TeamMate and Diligent One Platform are the two internal audit platforms in this guide with the deepest institutional memory, and both are still known almost as well by an older name. TeamMate is the audit-first system Wolters Kluwer has sold for more than 30 years, first as TeamMate AM and now as the web-based TeamMate+ Audit; a UK public body was still paying maintenance on 10 legacy TeamMate AM licenses as recently as 2024. Diligent One Platform is what HighBond, Galvanize and ACL became after Diligent’s April 2021 acquisition, and many still call it ACL or HighBond. Both vendors are asking the same kind of buyer, a government audit office, a bank’s internal audit function, a public-sector body, to keep betting on decades of engagement content or a decades-old scripting language rather than switch to a newer entrant. The decision turns less on which platform is objectively better than on which older bet a function wants to keep making: audit-first workflow with an on-premise or offline option and Excel analytics in the contract, or a broader cloud GRC platform built around a scripting language, a Robots automation layer and, since 2025, one of the most active AI roadmaps in this guide.
This comparison sets TeamMate against Diligent One Platform on what each name now covers, works through seven decision factors where the two genuinely differ, lines up a side-by-side scorecard and fit-by-situation table, builds a five-year cost illustration from the only public price evidence either vendor has produced, covers migrating between them and within each vendor’s own legacy generation, and closes with a recommendation by situation. It draws on the site’s TeamMate review and Diligent One Platform review, and follows the evidence levels and scorecard set out in how we review audit software, part of the independent buyer’s guide to internal audit software.
Verdict. TeamMate is the safer default for a public-sector body, a bank or a traditional audit shop that wants an audit-first workflow, an on-premise or offline option, and prices it can actually see in writing at the small end; Diligent One is the better buy for a function that will run analytics in earnest, because ACL Analytics, Robots and the 2026 AI agents do things TeamMate’s Excel add-in and single writing assistant do not. Both vendors are still catching customers up on a legacy generation of their own: TeamMate AM’s expected end of life and Diligent’s retirement of the Analytics Exchange server, Direct Link, the Reports app and the highbond.com domain.
Best for. TeamMate: public-sector bodies, higher education, banks and credit unions, and functions of any size that want audit depth without a GRC suite’s overhead. Diligent One: analytics-heavy functions, banks and public-sector bodies that need a FedRAMP Moderate or DoD IL5 environment, teams with an existing ACL script library, and organizations consolidating risk, compliance, audit and the board on one platform.
Not for. TeamMate: a SOX-centric public company whose ICFR program is the center of gravity, or a function that wants agentic AI today rather than a writing assistant. Diligent One: a first system for one to five auditors that needs a published small-team price, or that same SOX-centric public company, which TeamMate is not built for either.
Evidence. Research-based: vendor documentation and release notes, public procurement records, third-party pricing data, verified user reviews on Gartner Peer Insights and G2, and analyst coverage. We have not used either product hands-on for this comparison.
Price evidence. TeamMate: the City of Norman, Oklahoma quote of 28 February 2025 puts TeamMate+ Audit Essentials at $6,150.88 a year for two users; the New York State Comptroller pays $988,160 over five years for support and maintenance. Diligent One: no public price for the audit modules; Vendr’s Diligent buyer data, updated February 2026, shows a median of $26,250 a year across 72 purchases, but it is dominated by board-portal deals and is not an audit benchmark.
Last verified. 27 September 2026.
In this guide
- The two products in one table
- Where they are different
- Head to head: the scorecard
- Fit by situation, side by side
- Total cost of ownership over five years
- Migration between them
- Our recommendation
- Questions about TeamMate and Diligent One
- Sources and verification
- Related guides
The two products in one table
Start with what each name covers today, because both have moved on from the products either vendor’s older customers remember. The table sets TeamMate and Diligent One side by side on ownership, category, deployment, the modules an audit function actually buys, pricing model, the best public price evidence and independent ratings; the figures match what each product’s own review already carries.
