Diligent vs AuditBoard: GRC and Audit Platform Comparison

“Diligent vs AuditBoard” comparisons often get reduced to feature checklists. CISOs and Compliance Officers don’t live in checklists; you’re trying to prove control effectiveness, demonstrate a consistent regulatory posture, and keep third-party and operational risk within risk appetite while audit and compliance workloads keep expanding.

In our experience evaluating these platforms, the practical differentiator is not whether each vendor “does GRC.” It’s how they support your program’s actual mechanics: who owns workflows, how evidence moves, how issues get remediated, how reporting packages get built for audit committees, and how much configuration you can tolerate without creating a fragile system only one admin understands.

This guide stays vendor-neutral and sticks to claims that can be validated on each vendor’s public materials. It focuses on where Diligent and AuditBoard typically fit for enterprise GRC and audit programs, what implementation looks like in real teams, and how to choose based on use case rather than brand.

Diligent vs AuditBoard: side-by-side comparison (practitioner view)

Area	Diligent (GRC & governance platform)	AuditBoard (audit, risk, compliance platform)
Primary center of gravity	Governance, oversight, and enterprise risk workflows that often roll up to executive and board reporting	Internal audit execution plus connected risk and compliance workflows across second line and first line
Best fit operating model	Central GRC function coordinating policies, risk, compliance, and reporting packages	Audit-led or assurance-led programs that want tight planning, fieldwork, evidence, and reporting workflows
Workflow configuration	Configurable workflows, often benefiting from an admin who can maintain taxonomy, roles, and reporting structures	Configurable workflows oriented around audit and compliance execution; strong fit when audit methodology drives the system of record
Risk and controls model	Supports structured risk registers, controls mapping, and oversight reporting; good fit for governance-driven risk narratives	Supports audit and assurance mapping of risks/controls and testing artifacts; strong fit for control testing and remediation tracking
Issue management and remediation	Supports issue tracking and governance-level visibility; value depends on how you standardize severity, ownership, and closure criteria	Strong alignment with audit issue lifecycle, remediation owners, due dates, and audit follow-up discipline
Evidence and documentation	Designed for formal governance documentation and structured reporting	Designed for audit evidence collection, workpapers, review notes, and repeatable testing
Reporting and stakeholder packs	Board and executive reporting is typically a core outcome; works well for committee-level packages	Strong reporting for audit stakeholders and management reporting; can scale into enterprise reporting depending on configuration
Ecosystem / integrations	Integrations vary by product area; expect due diligence on required connectors	Integrations vary by module; expect due diligence on key systems (IdP, ticketing, GRC sources, cloud)
Adoption pattern	Often enterprise governance-led rollouts with multiple stakeholder groups	Often starts with Internal Audit, then expands into Risk/Compliance as workflows mature

Note: Both vendors offer multiple products and modules. The right comparison is your specific module set and scope, not the company name alone.

Product deep-dive: Diligent capabilities and what teams actually use

Where Diligent tends to shine

• Board and executive oversight packaging. Diligent is widely associated with governance workflows that serve boards and committees, which matters if your defensible program depends on consistent committee reporting and approvals.
• Policy and governance-oriented orchestration. Teams that run formal policy cycles (draft, review, approve, attest) tend to value tools that treat governance artifacts as first-class objects, not attachments.
• Enterprise risk narrative alignment. If your program needs to translate operational and technology risk into enterprise risk language for leadership consumption, governance-forward tooling can reduce last-mile reporting friction.

Diligent limitations to plan for (real program issues)

1. Module sprawl risk. Diligent’s footprint can span governance and risk areas; programs can end up with multiple modules that require taxonomy discipline to avoid inconsistent risk/control definitions.
2. Configuration dependency. Teams often need dedicated admin ownership to keep workflows aligned to policy, risk, and committee cycles. Without it, control effectiveness reporting can drift.
3. Integration fit varies by environment. If your defensible posture depends on automated evidence or deep integrations, validate exact connectors and data flows early, then pilot them with your systems.

