RoPA PilotRoPA Pilot vs OneTrust, Dastra / Leto and the Excel spreadsheet
Four ways to keep a GDPR register. They do not target the same organisations: this comparison says honestly where RoPA Pilot is the wrong choice.
| Criterion | RoPA Pilot | OneTrust | Dastra / Leto | Excel |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Entry price | €0 (unlimited free), Pro from €19/month | Quote, usually four figures per year | SaaS subscription, tens of euros per month | €0 (existing office licence) |
| Time to first register | Minutes — it pre-fills as you browse | Weeks (implementation, workshops) | Hours to days (initial data entry) | Days — blank page |
| Automatic tool detection | Yes, by domain, 250+ SaaS | Partial (network / SSO scan, per module) | No — declarative | No |
| Data sent to the cloud | None — 100% local | The whole register | The whole register (EU hosting) | Depends on storage |
| Workflows, DPIA, data subject requests | No | Yes, complete | Yes | No |
| Multi-organisation | Up to 10 (Agency) | Unlimited | Yes | One file per client |
| Natural fit | SMEs, agencies, external DPOs | Large groups with a tooled DPO | Mid-market and structured SMEs | Very small teams, frozen registers |
When RoPA Pilot is the wrong tool
If you must run data protection impact assessments, a data subject request queue, cookie consent and vendor risk assessments in a single system, a governance platform such as OneTrust or Dastra is the right choice: RoPA Pilot does not do that, and does not pretend to. It does one thing: turn real SaaS usage into a defensible Article 30 register without sending a single byte to a server.
When the spreadsheet is enough — and when it traps you
A spreadsheet is enough for a three-person team with five stable tools. It traps you as soon as tools change: the register is written once, then teams adopt a new AI assistant, a new scheduler, a new e-signature service. Six months later the file no longer describes reality — and a false register is more dangerous than an incomplete one, because it is signed.
The structural difference: where your data lives
A compliance tool that requires hosting your register on its cloud adds one more processor — which must itself be entered in the register. RoPA Pilot stores nothing: no register, no visited domains, no email address. Its backend only knows an opaque licence key, and only if you move to a paid tier.
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