| Attribute | TeamMate (Wolters Kluwer) | Diligent One Platform (formerly HighBond) |
|---|---|---|
| Owner | Wolters Kluwer, a public company listed on Euronext Amsterdam (WKL) | Insight Partners, Clearlake and Blackstone; a sale near $7 billion explored since November 2024, none completed |
| Category | Audit-first platform, with SOX and GRC sold as separate products on one base | Internal audit platform with native full-population analytics |
| Heritage | Sold for more than 30 years; TeamMate AM is the legacy product, TeamMate+ Audit the current web platform | Diligent founded 1994, New York; audit and analytics arrived via the April 2021 Galvanize acquisition |
| Deployment | TeamCloud (Microsoft Azure), on-premise, or offline per the vendor’s documentation | Cloud SaaS, including AWS GovCloud; a desktop client for ACL Analytics; an on-premise Robots Agent option |
| Core audit modules | TeamMate Audit, TeamMate Controls and TeamMate Risk & Compliance, three separately priced products on one platform | Projects and Internal Controls Management are two of six solutions, plus Analytics, AI Studio and Robots |
| Analytics | TeamMate Analytics, an Excel add-in with 150-plus tools and more than 180 documented tests | ACL Analytics (ACLScript and Python) plus the no-code ACL AI Studio, scheduled through Robots |
| 2026 AI | TeamMate+ AI Editor, a writing assistant, plus GRC AI inside Risk & Compliance | AuditAI, built on ACL AI Studio, plus orchestration and internal audit agents (15 September 2026) |
| Pricing model | Per named user by edition; hosting and analytics can be bundled into the price | Platform subscription by user type, plus solutions and toolkits priced separately |
| Best price evidence | City of Norman: $6,150.88 a year for two Essentials users (28 February 2025); New York Comptroller: $988,160 over five years | No audit-specific public price; Vendr’s platform-wide median of $26,250 a year is board-portal-dominated |
| Ratings (GPI / G2) | 4.2 from 120 reviews / 4.3 from 597 | 4.1 from 148 reviews / 4.3 from 154 |
Two things fall out of that table before the detail does. First, the two products carry an identical G2 star rating, 4.3, on very different review bases (597 against 154), while sitting the other way around on Gartner Peer Insights, where TeamMate’s higher 4.2 comes from fewer reviews (120) than Diligent One’s 4.1 (148); a close average is not the same as a tie. Second, and more consequentially, this is the most price-asymmetric pairing in the guide: TeamMate has two real, itemized public records at two different scales, and Diligent One has none for its audit modules at all, only a pooled board-portal figure that should not be read as an audit price. The rest of this comparison works through what that asymmetry actually means, stage by stage.
Where they are different
The table above is the shape of the decision; the seven factors below are the substance, drawn from each product’s own scorecard and the documentation behind it.
Audit-first workflow against a broader analytics platform
TeamMate’s audit product is built around the engagement first: an audit universe with continuous risk assessment feeds an annual plan that, since December 2024, can be projected over several years, and scheduling, time and expense sit in the same product as the workpapers, the mark of a system built for one job. Diligent One’s Projects app instead offers two workflow types, Workplan for procedure-based audits and Internal Control for SOX-style testing, plus a feature TeamMate has nothing like: Assessment Drivers, which link a metric in Diligent’s Results analytics engine directly to a risk score in Projects, so inherent risk can be populated from data rather than typed in by hand. That single feature is the clearest sign of what each vendor sells: TeamMate an audit-first workflow that assumes analytics happens in Excel alongside it; Diligent One a workflow where analytics happens inside the same platform and feeds the plan directly. The site’s annual risk assessment playbook and risk and control matrix template describe the method both products serve.
SOX and controls
Neither product is the natural first choice for a SOX-centric public company; both scorecards say so with the same word, Adequate. TeamMate Controls documents controls, runs testing cycles and certifications, and tracks action plans, but it is a separate, smaller product with a shorter SOX customer list than that of Optro (formerly AuditBoard) or Workiva. Diligent’s Internal Control workflow runs on a COSO 2013 template with per-asset effectiveness testing and Mission Control for bulk updates, but it lacks the program-level layer, deficiency aggregation and certification cascades the SOX specialists sell. Choosing between these two on SOX alone is choosing between two adequate options, not a strong one; the site’s SOX 404 guide and SOX compliance software compared point a SOX-first buyer toward Optro and Workiva instead.