Product deep-dive: AuditBoard capabilities and what teams actually use

Where AuditBoard tends to shine

• Audit execution as a system of record. AuditBoard is commonly used to run the audit lifecycle end-to-end: planning, fieldwork, workpapers, review, reporting, issue follow-up. That’s valuable if audit drives assurance across the organization.
• Repeatable control testing workflows. If you have recurring control tests across ITGCs, application controls, or operational controls, audit-structured workflows can improve consistency in testing and documentation quality.
• Cross-functional collaboration at scale. Audit and compliance teams often need to assign owners, collect evidence, manage review notes, and track remediation without losing chain-of-custody.

AuditBoard limitations to plan for (real program issues)

1. Audit-first bias can shape your GRC model. If you want risk management to drive the system (rather than assurance), AuditBoard can still work, but you may need to adapt your operating model to the tool’s audit-centric mechanics.
2. Evidence workflows can become “request factories.” Without good scoping and risk-based sampling aligned to risk appetite, teams can over-request evidence and create stakeholder fatigue.
3. Expansion requires governance discipline. Growing from audit into enterprise risk and compliance increases taxonomy and ownership complexity. If you don’t define control owners, risk owners, and issue SLAs, you can lose control effectiveness visibility.

When to use each approach (team size, maturity, regulatory context)

Choose Diligent more often when:

• You have meaningful board/committee governance cadence and need repeatable reporting packages and approvals.
• Second line owns the GRC taxonomy (risk/control/policy hierarchy) and you want the tool to reflect that model.
• Regulatory posture depends on provable governance: committee oversight, policy approvals, and documented accountability.

Typical environment: mid-enterprise to large enterprise, regulated sectors with formal governance expectations, a dedicated GRC function that can administer the platform.

Choose AuditBoard more often when:

• Internal Audit is a primary driver of assurance activities and you want a single platform for audit execution and remediation follow-up.
• Control testing volume is high and you need consistent workpapers, review trails, and repeatability.
• You’re standardizing issue management across audits and want clean visibility into overdue remediation that affects risk appetite decisions.

Typical environment: audit-mature organizations, SOX-influenced control discipline, teams that measure defensibility through testing quality and remediation closure.

Implementation complexity and realistic timelines (what usually drives the clock)

Implementation timelines are mostly determined by scope, data migration, and stakeholder alignment, not vendor effort alone. Plan work in phases:

1. Taxonomy and operating model (2–6 weeks in many teams). Define risk/control library approach, ownership model (RACI), and severity/issue closure criteria. This step determines whether you can later defend control effectiveness.
2. Configuration + pilot (4–10 weeks). Configure workflows, roles, and reporting. Pilot with one audit, one risk assessment cycle, or one policy workflow before scaling.
3. Rollout + adoption (6–16+ weeks). Expand to additional teams, train stakeholders, and set governance for change control.

Where teams slip:

• Trying to migrate every historical artifact.
• Skipping agreement on risk appetite statements and thresholds that drive workflow decisions.
• Building dashboards before data quality is stable.

Cost and resource considerations (what you can responsibly assume)

Public, list pricing is typically not posted for either Diligent or AuditBoard, and pricing commonly depends on modules, users, and enterprise scope. Treat both as quote-based enterprise SaaS with annual contracts.

What to budget beyond subscription:

• Admin and system ownership. If you do not staff at least a part-time platform owner (often closer to 1 FTE in larger programs), configuration drift becomes a control effectiveness problem.
• Implementation services. Many teams use vendor or partner services for initial setup, especially for workflows, reporting, and data migration.
• Ongoing governance. Add time for quarterly taxonomy reviews, workflow tuning, and user access reviews (these map cleanly to audit expectations around system governance).

