $995 base plus decrypt charges keeps you near VGS's cost band
• Encryption-based, so migration is not a straight token swap
• Cards are the focus, not general PII

What users say

• Likes: Friendly UI and easy relay setup: A reviewer calls onboarding a breeze, with a modern UI and smooth inbound and outbound relay setup (source), and another values not having to manage encryption keys (source).
• Dislikes: Pricing and narrow scope: One reviewer says pricing was not up to the mark (source), and another finds the product's purpose narrow next to more established tools (source).

Rated 4.4/5 on G2 from 17 reviews, checked 16 October 2026. No Capterra listing found.

Watch for: Decrypt volume. Unlimited encrypts with metered decrypts suits write-heavy, read-rarely patterns.

Encryption-based and vault-based custody split the risk differently. Vault vs vaultless tokenization explains which half you end up holding.

5. TokenEx / IXOPAY

Best for: Merchants running several processors, including card-present acceptance.

TokenEx, now part of IXOPAY, is the closest philosophical match to VGS: Both sell processor neutrality as the core promise.

IXOPAY says outbound replacement of the token with real card details keeps card data away from your own systems. That is their characterisation, and your acquirer or QSA still determines your actual validation scope.

Key features

• Universal Tokens across processors and channels
• Network token support alongside universal tokens
• PCI-validated P2PE for card-present acceptance
• Iframe and browser-based encryption
• Protection for PII, PHI and ACH data
• Acquirer PCI tooling

Pricing

IXOPAY does not publish tokenization rates, so you will not find a number on the site. It does give you three ways in: Get Sandbox Access, Get a Demo, or Contact Sales.

Sandbox access is the useful one. Measure your real token volume and channel mix first, then ask for a quote against actual numbers instead of estimates.

Pros

• The same processor-neutral promise VGS makes, delivered through Universal Tokens
• Card-present acceptance via PCI-validated P2PE, which VGS does not cover
• One of the longest published certification lists here

Cons

• No public pricing, so you cannot compare cost to VGS without a sales call
• Mid-transition from TokenEx to IXOPAY, which makes trust pages harder to track down
• Payments-first, so documents and general PII fall outside it

What users say

• Likes: Gateway-agnostic tokens at a lower cost: A reviewer values the secure payment iframe, tokens that move across gateways and a per-token cost below other providers (source), and another praises fast ticket resolution (source).
• Dislikes: Reporting limits: One reviewer cannot build customer-specific reports or see usage history past 30 days (source), and another finds forced password resets a hassle (source).

Rated 4.6/5 on G2 from 17 reviews (listed as TokenEx / IXOPAY), checked 16 October 2026. The Capterra listing has no reviews yet.

Watch for: The brand transition. Confirm which entity your contract and AOC name.

For how universal tokens behave when you move between processors, read our guide to credit card tokenization.

6. PCI Proxy

Best for: Payment teams that like the proxy architecture and want a different vendor running it.

PCI Proxy, from Planet, is the swap that changes least. It offers a universal token vault with a reverse proxy sharing card data or network tokens on your behalf for multi-PSP interoperability, which is the same shape as VGS.

Key features

• The same reverse-proxy model you already run, sharing card data or network tokens on your behalf
• One universal token spanning every integration instead of one per provider
• Network token provisioning handled alongside it
• Multi-channel capture through hosted fields, mobile SDKs, wallets and payment links
• Gateway orchestration reaching a broad set of acquirers
• Secure data migration support, which matters when you are moving an existing vault

Pricing

PCI Proxy has a pricing page, but it carries no rates. What it does offer is a free trial with no restrictions, a free demo call, and a Talk to us route.

The trial is the practical path here. Run your real volume through it for a week, then ask for a quote against what you measured rather than what you guessed.

Pros

• Keeps the reverse-proxy architecture, so the migration is conceptually simple
• A single universal token across integrations
• Broad multi-channel collection options

Cons

• No published pricing
• Smaller public presence than VGS, so less independent evidence
• Inherits the trade-off you may be leaving: A proxy in the payment path

What users say

• Likes: No independent reviews yet: PCI Proxy has a G2 listing with no published reviews, which makes the free trial more useful than usual.
• Dislikes: Nothing to validate against: Form your own view from a week of real traffic rather than third-party signal.

No published reviews on G2 as of 16 October 2026.

Watch for: If the proxy dependency is your reason for moving, this is not your alternative.

If you are staying with a proxy model and only changing vendor, the best PCI DSS compliant tokenization software covers who else runs one.

