PII Crawler vs BigID
PII Crawler
PII Crawler is a desktop and command-line scanner from Eligian Labs LLC (Washington, USA) that finds unencrypted personal data in files, network shares and databases on the customer's own hardware. According to the vendor site it detects 30+ PII types (SSN, DOB, names, addresses, phone, email, credit card, IBAN, passport and others) using pattern matching plus named-entity recognition, reads text in images inside PDFs via OCR, and samples Postgres, MySQL and SQL Server tables in memory. The vendor's security page documents that no file contents or matches are ever transmitted and that all four optional endpoints (licence registration, update check, error reporting, UI analytics) can be disabled with an --air-gapped flag or offline licence token. It ships for macOS (Apple Silicon), Windows x64 and Linux x64, exports JSON and CSV reports aimed at GDPR Article 30 and CCPA records, and is sold as a one-time $497 licence with a 7-day full trial.
Pros
- One-time $497 licence covering unlimited users, machines and scans, rather than a subscription (vendor pricing page)
- Security page enumerates every outbound endpoint and how to disable all of them; file contents and matches are never transmitted (piicrawler.com/security)
- Broad format coverage including OCR of images in PDFs, Office and OLE files, archives, mail files, and in-memory database sampling (vendor docs)
- CLI with JSON/CSV output and exit codes for CI/CD pipelines (vendor FAQ)
- Product and company have a verifiable history back to 2023: WHOIS, Wayback captures, eligian.com and the Washington LLC filing
Things to check
- No independent reviews or third-party evaluations found on G2, Capterra, Product Hunt, Reddit or Hacker News
- The default install registers the licence with api.eligian.com; fully air-gapped use requires the --offline-license token or --air-gapped flag (vendor security page)
- Compliance wording on the homepage ("SOC2 evidence", "HIPAA-aligned") is not backed by a linked audit report
- Terms and Privacy name the LLC but do not state a registered address or governing jurisdiction
- Small independent vendor; support is email-only
Pricing: $497 one-time (unlimited users, machines and scans; no renewals). 7-day fully functional trial, no credit card or account. 14-day refund.
BigID
BigID is an enterprise data security and compliance platform that uses AI-driven classification to discover, classify, and contextualise sensitive data across cloud, SaaS, on-premises, and development environments. BigID goes beyond traditional pattern matching to identify data relationships, correlate data across sources, and provide actionable intelligence for privacy, security, and governance use cases. Its data intelligence approach helps organizations understand not just what data they have, but how it relates, who owns it, and what risk it presents.
Pros
- Advanced ML-based classification goes beyond regex pattern matching
- Broad data source coverage with 100+ connectors
- Strong privacy management capabilities including DSAR automation
- Data intelligence approach provides context beyond simple classification
- Active app marketplace extends platform capabilities
Things to check
- No insider threat detection or behavioral analytics capabilities
- Limited data access governance compared to Varonis
- Can be complex to deploy and configure across many data sources
- Premium pricing positions it as an enterprise-only solution
- Data security enforcement relies on integration with external tools
Pricing: Custom pricing based on data sources and volume