SANS Security Awareness Alternatives: What to Compare Before You Switch

If you are evaluating SANS Security Awareness against other options, the useful question is not which product is better. It is which problem you are trying to solve, because these tools are strong in different places and the wrong comparison wastes a year.

This page sets out what SANS does well, where teams tend to look elsewhere, and how Keepnet differs. Where we make a claim about our own platform, you can check it on the product pages linked throughout.

What SANS Security Awareness Does Well

SANS built its reputation on training depth, and that reputation is earned. The organisation has been teaching security for decades, its instructors are practitioners, and the material goes further than most awareness content ever attempts.

Three things stand out. The content library is written by people who work in the field rather than by a marketing team. The security awareness maturity model gives programme owners a shared vocabulary for describing where they are and what comes next, which is genuinely useful even if you never buy anything. And on the compliance side, PCI DSS and NERC CIP training are established parts of the catalogue.

If your requirement is deep, credible training content and a recognised name in front of an auditor, SANS answers that well. That is the fair starting point for any comparison.

Where Teams Look for an Alternative

Three reasons come up repeatedly, and none of them is about content quality.

Cost at scale. SANS pricing reflects its position, and for organisations training several thousand employees the per user cost becomes a budget conversation rather than a security one.

Simulation channels. Awareness training and attack simulation are different products, and an organisation that wants to test people needs the second. That matters more than it used to, because attackers moved off email. The 2026 Data Breach Investigations Report puts the median click rate for email based simulations at roughly 1.4%, while phone centric simulations fail at roughly 40% higher (Verizon, 2026 Data Breach Investigations Report, 2026, p. 50). A programme that only tests email is not measuring its weakest channel.

Behaviour measurement. Training completion is the metric most programmes report, and it does not describe risk. 84% of security leaders track completion as a top metric (Gartner, "6 Ways to Transform Your Cybersecurity Awareness Program", G00840741, March 2026, 2025 Secure Behavior Strategies Survey, n=65), while the human element still appeared in 62% of breaches (Verizon, 2026 Data Breach Investigations Report, 2026, p. 12). Boards increasingly ask for the second number.

How Keepnet Differs

Keepnet approaches the same problem from the measurement side rather than the curriculum side.

Multi-channel simulation. Email, voice, SMS, QR and callback attacks run from one console, so susceptibility is comparable across channels instead of being a set of unrelated numbers. This is the clearest structural difference and it exists because attackers work this way. Smishing volume rose 30 to 40% quarter on quarter through 2025 (Anti-Phishing Working Group, Phishing Activity Trends Report, Q4 2025, p. 4), and voice attacks now carry cloned audio: 35% of organisations have experienced a deepfake incident while only 10% of security leaders prioritise deepfake training (Gartner, G00840741, March 2026, n=65).

Behaviour as the output. The programme reports susceptibility, reporting rate, time to report and repeat exposure by person and by department, which turns awareness from an attendance record into a risk measurement. The phishing simulation platform is built around that reporting rather than around campaign volume.

Reporting and response in the same platform. A reported message can be analysed and removed from every mailbox that received it, so the workforce becomes a detection layer rather than an audience. That handover is what incident response automation is for.

Modular purchase. Each product can be bought on its own. Teams that already have a training library and only need simulation are not required to replace what works, and pricing follows headcount rather than a fixed bundle.

Compliance Training: What Is Covered

Compliance is where SANS is strongest outside general awareness, so it deserves a direct answer rather than a marketing one.

The Keepnet security awareness training library includes PCI DSS training and secure coding training for developers. If your requirement is a specific regulation, ask both vendors for the module list before comparing anything else, because a catalogue that looks complete at the category level often is not at the regulation level.

The wider point is that compliance training and behaviour change are different objectives. A completed module satisfies an auditor; a lower susceptibility rate satisfies a board. Most organisations need both and buy as though they need one.

Can You Run Keepnet Alongside SANS?

Yes, and for some teams it is the sensible answer.

The two products overlap less than the category suggests. If the SANS library is already embedded and people value the content, keeping it while adding multi-channel simulation and behaviour measurement gives you the missing half without a migration project. Rip and replace is a cost, and it is not always a necessary one.

The case for consolidation is different: a single platform means one set of numbers, one report and one place where a reported message is handled. That matters more as the programme matures and less at the start.

How to Choose

Four questions decide this faster than a feature matrix.

What are you measuring today, and what does the board ask for? If the answer is completion in both cases, the gap is measurement rather than content.

Which channels do your attacks arrive on? If your help desk sees voice and SMS incidents and your simulations only cover email, the programme is testing the wrong surface.

Which regulations must you evidence? Get the module list from each vendor at regulation level, not category level.

What happens after someone reports? If a reported message goes to a shared mailbox and waits, the reporting rate you are proud of is not producing containment.