Compliance and regulatory mapping (how these tools support defensibility)

Neither tool “makes you compliant.” They support documentation, workflow control, and audit trails that help you demonstrate a defensible program against common expectations:

• OCC Bulletin 2013-29 (Third-Party Relationships): supports needs like documented due diligence and ongoing monitoring workflows. Both tools can store evidence and track issues; your design must enforce periodic reviews and approvals.
• FFIEC guidance (e.g., FFIEC IT Examination Handbook): examiners look for consistent governance, risk assessment, and auditability. Workflow history and artifact retention matter.
• NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5 (2020) and NIST SP 800-161r1 (2022): mapping controls to evidence, tests, and remediation supports traceability. AuditBoard’s audit artifacts and Diligent’s governance reporting can both contribute, depending on ownership.
• ISO/IEC 27001:2022: requires documented ISMS processes, risk treatment decisions, internal audit, and management review. Tools help with the “show me” layer: who approved what, what changed, and what was tested.
• EBA Guidelines on outsourcing arrangements (EBA/GL/2019/02): expects governance, documentation, and oversight for outsourced critical functions. Either platform can support registers and review cycles if configured to your outsourcing policy.

The compliance mapping question to ask in demos: “Show me how a single control maps to requirement, test, evidence, issue, remediation, and management sign-off with timestamps.”

Real-world scenarios (where each fits best)

Diligent fits best when:

• Scenario: A regulated financial services firm needs board risk committee packs, policy approvals, and enterprise risk rollups with consistent language and accountability.
• Why it works: Governance-forward workflows reduce manual assembly of committee materials and improve traceability of approvals.

AuditBoard fits best when:

• Scenario: A public company’s Internal Audit team runs SOX-adjacent testing plus IT audits, and wants a consistent workpaper repository, review notes, and remediation follow-up discipline.
• Why it works: Audit execution structure improves repeatability, reduces missed steps, and supports defensible audit trails.

Either tool can work when:

• Scenario: A healthcare org needs an integrated view of risks, controls, and issues across IT, privacy, and compliance.
• Decision hinge: Which team “owns the truth,” GRC governance or audit execution, and how much configuration you can sustain.

Decision matrix (use case-based, not a recommendation)

Use case	Diligent tends to fit if…	AuditBoard tends to fit if…
Board and committee governance	You need recurring committee packs, approvals, and formal governance artifacts as primary outputs	Board reporting matters, but audit reporting and remediation are the primary outputs
Internal audit modernization	Audit is part of scope, but governance and ERM are the anchor	You need end-to-end audit execution workflows and workpapers as the anchor
Control effectiveness reporting	You want governance-led control accountability with reporting tied to leadership oversight	You want testing-led control effectiveness tied to audit plans, sampling, and workpaper rigor
Scaling beyond one function	A central GRC team can enforce taxonomy and standards across functions	Internal Audit can drive standard workflows and expand outward through assurance needs
Resource constraints	You can staff platform administration and governance	You can staff audit program ownership and discipline around evidence requests and follow-up

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Diligent or AuditBoard better for third-party risk management?

Both can support third-party registers, assessments, and issues if you configure them that way. If third-party due diligence is a primary workload, validate the exact workflow objects, questionnaires, evidence handling, and reporting you need in a hands-on pilot.

Can either tool map to NIST and ISO controls?

Yes, both can store and map control frameworks as libraries and connect them to evidence and testing workflows, depending on modules. Ask for a live walkthrough mapping one control to NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5 (2020) and ISO/IEC 27001:2022 requirements with audit trails.

What’s the biggest implementation risk?

Misaligned taxonomy and ownership. If risk owners, control owners, and issue owners are unclear, the platform becomes a document repository instead of a defensible program system.

Do these tools reduce audit findings?

They can improve consistency and traceability, which helps you respond to audits. Findings still come down to control design and operating effectiveness, plus whether remediation closes on time.

How should we run a proof of value?

Pick one end-to-end workflow, such as one audit engagement with remediation follow-up or one enterprise risk assessment cycle with reporting. Define success as traceability: requirement → control → test/evidence → issue → remediation → sign-off.