Let's be honest: compliance is the least exciting part of running a B2B company. But if you want to land enterprise deals, SOC 2 or ISO 27001 certification is non-negotiable. Tools like Vanta and Drata have made this easier, but they come with two big downsides: they're expensive, and all your compliance data sits on someone else's servers.
Enter comp, an open-source project that's already racked up over 1,600 stars on GitHub. It's an "AI-native compliance platform" written in TypeScript. I spent a weekend spinning it up, and honestly? It's more mature than I expected.
What Does It Actually Do?
Compliance boils down to three things: proving what you did, recording it, and ensuring you keep doing it. Comp uses AI to accelerate most of this. The standout feature is automated evidence collection—connect your AWS, GCP, GitHub, Slack, and other tools, and it continuously pulls logs, configs, and permissions, then maps them to the right controls. No more manual screenshots or CSV exports.
The policy engine is another smart piece. It comes pre-loaded with common frameworks (SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, etc.) and analyzes your existing infrastructure to generate a gap report. Which controls are already satisfied? Where do you need to intervene? AI acts like a compliance advisor—just one that doesn't charge $500 an hour.
You Still Have to Get Your Hands Dirty—But Less Than Before
No magic here: compliance isn't a one-click affair. Since comp is open-source, you need to deploy it yourself. It offers Docker images and a Helm chart, but if Kubernetes isn't your thing, you might hit a wall. I'd recommend having a DevOps teammate handy. The learning curve is moderate—this isn't a clone-and-go project.
Once it's running, daily maintenance is minimal. The AI continuously monitors your environment and flags any control failures (like an S3 bucket turning public). You can create tickets and assign them directly in the platform. The audit trail is clean enough that auditors barely need to ask questions.
Who Benefits Most?
- Mid-size SaaS companies: Revenue between $5M and $50M, need SOC 2 but don't want to pay $15k/year to Vanta.
- Data sovereignty-focused teams: Fintech, healthcare, or any regulated industry that wants all compliance data on their own infrastructure.
- Open-source believers: Teams that want to deeply customize controls and audit logic to fit their exact workflows.
Comp isn't perfect yet. It lacks multi-region audit log aggregation and advanced user permission models. Those features are already being requested on GitHub, and the community is responsive. The roadmap looks promising.
A Pragmatic Start
If you're evaluating compliance tools, my advice: don't jump to production. Run it locally with Docker Compose, go through the evidence collectors and the policy engine, and see how it matches your tech stack. Then compare costs with Vanta or Drata. Comp's "price" is just your server's electricity bill. For many teams, that's enough.
Comments
No comments yet
Be the first to comment