Vendor Comparison
Global Relay is one of the most recognized names in communications compliance. If you're evaluating Global Relay competitors or looking for a modern Global Relay alternative for SEC or FINRA compliance, this page compares Comma Compliance and Global Relay across capture, security, pricing, and exam readiness.
Global Relay is an enterprise platform with broad channel coverage.
Its iMessage capture relies on device or backup-based methods, including iCloud in some configurations. WhatsApp capture is delivered via official Meta integrations, which typically support WhatsApp Business rather than personal WhatsApp. It has no publicly documented Signal support. ma Compliance captures iMessages at the point of delivery, captures both WhatsApp Business and personal WhatsApp, captures Signal with open-source code, and offers flat pricing with no per-connector fees.
Feature
Comma Compliance
[Competitor]
Architecture
End-to-end — capture, archive, supervision, policy matching, and exam-ready case management, with open source transparency.
Enterprise - capture, archiving, supervision, and review within a managed platform
Built-in archive
Yes — included in platform
Yes
WORM storage
Yes — written at point of capture
Yes
iMessage capture method
Point-of-delivery — not iCloud-dependent
Syncs with the user’s Apple ID/iCloud account to retrieve messages; dependent on Apple ecosystem synchronization rather than real-time capture
WhatsApp capture
Captures both WhatsApp Business and personal WhatsApp
WhatsApp Business only via direct Meta BSP relationship. Personal WhatsApp not captured
Signal capture
Yes — open-source capture code published on GitHub
Not documented; no Signal connector listed as of March 2026.
Transparency
WhatsApp and Signal capture code published openly on GitHub — no NDA, no request required
Proprietary; capture methodology not publicly disclosed
Channels supported
30+ channels where conversatiosn happen: iMessage, WhatsApp, Signal, SMS, Voice, Microsoft 365, Teams, Exchange, OneDrive, Gmail, Google Workspace, Slack, Zoom, Webex, Bloomberg Chat, Salesforce, Telegram, and more.
50+ data types including email, mobile, social, Bloomberg, financial messaging
Pricing model
Flat monthly pricing, all platforms included, no per-connector fees, free unlimited exports
Not publicly listed; enterprise pricing varies by deployment size and data sources, with connector-based integrations typically required for each communication channel
Free trial
Yes
Yes
Personal vs. business separation
Automatic contact-based filtering — personal contacts can be excluded automatically
Authorization-based — employees authorize Global Relay access to their corporate iCloud account
Policy processing
Yes — built in
Yes
Custom policy matching
Yes
Yes
Case management
Exam-ready — built for regulatory examination prep
eDiscovery and litigation-oriented — built for legal holds and investigations
AI compliance monitoring
Real-time policy scanning; human validation before escalation; no client data used for training without consent
Proprietary LLM with chain-of-thought reasoning
Data ownership
Client retains full ownership; never sold or shared outside authorized sub-processors
Enterprise term
Infrastructure
AWS and Azure, multi-AZ clustering
Owned and operated private data centers with mirrored redundancy
Encryption
Transparent, cloud-native encryption (AES-256, KMS, Azure Key Vault)
Custom, HSM-based encryption model with per-message key layering
Global Relay’s Apple Messages connector works by linking to a user’s Apple ID/iCloud account. Setup requires user authorization and adds a trusted session to the Apple account to enable message synchronization.
Because capture is based on syncing messages from Apple’s ecosystem rather than intercepting them at delivery, the archive reflects messages at the time they are retrieved, not necessarily at the moment they were sent.
Comma Compliance captures messages at the point of delivery and writes them immediately to WORM storage, reducing the window for modification before capture.
Global Relay supports WhatsApp capture through official Meta integrations built for WhatsApp Business accounts, with no publicly documented support for personal WhatsApp or Signal.
Book a Demo or learn more here.
Due Diligence
01
Where exactly is the message first captured — at the point of delivery, or after a backup or sync cycle?
02
What conditions must be true for a message to be captured? What happens if any of those conditions aren't met?
03
If a user edits or deletes a message before capture occurs, what version gets archived?
04
Can you show documentation — architecture diagrams, code, or independent audit — of how your capture actually works?
05
Where are encryption keys stored, and who controls them?
06
Are all channels included in the base price, or are there per-connector fees?
07
Are there export or egress fees?
08
Does your case management workflow support regulatory examination prep?
09
Can cases be opened directly from flagged message threads?
10
Is any client data used to train your models? Under what conditions?
11
Can we adjust, refine, or contribute feedback to the detection models?
Security
Full security details →