Analytics: an Excel add-in against scripting, Robots and AI Studio
This is where the two diverge most, and TeamMate is not the weak comparison it would be against a no-code-only rival. TeamMate Analytics is a real tool: 150-plus tools and more than 180 documented tests in Excel, data preparation that converts sources including PDF into rows and columns, and results that attach to the engagement through the Document Linker, bundled at no extra cost into the smallest quote this guide has found. Diligent answers with three engines together: ACL Analytics, now at version 19 (4 December 2025), runs ACLScript plus an added Python command against more than 100 connectors claimed; Robots schedules that work in the cloud or on an unlimited on-premise agent; and Results turns what either engine finds into exception records with priority, status, owner and escalation triggers, so a test lands as something someone must clear, not a spreadsheet to reopen. ACL AI Studio then adds a no-code, natural-language layer on top. The honest comparison is Excel-scale against full-population: TeamMate hands a two-person team a genuine analytics tool at no extra cost; Diligent One gives a larger, more technical function a scripting language, a scheduler and an exception workflow Excel cannot match. The site’s TeamMate Analytics review, ACL Analytics review and IDEA vs Arbutus vs ACL comparison go deeper on each engine.
AI: a writing assistant against an agentic roadmap
TeamMate’s AI is one feature, and the modesty is deliberate. The AI Editor, announced 2 June 2025, drafts, adjusts tone, summarizes and translates inside a workpaper an auditor accepts or rejects, with published safeguards, data isolation, no data retention, end-to-end encryption and a PII blocker, and a statement that submitted content is discarded once suggestions are generated. Diligent has shipped or announced more AI for auditors than any other vendor in this guide. The table lines up the dated features on both sides.
| Feature | Vendor | Date | What it is |
|---|---|---|---|
| TeamMate+ AI Editor | TeamMate | Announced 2 June 2025 | Writing assistant: drafts, adjusts tone, summarizes and translates inside a workpaper |
| ACL AI Studio | Diligent One | Announced 15 July 2025; generally available 25 September 2025 | No-code, natural-language analytics layer alongside ACLScript, with AI-recommended tests |
| GRC AI (Risk & Compliance) | TeamMate | Undated, current product page | Automated control creation and summaries inside the newly acquired GRC product |
| ACL AI Studio, agentic mode | Diligent One | 2 February 2026 | Agentic task handling inside the analytics layer |
| AuditAI suite | Diligent One | 10 March 2026 | Umbrella brand: AI planning, control intelligence, evidence and request management |
| ACL AI Studio on the Claude 4.6 model | Diligent One | 17 September 2026 | Underlying model disclosed in Diligent’s own release notes |
| Orchestration, risk and internal audit agents | Diligent One | Announced 15 September 2026; select solutions from October 2026 | Platform-wide task routing and conversational AI reporting |
Both vendors publish similar governance statements: no training on customer data by default, and, in Diligent’s wording, human approval required for consequential agent actions. TeamMate does not publish the model provider behind the AI Editor; Diligent names Amazon Bedrock and, per its own release notes, the Claude 4.6 model since 17 September 2026. Gartner’s Market Guide for Audit Management Software, published 13 April 2026 and reproduced on Wolters Kluwer’s own site, told buyers to be particularly wary of agent-washing from any vendor; TeamMate’s single, checkable writing assistant is easy to test in an afternoon, while most of Diligent’s agents are months old or in early access and need a full engagement cycle before a buyer should rely on the vendor’s own adoption claims. The site’s evaluating AI in audit software guide has the test to run before relying on either.
What users say, head to head
G2 runs its own side-by-side comparison of the two products, scoring specific attributes out of 10 from its reviewers’ answers rather than a simple star average, and the picture is closer than either vendor’s marketing suggests. TeamMate leads on meets requirements, ease of use, ease of setup, ease of admin and product direction; Diligent One leads on quality of support and business partnership. The table carries G2’s own numbers.
