The written short answer is being updated after a re-evaluation. The scores below are current.
Read this comparison as one judge. Each weighs the same scores by what they care about.
The External DPO
Carries thirty client mandates and bills by the hour they save. Optimizes for multi-client capability, reusable templates, a RoPA that drives the rest, and client-ready reports. Rejects single-tenant tools that treat the consultancy as thirty separate customers.
caralegal
preeco | datenschutz
This judge's pick
Criterion by criterion
Records & DPIA depth
caralegal
The register drives the rest, which is exactly what I want to see: automatic synchronization of the RoPA with DPIAs, TOMs and vendors, DPIA threshold analysis tied to risky processing activities, a deletion concept generated from the record, and a deep template library — over 200 processing activities, 150 vendors, legal bases under Articles 6 and 9 — that makes the work reusable. That is a genuinely connected data model. I found no public information on multi-client or mandate-level operation, which for a thirty-mandate practice is the difference between a tool and infrastructure.
preeco | datenschutz
The record of processing is a genuinely connected model: activities carry their systems, safeguards and data processing agreements as a graphical relationship view, recipients without a contract surface as marked-missing rows, and every approval freezes a PDF revision with checksum. For my practice the mandate story is real — connected documents inherit content across clients, new tenants are created in minutes with per-tenant module configuration, and the Bavarian authority's questionnaire plus status reports and procedure files are generated at the push of a button. The one step short of full marks: I found no public information on a completeness view that drives technical and organizational measure coverage from the record itself.
Data subject rights & incidents
caralegal
Requests arrive in the system with automatic data-location lookup, a visible response deadline and a secure data room for the reply, breaches get centralized documentation through a guided decision process, and the deletion concept is generated from the RoPA — solid mid-weight operations. What keeps me from going higher: I found no public information on an intake portal or form, identity verification, the 72-hour breach clock, an authority notification output, or any tracking that a deletion actually executed.
preeco | datenschutz
Requests arrive through embeddable web forms covering every Art. 15–22 type, identity verification and rejection grounds are documented, replies go out from the system via a one-time encrypted link, and the statutory clock is watched automatically with proactive warnings. Breaches get nine ready notification templates including the Art. 33 reports to the supervisory authority and the BSI duties, a clear per-report deadline status and graphical risk mapping, and deletion classes link to processing activities to derive rules with deadlines and responsibilities. What I miss for full marks is evidence of execution: I found no public information on tracking that shows a deletion actually happened.
Privacy regime coverage
caralegal
GDPR is operationalized deeply and the German layer is unusually strong — software for the Standard-Datenschutzmodell 3.1 with the seven guarantee goals and building blocks linkable to TOMs — while AI Act duties appear as audit templates alongside a separate AI Flow, and a website cookie check covers consent duties. That reads as the major regimes of its home market with newer duties delivered as content packs. I found no public information on Swiss nDSG, UK GDPR, or one record mapping across several regimes.
preeco | datenschutz
GDPR plus the German specifics my clients actually face — BSIG reporting duties and the Bavarian authority's questionnaire — and the EU AI Act conformity checks run in the same system with risk classification of AI systems, refreshed by roughly monthly updates. That is real one-record-many-regimes work for GDPR plus AI Act. I found no public information on UK GDPR, Swiss nDSG or ePrivacy coverage, so cross-regime mapping beyond that pair is not evidenced.
Audit readiness & evidence
caralegal
Client-ready outputs exist: everything from DPAs to the RoPA goes to the authority with a single click, audit templates for ISO, GDPR and AI Act checks are built in, and the register exports as PDF or Excel. But my audits always end with "show me the state on date X", and I found no public information on revision-safe change history, audit evidence packs, or auditor access roles.
preeco | datenschutz
Every approval produces an immutable revision with SHA-256 integrity checks and colour-coded comparison — a fixed state of the documentation at any point in time — and an automatic activity log records each change with timestamp and user. The audits module spans planning through follow-up with the preeco catalog included and BSI IT-Grundschutz, CISIS12 and VdA ISA as paid add-ons, reports export as PDF, DOCX and XLSX, and specialized data protection officer reports evaluate across tenants. I found no public information on evidence attachments collected per activity, so a full audit file still means assembly work.
Integrations & automation
caralegal
In-product automation is real — automatic transfer of existing documentation, automatic synchronization between registers, and an AI assistant and agents taking recurring steps — but the captured pages show little beyond that. I found no public information on a documented API, directory import, ticketing connectors, or SSO, and for thirty mandates that means typing rather than plumbing.
preeco | datenschutz
The captured pages state plainly that there is currently no public REST API — the application is conceived as a closed system, with customer-specific endpoints developed only for Private Cloud and On-Premises. What does connect: a Model Context Protocol server that lets AI assistants query processing activities and export revisions, an optional DeepL integration, DOCX/XLSX import and export, and SAML2 single sign-on on the premium hosting variants. I found no public information on directory import, ticketing or HR connectors, or webhooks, which for feeding a real client estate is the daily toil I bill against.
European sovereignty
caralegal
The imprint confirms a German GmbH seated in Berlin with a German VAT ID, and the privacy policy publishes website subprocessors with Article 28 agreements in place — but those named processors are marketing-stack services, including a Delaware company with AWS behind it, and I found no public information on where the platform itself is hosted or which subprocessors touch customer compliance records. The system that maps my clients' processing is the most concentrated processing I own, and its hosting chain is undocumented on the public pages.
preeco | datenschutz
A German entity in Ulm, hosting exclusively in ISO-27001 datacenters of Hetzner in Nuremberg and Falkenstein, no transfers to third countries, a published data processing agreement with downloadable TOMs and two weeks' written notice on subprocessor changes, and named processors Hetzner in Germany and UpCloud in Finland. Development, operations and support sit in Germany, with an on-premises variant for public sector and enterprise. I found no public information on the ownership structure, which keeps me just short of a fully clean bill.
Pricing transparency
caralegal
The captured pricing page shows a figure for one tier only — Essential at "ab 79€ pro Monat" as a starting price with one legal entity — while Enterprise is "auf Anfrage" and I found no public price for the Professional and Corporate tiers, so a multi-entity group's or a consultancy's real invoice stays a sales conversation. Credit for structure: entity boundaries per tier (1, 3, 8, unlimited), unlimited users and documents, the 50% nonprofit discount and the free-trial terms are all public.
preeco | datenschutz
I found no price figures at all — the license is said to scale by employees, modules and hosting variant, expressly not by the number of organizations, with no setup fees and no cancellation periods, but the actual invoice remains a sales conversation. For budgeting thirty mandates, knowing the licensing dimensions and that extra organizations cost nothing is genuinely useful; the absence of any published number is what the score reflects.
Sovereignty, side by side
Dimension
caralegal
preeco | datenschutz
Legal entity
Not determined
Incorporated in DE
Ownership
Not determined
Not determined
Data residency
Not determined
Not determined
Subprocessors
Not determined
Not determined
Facts, side by side
Only facts both products carry under the same definition — anything else would not be a fair row.
Data · Retention contact form
contact form data · deleted automatically after request fully processed1