If you're searching for KnowBe4 alternatives, you probably already know what brought you here. Maybe pricing crept up at renewal. Maybe your users started skipping training because the content felt familiar. Maybe the admin work to run the platform turned out to be more than the small team you have. Maybe you just want to see what else is out there before you sign for another year.
You're not alone. Across G2, Gartner Peer Insights, and Reddit, the same patterns come up: opaque pricing tiers with the better features paywalled, content that starts feeling repetitive after a year or two, a setup curve that takes longer than advertised, and reporting that leans heavy on completion percentages rather than what users actually do when a real phish lands. None of that means KnowBe4 is bad. It means the category has moved on, and there are now platforms that handle parts of the job better, often for less money and far less admin.
This guide covers 10 platforms worth comparing if you're looking at moving off KnowBe4 (or evaluating it for the first time). We've grouped them by what they're best at, so you can match the alternative to the specific reason you're shopping. Some are direct like-for-like replacements at lower price points. Some take a different approach entirely, building behavioural change or human risk management around the training rather than the other way round.
Why people are looking for KnowBe4 alternatives in 2026
Worth saying upfront: KnowBe4 is the biggest name in security awareness training and has been for over a decade. They have one of the largest template libraries in the industry, auditors recognise the reports, and at scale the platform does what it says on the tin. None of that is in dispute.
The reasons people start looking elsewhere are usually some combination of these.
Pricing. KnowBe4's pricing isn't published. You request a quote, you get a tiered structure, and several of the features people actually want sit in higher tiers. After Vista Equity Partners took the company private in early 2023 in a $4.6 billion deal, several customers and resellers have noted upward pressure on renewal pricing. Lean IT teams and SMBs feel it most.
Content fatigue. The library is huge, but users on G2 and Gartner consistently flag that scenarios start to repeat after a year or two on the platform. Tech-savvy employees disengage first. The platform is shifting toward AI-generated content (AIDA) to help with this, but it's a known sore point.
Admin overhead. Running KnowBe4 well isn't a part-time job. Setting up campaigns, configuring whitelisting, managing policy distribution in a separate tool, and pulling clean reports for audit all take dedicated time. Multiple Gartner reviewers describe the dashboard as complex and the campaign setup as non-intuitive.
Reporting that's wide but not deep. KnowBe4 produces a lot of reports: completion percentages, click rates, phish-prone scores. What's harder to get is a clear behavioural picture: who's improving, who's still risky, what the trend looks like at department level, and how it ties back to specific compliance obligations. Forrester's recent reframing of the category from "security awareness training" to "human risk management" reflects what auditors and boards now want to see.
Beyond email. Modern attacks aren't just email. SMS, voice, QR codes, deepfakes, lateral compromise from leaked credentials. KnowBe4 covers some of this in higher tiers, but several alternatives now ship multi-channel simulation and dark web monitoring as part of the base platform.
If any of those hit close to home, the rest of this guide is for you.
What to look for in a KnowBe4 alternative
A few things worth checking before you commit.
Transparent or at least predictable pricing. Per-user pricing you can model against your headcount, with the features you need in the tier you're buying. Avoid platforms where the simulations or policy module sit a tier above where the training does.
Content that stays fresh. New scenarios at a meaningful cadence, not just rebadged ones. AI-generated or human-produced is less important than whether your users see something different month to month.
Phishing simulations beyond email. Multi-channel simulations (SMS, QR, vishing) are catching up to how attacks actually look. At minimum, the email simulation should adapt to user role and skill level rather than blast the same template at everyone.
Policy management included. ISO 27001 Annex A 5.1, SOC 2 CC2.2, NIS2 Article 21. Auditors want to see who acknowledged which policy, and when. Platforms that bundle this with training keep your evidence in one place.
Behavioural reporting, not just completion. A risk score per user that updates over time. Trend data at department level. Reporting that an auditor accepts and a board can read.
Low admin model. Automated campaign scheduling, AutoPhish-style rolling simulations, audit-ready exports in two clicks. The whole point of moving off KnowBe4 for a lot of teams is to claw back hours.
Fits your operating model. Internal IT teams want simple. MSPs and consultancies need multi-tenant management and white labelling. Enterprises need integrations with their existing GRC and identity stack.
Platform comparison overview
Top 10 KnowBe4 alternatives for 2026
1. usecure
usecure is the alternative most KnowBe4 customers end up on when the reasons they're leaving are: too much admin, opaque pricing, content fatigue, and a separate tool needed for policies. It's a human risk management platform built around four modules in one system: uLearn for security awareness training, uPhish for phishing simulations, uPolicy for policy management and attestation, and uBreach for dark web credential monitoring. A single Human Risk Score rolls everything up into a board-level metric.