| G2 metric | TeamMate | Diligent One Platform |
|---|---|---|
| Overall rating | 4.3 (597 reviews) | 4.3 (154 reviews) |
| Meets requirements | 8.5 (526) | 8.3 (115) |
| Ease of use | 8.2 (539) | 7.9 (118) |
| Ease of setup | 8.1 (412) | 7.4 (65) |
| Ease of admin | 8.3 (216) | 8.1 (52) |
| Quality of support | 8.3 (481) | 8.9 (106) |
| Business partnership | 8.7 (214) | 8.8 (49) |
| Product direction | 8.7 (502) | 8.5 (111) |
The most-cited themes on each product’s own review page tell a consistent story. TeamMate’s G2 pros lead with ease of use (76 mentions) and customizability (27); its cons lead with inadequate reporting (19) and limited customization (16), the same word cutting both ways. Diligent One’s G2 pros lead with ease of use (10-plus reviews) and audit tracking (6); its complaints center on dashboards that are hard to customize and support that is slow to resolve, both raised repeatedly on Gartner Peer Insights. Diligent’s edge on quality of support above is a genuine finding, not noise: it is the one line where more reviewers rate the smaller platform ahead, worth asking each vendor’s references about ticket response time specifically.
Deployment, hosting and public sector
TeamMate offers three deployment modes: TeamCloud on Microsoft Azure, on-premise installation and, per its documentation, offline working in the field, a combination Diligent One does not match outside its own on-premise Robots Agent for scheduled analytics. On authorization, TeamMate has the more independently verifiable record: the FedRAMP Marketplace lists TeamMate Audit and Controls as authorized at the Moderate impact level, agency path, since 13 May 2022, even though TeamMate’s own product page separately still describes FedRAMP as upcoming. Diligent’s GovCloud is documented, in its own help center, to carry FedRAMP Moderate and DoD IL5 for federal implementations; a FedRAMP Marketplace listing for Diligent One could not be independently opened during this research, so treat it as a vendor claim to confirm rather than a marketplace-verified authorization. GovCloud also does not support several apps most commercial customers rely on, including Task Manager and ACL AI Studio itself, a gap TeamMate’s public-sector edition does not appear to share. Both hold standard commercial certifications, including ISO 27001 and SOC 2 Type II. The site’s audit software for banks and credit unions guide and audit software due diligence guide have the questions to put to either vendor’s compliance team directly.
Cost and contract: what is priced, and what is not
TeamMate’s model is per named user by edition, with hosting and analytics either included or tiered by security package, and Controls and Risk & Compliance priced separately. Norman’s figures work out to $3,075.44 per user a year including analytics and hosting, but the services line is the catch: even after a $6,000 discount, implementation cost more than two and a half years of subscription, and training was extra. Diligent’s model is a platform subscription priced by user type, layered with solutions and toolkits that are free, bundled or sold separately; Workflow robots need a Professional subscription, and AI editing is limited to System Admins and Professional Users. Neither vendor’s negotiation guidance is audit-specific: Vendr puts Wolters Kluwer implementation at 20% to 50% of first-year subscription, and Diligent’s escalators at 3% to 5% a year with onboarding fees of $5,000 to $25,000-plus. The table sets out what typically shows up as its own line on either vendor’s order form.
| Cost driver | TeamMate | Diligent One Platform |
|---|---|---|
| Implementation | Fixed-price Foundation package; $15,630 after a $6,000 discount for Norman’s two users | Onboarding fee of $5,000 to $25,000-plus per Vendr; Diligent’s consultants deliver implementation |
| Additional products or solutions | Controls and Risk & Compliance are each their own line beyond Audit | Each solution beyond Audit Management, and most toolkits, are priced separately |
| Analytics or AI | TeamMate Analytics bundled into at least one Essentials quote; eLearning runs $1,071.20 | Workflow robots and AI editing require a Professional subscription; Analytics is licensed separately |
| Additional users or licenses | Per named user by edition; no public per-seat discount schedule found | Restricted user licenses with added fees are a recurring Gartner Peer Insights complaint |
| Renewal escalators | Not publicly stated; renewals in the record were sole-source or single-tender | 3% to 5% a year, per Vendr |
| Data export after termination | Export format not described on the pages read; get it in writing beforehand | 30 days of access after termination; the system may be destroyed 90 days later |
Head to head: the scorecard
Both scorecards use the 12 areas described in how we review audit software and come from the site’s TeamMate review and Diligent One Platform review, not from a side-by-side test. TeamMate scores six Strong and six Adequate; Diligent One scores seven Strong, four Adequate and one Limited.
