These are tools we actually use with clients or recommend regularly. No sponsored placements. If something is here, it is because it works. Some links are affiliate links — they cost you nothing extra and help support our independent advisory work.
Security and Compliance
Vanta
Automates SOC2, ISO 27001, and HIPAA compliance. Connects to your cloud infrastructure, monitors controls continuously, and generates evidence for auditors. We recommend Vanta for startups targeting SOC2 Type II — it cuts the manual evidence collection time by roughly 80%.
1Password Business
Password management and secrets sharing for teams. The single most impactful security improvement most startups can make in under a day. If your team is sharing credentials via Slack or spreadsheets, fix this first.
CrowdStrike Falcon Go
Endpoint detection and response for growing teams. Lightweight agent, strong detection, reasonable pricing for startups. Good starting point before you need a full SOC.
AI and LLM Infrastructure
LangSmith
Observability and tracing for LLM applications. Essential if you are building production RAG systems or agentic workflows. Helps you debug, evaluate, and monitor LLM behaviour — which is also a security requirement.
Anthropic Claude API
Our preferred LLM for most advisory tool development. Strong safety features, Constitutional AI approach, and practical for building systems where output reliability matters.
Pinecone
Managed vector database for RAG pipelines. Simple to operate, good performance at scale. We recommend it when teams need to move fast and do not want to manage their own vector infrastructure.
Cloud and Infrastructure
Datadog
Infrastructure monitoring, APM, and security monitoring in one platform. Expensive at scale, but the unified view of performance and security events is valuable. Good for teams that want one dashboard instead of five.
Terraform
Infrastructure as code. Non-negotiable for any team running cloud infrastructure. If your infrastructure is not codified, your security posture is not reproducible — and that is a risk.
Tailscale
Zero-config VPN built on WireGuard. Replaces complex VPN setups with something that takes minutes to deploy. We recommend it for securing access to internal services and development environments.
Development and Testing
Snyk
Developer-first security scanning. Finds vulnerabilities in your code, open source dependencies, containers, and IaC. Integrates into the CI/CD pipeline so security checks happen automatically, not as an afterthought.
GitHub Advanced Security
Secret scanning, code scanning, and dependency review built into GitHub. If you are already on GitHub, this is the lowest-friction way to add security scanning to your development workflow.
For a comprehensive breakdown of security tools by category, budget, and company stage, visit InfoTech Industry — our dedicated technology review and comparison platform.
Disclosure: Some links on this page are affiliate links. We earn a small commission if you purchase through them, at no additional cost to you. This helps us maintain independent advisory services. We only recommend tools we have used professionally.