The contrast with KnowBe4 is sharpest on three points. Admin overhead. AutoPhish runs phishing simulations on a rolling schedule with no campaign setup work. You set a frequency window and it picks templates per user, in their language, during their working hours. uLearn delivers training on the same automated cadence. Most internal IT teams report 1-2 hours a month of admin total. Policy management included. uPolicy distributes policies, captures e-signatures, tracks version history, and produces the acknowledgement reports auditors actually ask for, all in the same reporting layer as training. KnowBe4 customers usually run a separate tool for this. Pricing transparency. Per-user, per-month, with the modules included rather than gated to higher tiers. You can see what you're paying for.
usecure also publishes detailed mappings showing how the platform supports the human-risk side of common frameworks: ISO 27001, SOC 2, NIS2, and others. The reports are clean enough to drop into a board pack and detailed enough for an auditor.
For internal IT and security teams, the IT team offering is built around minimal admin and audit-ready reporting. For MSPs delivering security awareness as a managed service, the MSP offering adds multi-tenant management and white labelling, which is useful if you're managing 10, 50, or 200 client tenants from one portal.
You can start a free trial without a sales call and run it in parallel with KnowBe4 to compare.
Best fit: SMBs, mid-market organisations, and MSPs that want lower admin, transparent pricing, and policies + training + phishing in one auditable system.
2. Hoxhunt
If your specific frustration with KnowBe4 is engagement (users skipping content, click rates plateauing, no real behaviour change), Hoxhunt is the most direct answer. The platform uses AI-driven adaptive difficulty: employees who consistently report simulations get harder ones, and those who struggle get easier scenarios until they build up. Gamification, leaderboards, and real micro-rewards drive reporting rates that consistently outperform legacy SAT platforms.
Multi-channel simulation covers email, Slack, and Teams. Hoxhunt also offers deepfake phishing simulations using AI-generated video and voice, which is useful if you're preparing teams for executive impersonation attacks. Customers report failure rates dropping from around 11% baseline to 2% within a year, and threat reporting jumping by an order of magnitude.
Trade-offs: Hoxhunt is enterprise-positioned and enterprise-priced. The admin dashboard has a reputation for being less polished than the end-user experience. And while behavioural reporting is strong, organisations primarily looking for compliance documentation sometimes find the emphasis on engagement over coverage less of a fit.
Best fit: mid-market and enterprise organisations where the goal is real behaviour change, not check-the-box compliance.
3. SoSafe
SoSafe is a European platform that's become a popular alternative to KnowBe4 in the EU mid-market. It pairs gamified training with AI-driven phishing simulations, and the platform's Adaptive Difficulty Engine adjusts frequency and complexity per user. The Simulation Studio lets you spin up custom phishing templates in minutes using AI prompts, which is genuinely faster than KnowBe4's template editor.
Multi-channel simulations cover email, SMS, QR codes, and (in early access) voice, covering attack vectors KnowBe4 only handles in higher tiers. The Phishing Report Button gives end users a native way to flag suspicious emails with feedback built in, and the Sofie AI chatbot delivers contextual micro-learning at the moment of the click.
For EU companies, SoSafe's data residency and GDPR posture are the standout differentiator. The platform hosts data within the EU, has strong privacy-by-design controls, and is often chosen by organisations where European data protection is non-negotiable. SoSafe also launched an MSP-specific platform in mid-2025 with multi-tenant management and no minimum licence requirement.
Trade-offs: SoSafe is less recognised in North America than KnowBe4, so US-centric audit contexts can require some explanation.
Best fit: EU mid-market organisations and MSPs where GDPR alignment, data residency, and multi-channel simulations matter.
4. Proofpoint Security Awareness Training
Proofpoint sits at the enterprise end of the alternative list. Its awareness training is built on top of the company's email security threat intelligence, which means phishing simulations draw from live attack data. Users see the kinds of attacks landing in real inboxes that quarter, not generic templates from a library.
For organisations already running Proofpoint email security, the integration is a major draw. The People Risk Explorer surfaces users most likely to be targeted or to click based on actual threat intelligence, and the ACE framework (Assess, Change, Evaluate) personalises training paths from there. SCORM compatibility makes integration with existing LMS platforms straightforward.
Trade-offs: Proofpoint works best if you're already a Proofpoint customer. As a standalone awareness platform, it's less flexible than dedicated tools, engagement lags more gamified options, and it's priced for enterprise budgets.
Best fit: enterprises already running Proofpoint email security that want awareness training tied to real threat intelligence.