| Area | TeamMate | Diligent One | What decides it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Risk assessment and planning | Strong | Strong | TeamMate’s continuous risk assessment and multi-year plan against Diligent’s Assurance Plans and Assessment Drivers, which score risk from analytics results |
| Engagement workflow | Strong | Strong | Thirty years of TeamMate templates and TeamStore content against Diligent’s Workplan and Internal Control workflow types |
| Workpapers and evidence | Strong | Strong | TeamMate’s Document Linker and real-time sign-off against Diligent’s five sign-off levels and preserved activity log |
| Issues and follow-up | Adequate | Strong | TeamMate reviewers report no batch edit or sign-off and one assignee per request; Diligent adds Results triggers for aging and escalation |
| Reporting | Adequate | Adequate | “Inadequate Reporting” is TeamMate’s top G2 complaint; Diligent’s Reports app is retiring for Activity Center, still unsettled |
| SOX and controls testing | Adequate | Adequate | Both test controls competently on their own template but lack the program-level depth Optro and Workiva sell |
| Analytics and automation | Strong | Strong | TeamMate Analytics is a bundled Excel add-in; ACL Analytics, Robots and Results are the reference implementation for full-population testing |
| AI features | Adequate | Adequate | TeamMate has shipped one checkable writing assistant; Diligent’s broader roadmap is mostly early access or regional |
| Quality program support | Strong | Adequate | TeamMate’s Business Rules Engine and methodology templates outweigh Diligent’s sign-offs, which have no documented QAIP metric set |
| Auditee experience | Adequate | Strong | Diligent’s Task Manager lets action owners update status without a full license; TeamMate auditees report one assignee per request |
| Administration, integrations and security | Strong | Strong | TeamMate’s FedRAMP listing is independently verifiable; Diligent’s GovCloud FedRAMP Moderate and DoD IL5 claims rest on vendor documentation |
| Cost and contract | Adequate | Limited | TeamMate has itemized public quotes even though implementation outweighs the subscription; Diligent has no audit-specific price at all |
| Vendor viability | Strong | Stable owner, open sale question | A public company with no private-equity exit clock against owners exploring a sale near $7 billion since November 2024 |
Six Strongs to seven is close, and the pattern is the useful part. TeamMate’s two weakest areas next to Diligent, issues and follow-up and auditee experience, are both about what happens after a request goes out, exactly the operational plumbing Diligent’s Results and Task Manager are built to automate. Diligent’s two weakest areas next to TeamMate, quality program support and cost and contract, are about methodology enforcement and price transparency, exactly what a smaller product inside a public, stable-revenue company tends to do well. Read the pattern as a genuine trade-off rather than a scoreline: a function that will use Results and Task Manager in earnest gets more for the same weak spots elsewhere; a function that wants price certainty and methodology control out of the box gets more from TeamMate.
Fit by situation, side by side
The eight situations are the same ones used on every review and comparison in this guide, so the ratings below match what TeamMate’s and Diligent One’s own reviews already carry. TeamMate rates Strong fit in six situations and Workable in two; Diligent One rates Strong fit in six and Workable in two, but not the same six.
| Situation | TeamMate | Diligent One | Why the difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| First system for a small team (1 to 5 auditors) | Strong fit | Workable | TeamMate has a published two-user quote; Diligent markets a four-week Quick Start but no public small-team price |
| Mid-size function (6 to 25 auditors) | Strong fit | Strong fit | Both vendors’ core market; the decision turns on analytics need, not capability |
| Large or global function (25+ auditors) | Strong fit | Strong fit | TeamMate claims 150 countries with regional data centers; Diligent’s on-premise Robots Agent suits data that cannot leave the network |
| SOX-heavy public company | Workable | Workable | Neither product’s SOX layer matches Optro’s or Workiva’s program-level depth |
| Bank or credit union | Strong fit | Strong fit | Both carry financial-services references; Diligent’s full-population analytics is the stronger examiner story where a bank already runs one |
| Public sector, higher education or nonprofit | Strong fit | Strong fit | TeamMate’s FedRAMP listing and GSA Schedule are independently verifiable; Diligent’s GovCloud claims rest on vendor documentation |
| Analytics-heavy team | Strong fit | Strong fit | Both rate Strong, but not at the same depth: Diligent’s ACL, Robots and Results lead the category; TeamMate’s Excel add-in is bundled and adequate at Excel scale |
| Consolidating GRC across the three lines | Workable | Strong fit | TeamMate Risk & Compliance is still integrating StandardFusion; Diligent’s Risk Manager, Compliance Maps and Policy Manager already share the platform |
Only two situations split cleanly in TeamMate’s favor: a small team’s first system, and, in effect, cost predictability. Only one splits cleanly in Diligent’s favor: consolidating GRC across the three lines. The rest either move together or, in the analytics-heavy row, agree on the label while disagreeing on the depth behind it; read the reason column, not just the rating, before assuming a tie means either product will do equally well.