7. Skyflow

Best for: Enterprises whose real problem turned out to be PII and PHI governance, not cards.

Skyflow isolates PII, PHI and payment data behind field-level policies, and through 2026 has repositioned around what it calls runtime AI data control.

Skyflow publishes ISO 27001:2022, SOC 2 Type II and PCI DSS Level 1 certifications, and states it is HIPAA assessed and eligible and GDPR assessed and compliant.

Key features

• Data privacy vault with field-level access policies
• Polymorphic encryption, so one field returns differently per user
• Detection, de-identification and redaction tooling
• Data residency controls
• Platform integrations including Snowflake, Databricks, ServiceNow and Glean
• AI data sanitization and agentic commerce modules

Pricing

Skyflow does not list prices on its site. The pricing page routes to a demo request, and there is a dedicated Contact Sales page if you would rather go straight there.

One thing worth asking on that first call is how the model counts, whether by records, by data subjects or by requests. That answer will move your three-year number far more than the headline rate does.

Pros

• The broadest privacy and governance feature set in this comparison
• The longest published certification list here
• Deep data-platform integrations

Cons

• No published pricing and an enterprise-first sales motion
• Payments is one use case among many rather than the centre of the product
• The AI repositioning may put you ahead of your actual requirement

What users say

• Likes: Confidential payment data: The one reviewer values keeping client payment data confidential while still using it (source).
• Dislikes: Too few reviews to judge: No complaints are recorded, but a single review is too small a sample to draw conclusions from.

The Payments Data Privacy Vault listing on G2 shows 5.0/5 from a single review as of 16 October 2026. No Capterra listing found.

Watch for: If you are leaving VGS over cost, Skyflow is unlikely to solve that.

If your requirement has moved from cards to personal data, start with our guide to the data privacy vault.

VGS Vs Enigma Vault

These are two architectures and two price bands. VGS routes your traffic through a proxy, which is why it needs less application change and why it adds a dependency. Enigma Vault is a direct vault API with a proxy you call deliberately when you want to charge a card. Here is how they line up on what buyers actually ask about.

The decision follows from that table. If you rely on Account Updater, BIN lookup or network tokens, VGS or Basis Theory is the honest answer and moving will cost you capability. If your reason for leaving is a four-figure floor on modest volume, or you also need to protect documents and customer intake, Enigma Vault covers those directly.

How To Choose A VGS Alternative

Is your reason architectural or financial? Architectural points to Basis Theory, a direct API. Financial points to Enigma Vault at $49.99 or Spreedly at $750. Wanting to keep the proxy but change vendor points to PCI Proxy.

Which payments features do you actually use? Inventory them first. Account Updater, network tokens and BIN lookup are not uniform across this list, and assuming parity is how migrations go wrong.

Is your problem still cards? If documents, structured PII or intake have entered scope, Enigma Vault or Skyflow serves you better than any payments-only vault.

Where must your data live? Enigma Vault runs US and EU. Basis Theory's entry plan is US-only.

Can you absorb a re-tokenization project? Every option here means new tokens and updating every system that holds one. If you cannot take that on this quarter, the honest answer may be to stay and renegotiate.

Best VGS Alternative By Scenario

What Migrating Off VGS Actually Involves

Confirm the export path first: Get in writing how card data is exported, in what format and over what channel, while you are still a customer in good standing.

Expect a PCI-to-PCI transfer: Card data moves between two compliant environments and both providers must agree the process. Involve your acquirer early rather than at cut-over.

Your tokens do not travel: New vault, new tokens. Every system holding a VGS alias needs updating, and that is usually more work than the new integration.

Unwind the proxy carefully: If VGS routes your traffic, removing it means your application starts handling calls it has not handled before. Test the failure modes, not just the happy path.

Dual-run before cutting over: Write to both vaults and reconcile. Budget for two vendors for a month or two.

Check what you lose: Account Updater, network token provisioning and BIN lookup are not uniform across this list. Inventory what you use before assuming parity.

Evaluate Enigma Vault On Your Own Traffic

You can evaluate Enigma Vault without a contract. Card, Data and File Vault each have a permanent free tier on AWS Marketplace, so you can tokenize real card data, run a gateway proxy call against your own processor and read the audit log before anyone discusses pricing. The Swagger UI at api.enigmavault.io is the running API, not a mock.

Start free and test it on your own traffic, or request a demo and we will tell you plainly if something else on this list fits you better.