5. MetaCompliance
https://www.metacompliance.com
MetaCompliance is one of the more compliance-forward alternatives on this list, which suits organisations whose KnowBe4 frustration is the lack of integrated policy management. It bundles awareness training, phishing simulations, and policy distribution in a single platform, with content mapped to ISO 27001, NIS2, GDPR, HIPAA, and other frameworks. Training is available in 40+ languages, which is the widest multilingual support on this list and a real advantage for global rollouts.
Policy management is the standout: distribution, version control, and attestation tracking that supports Annex A 5.1 under ISO and CC2.2 under SOC 2 directly. Reporting is built for audit use, with completion tracking and policy acknowledgement evidence exportable in auditor-friendly formats.
Trade-offs: setup can be more involved than newer platforms, with some users flagging spam filter configuration and suppression list management as fiddly. The end-user experience is less gamified than Hoxhunt or SoSafe.
Best fit: regulated industries (finance, legal, healthcare) where compliance documentation is the primary driver and multilingual support matters.
6. CybSafe
CybSafe is a behavioural science-based alternative that takes a different angle from most of the list. Rather than tracking training completion, CybSafe builds a picture of user behaviour through its Security Behaviours Database (SebDB), then delivers interventions designed to shift specific behaviours over time.
For organisations whose audit conversations are moving past "completion percentages" toward genuine risk reduction metrics, CybSafe gives you the data to tell that story. Auditors are increasingly accepting behavioural metrics (reporting rates, behaviour change over time, intervention effectiveness) as evidence of a maturing program. The platform is a stronger fit for that conversation than KnowBe4 is.
Trade-offs: CybSafe is newer and smaller than KnowBe4, less widely recognised in audit contexts (though that's changing), and the content library is narrower. Some customers pair it with another tool for volume content.
Best fit: enterprises treating security awareness as part of a broader behavioural risk program rather than a compliance checkbox.
7. Ninjio
Ninjio's whole differentiator is content. Short, Hollywood-style animated episodes, released monthly, each based on a real breach. Users actually watch Ninjio content in a way they don't watch most generic SAT video. That translates into measurably better completion rates and, more importantly, retention, which is the part KnowBe4 customers complain about when content fatigue kicks in.
Ninjio supports the standard awareness toolkit alongside the content: phishing simulations, completion tracking, a Risk Score per user. In 2026 the platform launched NINJIO Insights, a reporting suite built on Snowflake and Sigma that produces audit-ready compliance evidence, and Sensei AI for automated phishing simulation generation and report triage.
Trade-offs: policy management isn't a native function, so you'll need a separate tool for Annex A 5.1 / CC2.2 if Ninjio is your primary platform. Compliance reporting works but isn't the lead use case.
Best fit: mid-market organisations where content engagement is the lever you most want to pull, with compliance as a secondary driver.
8. Cofense
Cofense is positioned differently from KnowBe4. The platform is built around what happens after someone spots a suspicious email: phish reporting, triage, and SOC integration. There's a simulation component (Cofense PhishMe) for running campaigns, but the centre of gravity is detection and response.
If your KnowBe4 frustration is that the platform doesn't connect cleanly to your security operations workflow, Cofense closes that gap. Reports of suspicious emails from end users feed directly into SOC analyst workflows, with automated triage to separate noise from genuine threats. Repeat clicker identification is strong.
Trade-offs: Cofense is lighter on the training and engagement side than purpose-built SAT platforms. The end-user experience isn't as gamified, and admin overhead is higher than newer alternatives.
Best fit: organisations with a SOC or security operations team that wants phishing detection and response tightly integrated with awareness.
9. Infosec IQ
https://www.infosecinstitute.com
Infosec IQ, from Infosec Institute (part of Cengage Group), is the structured-program alternative. Role-based training paths, scheduled phishing simulations, audit-ready completion reporting. Topics cover phishing, password security, data protection, and regulatory subjects, all delivered through defined paths rather than ad-hoc campaigns.
For organisations whose KnowBe4 setup feels chaotic or hard to govern, Infosec IQ offers more structure out of the box. Reporting is built around demonstrating training coverage and completion rates for audits, which is a narrower goal than KnowBe4 covers, but cleaner if that's what you actually need.
Trade-offs: adaptive features are lighter than Hoxhunt or CybSafe, and engagement depends more on program design than on platform mechanics. The structured-path approach can feel rigid if you want flexibility.
Best fit: organisations needing documented, auditable training programs with strong paper trails.
10. Living Security
https://www.livingsecurity.com
Living Security is the most "KnowBe4 plus" option on this list, built around the idea that human risk needs to be measured across multiple security data sources, not just from inside the awareness platform. The Unify platform aggregates signals from email security, identity tools, training data, and SOC alerts into a per-user human risk score.