Total cost of ownership over five years
Building a five-year total here means treating the two sides of the table differently, because the public record does. TeamMate has two real, itemized figures at two different scales; Diligent One has none for its audit modules, only a platform-wide Vendr median dominated by board-portal deals. The table shows both, with the gap stated rather than papered over.
| Basis | TeamMate, 5-year illustration | Diligent One, 5-year illustration | Assumption and caveat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Only itemized small-team quote | $46,384.40: $6,150.88 a year for two users, times five ($30,754.40), plus the $15,630 implementation fee after a $6,000 discount | No public audit-specific quote at this scale exists | City of Norman, 28 February 2025; nothing comparable found for Diligent’s audit modules |
| Only itemized public-sector support record | $988,160 over five years for support and maintenance on existing licenses | No equivalent record found | New York State Comptroller, contract C001165, 2023; a renewal, not a new deployment, with no stated user count |
| Platform-wide Vendr median, flat, no escalation | Not usable: Vendr has no TeamMate page; its Wolters Kluwer page pools TeamMate with unrelated tax software | $131,250 ($26,250 a year times five) | Dominated by board-portal deals (72 purchases, updated February 2026) and not an audit benchmark either, but the only platform-wide figure either vendor has |
| With a typical renewal escalator | No base figure to escalate from | About $142,000 (4% a year, the midpoint of Vendr’s 3% to 5% range) | Illustrative only; excludes onboarding |
Read the gap itself as the finding. TeamMate is the only side of this comparison with a real invoice, at two different scales, from a government buyer; Diligent One’s only public figure was collected mostly from Diligent Boards, Entities and ESG customers, not audit buyers, and probably understates what an audit-specific deployment would actually cost given the platform’s analytics depth. A buyer who needs board-level cost certainty before approving either vendor will get further, faster, with TeamMate’s record than with Diligent One’s, whatever the eventual quote turns out to be once solutions, user types and toolkits are all named on the order form. The site’s internal audit software pricing guide sets both vendors’ numbers beside every other product in this section, and the vendor-neutral RFP method has the pricing schedule to send so both quotes come back comparable.
Migration between them
No public case study describes a customer moving directly between TeamMate and Diligent One in either direction, and neither vendor’s documentation claims an import tool for the other’s workpaper archive. What normally carries over cleanly to any new system is structural: the audit universe, the current-year plan, the risk and control matrix and open issues. What does not carry over automatically is the file itself, because each vendor’s sign-off history and audit trail are built for its own product, and anything written in ACLScript is Diligent-specific with no TeamMate equivalent to receive it. Diligent’s Bulk Importer will load projects, risks, controls, issues and requests from an Excel template at up to 2,000 records a batch, covering a TeamMate function’s current plan and open issues well and its narrative workpapers poorly; no equivalent bulk-import path exists in the other direction, into TeamMate.
The more common migration either vendor’s buyer actually faces is not between the two, but within one of them, off an older generation of the same product, and both vendors are mid-way through exactly that. TeamMate AM, the legacy desktop and server product, was expected to reach end of life around April 2023, per the Office of the Auditor General of Canada, which used the moment to leave TeamMate altogether for Caseware rather than upgrade to TeamMate+; a UK public body was still paying maintenance on 10 TeamMate AM licenses through March 2027, evidence that plenty of customers have not finished that move. Diligent has retired components on a similar clock since the same year: the Analytics Exchange server lost support 1 January 2023, replaced by Robots; Direct Link followed 30 June 2025, replaced by an SAP connector; the Reports app reaches end of life 30 September 2026, replaced by Activity Center; and highbond.com itself must move to diligentoneplatform.com before 16 December 2026. A buyer already on TeamMate AM or an older HighBond-era tenant has migration work to do first, and should ask for a written cutover plan. The site’s guide to implementing audit management software covers the first 120 days either direction requires.
