Vendor Comparison
Smarsh is one of the most recognized names in communications compliance.
If you're evaluating Smarsh competitors or looking for a modern Smarsh alternative for SEC or FINRA compliance, this page compares Comma Compliance and Smarsh across capture, security, pricing, and exam readiness.
Smarsh is an enterprise platform built for large financial institutions. It acquired TeleMessage in 2024 to power its mobile capture: the same TeleMessage that was breached in May 2025 and has not resumed service. Comma Compliance is purpose-built for banks and broker-dealers with flat pricing, point-of-delivery capture, and open-source transparency on key capture modules.
Feature
Comma Compliance
[Competitor]
Architecture
End-to-end — capture, archive, supervision, policy matching, and exam-ready case management, with open source transparency.
Modular capture, archive, supervision, and review workflows across multiple systems
Built-in archive
Yes — included in platform. Option to push to 3rd party.
Yes
WORM storage
Yes — written at point of capture
Yes
WhatsApp capture
Yes: captures both WhatsApp Business and personal WhatsApp. Open-source.
Via TeleMessage infrastructure as of 2026: services suspended as of 2025.
Signal capture
Yes — open-source capture code published on GitHub
Via TeleMessage.
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 conversations happen: iMessage, WhatsApp, Signal, SMS, Voice, Microsoft 365, Teams, Exchange, OneDrive, Gmail, Google Workspace, Slack, Zoom, Webex, Bloomberg Chat, Salesforce, Telegram, and more
80+ channels including email, mobile, social, voice, collaboration
Pricing model
Flat monthly pricing, all platforms included, no per-connector fees, free unlimited exports
Not publicly listed; enterprise contract required; per-connector add-ons common
Free trial
Yes
Not publically offered.
Personal vs. business separation
Automatic contact-based filtering — personal contacts can be excluded automatically
Structural separation via separate compliant app, MDM containerization, or carrier-level capture
Policy processing
Yes — built in
Yes — via enterprise platform
Custom policy matching
Yes
Yes
Case management
Exam-ready — built for regulatory examination prep
eDiscovery and litigation-oriented, integrating with 3rd party Vendors.
AI compliance monitoring
Real-time policy scanning; human validation before escalation; no client data used for training without consent
"AI-powered supervision"
Data ownership
Client retains full ownership; never sold or shared outside authorized sub-processors
Enterprise terms
Infrastructure
AWS and Azure, multi-AZ clustering.
AWS-based
Smarsh acquired TeleMessage in February 2024 to power its WhatsApp, Signal, and Telegram capture. In May 2025, TeleMessage was breached and suspended all services. A CVE was published confirming that archived messages were stored as plaintext despite end-to-end encryption claims. As of October 2025, the service remains non-functional, and new user registration is not possible.For firms evaluating Smarsh for WhatsApp or Signal archiving today, the status of that capability is a direct question worth asking before signing a contract
Smarsh captures iMessages via iCloud backups, requiring backup enabled, available storage, power, and a locked device. Messages are only archived after Apple’s daily backup runs, so edits or deletions beforehand are reflected in the archive.Comma captures at point of delivery, writing messages to WORM storage immediately with no dependency on iCloud.
Book a Demo or learn more here.
Security
Full security details →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?