For organisations with a mature security stack, this aggregation is what KnowBe4 doesn't do. Living Security tells you who's exhibiting risky behaviours across the wider environment, not only who failed phishing tests inside the awareness platform. That's the level of insight Forrester points at when they talk about the shift from SAT to human risk management.
Trade-offs: the platform is enterprise-positioned and works best when you have several integration points to feed it. For SMBs without a deep security stack, much of the value isn't accessible.
Best fit: enterprises with mature security operations that want a true human-risk view across multiple data sources.
How to choose the right KnowBe4 alternative
Match the alternative to the reason you're switching. That's the whole game.
If admin overhead is what's killing you, look at usecure or SoSafe. Both are built around minimal admin and rolling automation rather than the campaign-by-campaign model KnowBe4 leans on.
If pricing is the trigger, get quotes from usecure, MetaCompliance, and Infosec IQ. Per-user transparent pricing tends to come in below KnowBe4 for equivalent (or broader) functionality, especially once you account for the policy tool you don't have to buy separately.
If engagement is the frustration, Hoxhunt and Ninjio are the strongest engagement plays. Hoxhunt for behavioural depth and adaptive difficulty, Ninjio for content quality.
If you need policy management included, the realistic shortlist is usecure or MetaCompliance. Most others leave it to a separate tool, which is fine if you already have one but adds admin and stitching at audit time.
If your auditors are asking for behavioural metrics rather than completion rates, look at usecure, Hoxhunt, CybSafe, or Living Security. All four can produce the kind of behaviour-over-time reporting that increasingly defines a mature human risk program.
If you're an MSP, the multi-tenant story is the deciding factor. usecure, SoSafe, and MetaCompliance all have proper MSP portals; KnowBe4's MSP product works but tends to feel grafted on rather than built for the model.
For most organisations leaving KnowBe4, the answer ends up being either usecure (lowest admin, transparent pricing, policies included, fits SMB through to mid-market and MSPs) or Hoxhunt (best behavioural engagement at the upper end of the market). Worth getting hands on both before deciding.
If you want to start by seeing how usecure compares against your current KnowBe4 setup, start a free trial. It takes about 15 minutes to set up and you can run it in parallel.
FAQ
What is the main weakness of KnowBe4?
The most consistently cited weaknesses on G2 and Gartner Peer Insights are content repetition over time, opaque tiered pricing with key features paywalled, admin complexity, and reporting that emphasises completion metrics over behavioural change. None of these are dealbreakers in isolation; they're what tip customers toward looking at alternatives once one or more becomes a real friction point.
Is KnowBe4 still a good platform?
Yes, for the right organisation. KnowBe4 is the largest platform in the category and works well for organisations that have the admin capacity to run it actively, value content breadth and brand recognition with auditors, and aren't priced out of the higher tiers. The reason to look at alternatives is usually mismatch with the operating model rather than KnowBe4 being a bad product.
Why is KnowBe4 expensive?
KnowBe4's pricing is tiered and not publicly published, with several frequently requested features (policy management, advanced phishing simulations, dark web monitoring, AI personalisation) sitting in higher tiers. Customers commonly report that the entry tier doesn't include enough of what they need, pushing them up the stack. Vista Equity Partners' acquisition of the company in 2023 has, anecdotally, contributed to upward pricing pressure at renewal.
What's the cheapest KnowBe4 alternative?
Per-user pricing varies, but the platforms most commonly cited as cost-competitive against KnowBe4 are usecure, MetaCompliance, and Infosec IQ. usecure tends to be the most cost-effective when you factor in the included policy management module, since most KnowBe4 customers are paying for a separate policy tool.
What's the best KnowBe4 alternative for MSPs?
usecure and SoSafe are both built with MSPs in mind. usecure's multi-tenant portal supports per-user licensing, white labelling, and centralised reporting across many client tenants. SoSafe launched its MSP platform in mid-2025 with similar capabilities and no minimum licence requirement. Both compare well against KnowBe4's MSP product, which works but is structured more as an extension of the core platform than as a purpose-built MSP solution.
Can I run a KnowBe4 alternative in parallel before switching?
Most platforms with a free trial or pilot option let you do this. usecure, SoSafe, and Hoxhunt all support parallel pilots where you run the new platform on a subset of users while KnowBe4 stays on for the rest. This gives you a real comparison on engagement, admin time, and reporting quality before you commit. It's the lowest-risk way to evaluate.
What about KnowBe4's AIDA and AI-generated content?
KnowBe4's AIDA suite is the company's response to the content repetition issue, generating personalised training content using AI. It's a genuine improvement on the static library, but it's also relatively new and sits in higher pricing tiers. Most of the alternatives on this list now include AI-driven personalisation as standard rather than as a premium add-on.
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