Our recommendation
Start with what your function will actually do with an analytics layer, because that is the one factor this comparison keeps returning to. Choose TeamMate if the function wants audit depth without a GRC suite’s overhead, needs on-premise or offline deployment, values a workpaper archive examiners already recognize, or is small enough that a published two-user quote matters more than an aggressive AI roadmap. Choose Diligent One if the function already has, or wants to build, a scripted analytics practice against full populations rather than samples, needs a documented FedRAMP Moderate or DoD IL5 environment today, already owns an ACL script library, or is trying to put risk, compliance, audit and the board on one platform.
Two situations settle the question outright. If deployment has to be on-premise or fully offline, TeamMate is the only one of the two that offers it at all. If the function’s real bottleneck is testing full populations rather than samples, Diligent’s ACL heritage, Robots and Results are built for exactly that in a way TeamMate’s Excel add-in is not. Everywhere else, and especially on SOX, where both are merely Adequate, run the demo script against your own control population before deciding on price alone, and read the 15 buying mistakes guide first: two of them, assuming a familiar name means a better fit, and signing before the AI add-ons are priced, recur in exactly this pair. If SOX is the real center of gravity, TeamMate vs Workiva and Optro vs Diligent One put the SOX-first alternative against each of these two directly, and Optro vs TeamMate covers the third audit-first shortlist most buyers run.
Questions about TeamMate and Diligent One
Is TeamMate the same as TeamMate AM?
No. TeamMate AM is the legacy desktop and server product; TeamMate+ Audit is the current web platform. According to the Office of the Auditor General of Canada, TeamMate AM’s end of life was expected around April 2023, although some public bodies were still buying maintenance on it as late as 2024.
Is Diligent One the same as HighBond, ACL or Galvanize?
Yes, in the sense that they are the same product line under successive names. Diligent acquired Galvanize, the company ACL Services became after combining with the Rsam GRC platform, in April 2021; the resulting cloud platform was called HighBond until it was renamed Diligent One Platform on 31 January 2024. ACL Analytics is still sold as the desktop analytics tool inside the platform, now at version 19, and ACLScript still runs in ACL robots.
Which is cheaper, TeamMate or Diligent One?
The public evidence says TeamMate, but the comparison is lopsided rather than close: TeamMate has an itemized quote of $6,150.88 a year for two users, while Diligent has no audit-specific public price at all, only a platform-wide Vendr median of $26,250 a year drawn mostly from board-portal deals. Get both vendors to quote the same modules and user counts before assuming either figure applies to your function.
Which has the better analytics, TeamMate Analytics or ACL?
For full-population, scripted testing, ACL Analytics: it runs its own scripting language plus Python, schedules work through Robots and turns exceptions into a tracked workflow through Results. TeamMate Analytics is a genuinely useful Excel add-in with more than 180 documented tests, bundled at no extra cost in at least one small-team quote, but it is limited by Excel’s own scale. A function that wants the Excel tool at a lower price, or the scripted engine at a higher one, is choosing correctly either way.
Is either one FedRAMP authorized?
TeamMate has the more independently verifiable record: the FedRAMP Marketplace lists TeamMate Audit and Controls as authorized at the Moderate impact level, agency path, since 13 May 2022, though TeamMate’s own product page still describes FedRAMP as upcoming. Diligent states its GovCloud carries FedRAMP Moderate and DoD IL5 for federal implementations, but that is Diligent’s own documentation; a FedRAMP Marketplace listing for Diligent One could not be independently confirmed, so ask Diligent for the authorization package directly.
Which is better for a small audit team?
