IRI DarkShield
6.3#3 in sensitive data discovery softwareAPILinuxmacOSSelf-hosted
VisitIRI DarkShield vs PK Protect
PK Protect
5.8#9 in sensitive data discovery softwareLinuxmacOSSelf-hostedWindows
VisitWhat both publish
| Fact | IRI DarkShield | PK Protect |
|---|---|---|
| Founded | 1978 | 1986 |
| Headquarters | Melbourne, Florida, United States | PKWARE lists its U.S. headquarters at 201 E. Pittsburgh Ave., Suite 400, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53204. |
| Integrations | DarkShield can send search and remediation logs to SIEM tools including Splunk Enterprise Security and Datadog. | PKWARE says its platform supports over 250 on-premises and cloud databases, cloud storage, big data repositories, and productivity applications. |
| Intended users | IRI describes developers, DBAs, and people with an IT background on compliance teams as users who can create and manage DarkShield projects. | PKWARE positions PK Protect for organizations seeking enterprise-wide data security and compliance, and says it is used by 21 of the 25 largest U.S. banks. |
| Purpose | DarkShield discovers, classifies, extracts, reports on, and masks sensitive information across structured, semi-structured, and unstructured sources. | PK Protect helps enterprises discover and protect sensitive data across endpoints, servers, cloud, databases, data lakes, and mainframes. |
| Support | Standalone perpetual licenses include technical support, bug fixes, and new versions for the first year; later support is available at 20% of the license fee basis per year. | PKWARE invites prospective customers to speak with an expert or book a demo; its contact page says someone will follow up after a request is submitted. |
IRI DarkShield plans
- IRI Voracity subscriptionPriced on request
- Standalone DarkShield (file or image sources)—
PK Protect plans
No prices published.
Pick IRI DarkShield if…
DarkShield suits developers, DBAs, and IT-background compliance staff who need to find and mask sensitive data across multiple source types. Its self-hosted deployment may fit teams that want to run it within their own infrastructure.
Pick PK Protect if…
PKWARE positions PK Protect for organizations seeking enterprise-wide data security and compliance, including in financial services, healthcare, retail and government.