TeamMate, on the public evidence. Its Essentials edition, with TeamMate Analytics and hosting included, was quoted at $6,150.88 a year for two users, and the vendor says almost half its customers are small teams. Diligent markets a four-week Audit Quick Start aimed at the same size, but there is no public small-team price, and Gartner Peer Insights reviewers cite restricted user licenses with added fees as a recurring complaint. The site’s audit software for small teams guide sets both against Onspring and the rest of the field.
internalauditguide.com has no commercial relationship with Wolters Kluwer, Diligent or any other vendor named on this page. We take no vendor money, run no affiliate links and accept no sponsored placements, and no vendor saw this page before publication. Product and company names are the trademarks of their owners. Corrections: desk@internalauditguide.com.
Sources and verification
- FedRAMP Marketplace: TeamMate FedRAMP (FR2207643307) — Moderate impact, agency authorization since 13 May 2022, covering TeamMate Audit and Controls, against the TeamMate Audit product page’s own “upcoming” language (accessed 27 September 2026).
- City of Norman, Oklahoma: council agenda attachment with the TeamMate+ quote of 28 February 2025 — subscription, implementation, optional items and total (accessed 27 September 2026).
- New York State Office of the State Comptroller: single/sole source notice, contract C001165 — the five-year support and maintenance figure and the sole-source justification (accessed 27 September 2026).
- Wolters Kluwer: launch of TeamMate+ AI Editor, 2 June 2025 — the feature and its data-protection safeguards (accessed 27 September 2026).
- Gartner Peer Insights: Audit Management Solutions market — TeamMate’s 4.2-from-120 and Diligent One’s 4.1-from-148 ratings, in the same market listing (accessed 27 September 2026).
- G2: TeamMate reviews — the 4.3 rating and the counted pros and cons (accessed 27 September 2026).
- Office of the Auditor General of Canada: audit working paper software replacement project — TeamMate AM’s expected end of life and the move to Caseware (accessed 27 September 2026).
- Diligent One Platform: Trust and Compliance page — certifications, hosting regions, encryption, the 30-day extraction window and the AI data-use statement (accessed 27 September 2026).
- Diligent help center: end-of-support announcements — the AX, Direct Link, Reports app and highbond.com retirement dates (accessed 27 September 2026).
- Diligent help center: ACL Analytics 19.0 release notes — the December 2025 release, connectors and the domain and encryption cutover (accessed 27 September 2026).
- Diligent help center: ACL AI Studio release notes — the general availability date, agentic mode and the Claude 4.6 model (accessed 27 September 2026).
- Diligent newsroom: AuditAI at IIA GAM 2026 — the March 2026 launch and the vendor’s adoption-time claims (accessed 27 September 2026).
- Reuters via U.S. News, 14 November 2024 — the near-$7 billion sale exploration and the ownership dates (accessed 27 September 2026).
- Vendr: Diligent marketplace page — median, range, purchase count and the board-portal caveat, updated February 2026 (accessed 27 September 2026).
- G2: compare TeamMate vs Diligent One Platform — the head-to-head category scores (accessed 27 September 2026).
Related guides
- Internal audit software: the independent buyer’s guide — every review, comparison and buying guide in one place.
- How we review audit software — the evidence levels, the scorecard and the fit-by-situation method.
- The audit software shortlist finder — eight questions, a shortlist with the reasons from each review.
- The requirements matrix — 156 weighted requirements and vendor scoring in a free Excel workbook.
- TeamMate review — the full review: editions, pricing and what reviewers say.
- Diligent One Platform review — the full review: HighBond’s history, ACL, Robots and the 2026 AI agents.
- Optro vs TeamMate — AuditBoard’s successor against the audit classic.
- Optro vs Diligent One — GRC breadth against analytics heritage, decided by situation.
- TeamMate vs Workiva — audit-first platform against the SOX and reporting suite.
- TeamMate alternatives — what to consider before you migrate off TeamMate.
- GRC suite vs standalone audit management software — how to make the consolidation call in 2026.
- Internal audit software vs compliance automation — why Vanta and Drata are not on this shortlist at all.
- Best internal audit software — 25 platforms and tools compared by use case.
- Internal audit software pricing — real numbers, pricing models and how to negotiate.
- Types of internal audit software — audit management, GRC, SOX, compliance and analytics, sorted.
- The audit software demo script — 25 scenarios that make either vendor show, not tell.
- 15 mistakes internal audit teams make when buying software — and how to avoid each one.
- Selecting an audit management system — a vendor-neutral RFP method.
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