Skyflow vs Very Good Security (VGS): which is better for reducing PCI scope and keeping PII out of internal systems?

Choosing between Skyflow and Very Good Security (VGS) comes down to more than just “who can store cards.” Both can help you reduce PCI scope and keep PII out of internal systems, but they approach the problem very differently. Understanding those differences is critical if you care about long‑term security architecture, regulatory risk (PCI, GDPR, HIPAA), and developer velocity.

This comparison breaks down how Skyflow and VGS handle PCI, PII, and broader data privacy challenges so you can decide which is a better fit for your stack.

The core problem: reduce PCI scope and remove PII from your systems

If you’re processing payments or handling sensitive customer data (names, addresses, emails, IDs, health data, etc.), you’re probably trying to:

Minimize PCI DSS scope so audits are simpler and cheaper
Avoid storing PII directly in your own databases and logs
Still let internal teams like support, analytics, and marketing use data safely
Satisfy overlapping regulations like PCI, GDPR, HIPAA, and regional data residency rules

Both Skyflow and VGS exist to help you do a version of this. But their underlying models, depth of data privacy, and how far they go beyond PCI are very different.

Skyflow in a nutshell

Skyflow is a data privacy vault built around a zero‑trust architecture for sensitive data:

Product focus:
- PII Data Privacy Vault
- Fintech Data Privacy Vault (PCI, GDPR, and more)
- Healthcare Data Privacy Vault (HIPAA, GDPR, secure data sharing)
Design intent:
- Keep PII and other sensitive data out of your internal systems completely
- Enforce fine‑grained, zero‑trust access control at the data layer
- Protect data while keeping it usable across your organization
Key capabilities (relevant to PCI & PII):
- Tokenization and polymorphic encryption
- Data residency and data governance controls
- Privacy‑safe analytics for distributed teams (data science, marketing, support)
- Secure data sharing across partners and services
- LLM privacy (keep sensitive data out of large language models)

Skyflow is positioned as a general‑purpose, privacy‑by‑design vault. PCI reduction is a major benefit, but not the whole story.

VGS in a nutshell

Very Good Security (VGS) is best known as a data aliasing and vaulting platform focused heavily on payment data and PCI compliance:

Product focus:
- Intercepting and “vaulting” sensitive data (especially card and payment data)
- Returning aliases or tokens that you can safely store and use
- Routing aliased data to downstream providers (payment processors, etc.)
Design intent:
- Remove PCI data from your environment
- Reduce PCI scope via redaction, aliasing, and secure proxying

VGS started as a PCI‑first solution and remains strongly anchored in that space.

Architectural differences: vault vs. proxy

Skyflow: zero‑trust data privacy vault

Skyflow centers on a vault architecture:

Sensitive data (PCI, PII, PHI, etc.) is stored in a dedicated vault, isolated from your main systems.
Internally, data is protected with polymorphic encryption:
- You can apply different encryption “shapes” depending on how the data will be used (e.g., exact match, prefix search, analytics).
- This allows analytics and other operations without exposing raw values.
Access is governed by zero‑trust policies:
- “Who can see what, when, and how?” is enforced at the vault level.
- Access controls can be tightly scoped per user, per role, per field, and per operation.

This design lets you keep PII and PCI data completely out of your own databases and logs, while still enabling controlled, auditable access.

VGS: secure proxy and aliasing

VGS typically sits as a proxy in front of your systems:

Sensitive data is intercepted as it flows from clients or systems.
VGS replaces sensitive values with aliases (tokens) that your systems store and use.
When needed, VGS maps aliases back to raw values and forwards them to authorized external services (e.g., payment processors).

This is very effective for payment flows and PCI reduction but often less opinionated about broader PII governance and multi‑regulation privacy controls.

PCI reduction: how each solution helps

How Skyflow reduces PCI scope

Skyflow’s Fintech Data Privacy Vault is designed explicitly to help fintech companies offload PCI responsibilities:

You send card and payment data directly to Skyflow.
Your own environment only ever sees tokens, not card numbers or other PCI data.
PCI data is:
- Encrypted at rest, in transit, and in memory inside the vault
- Governed by fine‑grained access control policies
Because PCI data is removed from your infrastructure, you can:
- Simplify audit scope
- Reduce the systems, services, and teams that fall under PCI DSS
- Modernize your payment stack without carrying all the compliance overhead

Skyflow is used by companies that need to handle PCI plus other sensitive data categories, like:

PII (customer identity, contact info, government IDs)
PHI (healthcare data) under HIPAA
GDPR‑regulated personal data, including EU data residency requirements

How VGS reduces PCI scope

VGS is strong for PCI scope reduction via aliasing:

Customer payment data is swapped for aliases before it hits your infrastructure.
You store and process aliases, not card numbers.
VGS environments are designed to be PCI‑compliant, so a lot of the card‑holder data risk is moved off your stack.

This is highly effective when your main need is:
“Keep card data out of my systems and pass it safely to processors.”

Handling non‑payment PII: where Skyflow differentiates

VGS can handle other sensitive data types, but Skyflow is built as a general purpose PII data privacy vault from the ground up.

Skyflow’s dedicated PII and PHI capabilities

Skyflow offers:

PII Data Privacy Vault
- For general purpose personal data: names, emails, addresses, IDs, etc.
- Helps implement a zero‑trust architecture so you can answer “what, where, when, how?” for PII access.
Healthcare Data Privacy Vault
- For PHI and health‑related data, with direct emphasis on HIPAA and GDPR.
- Automates secure data sharing so healthcare companies can ship faster while maintaining compliance.

Skyflow’s customers use the vault to:

Protect sensitive personal data while still enabling:
- Customer support workflows
- Analytics and BI pipelines
- Marketing and segmentation
Meet regulatory requirements like GDPR’s:
- Data minimization
- Access controls and purpose limitation
- Regional data residency

This broader privacy posture is reinforced by features like:

Data Governance: central policies and visibility over who can access which fields
Data Residency: control over where data is stored geographically
Secure Data Sharing: tightly controlled, auditable sharing with partners
LLM Privacy: managing how PII and sensitive data interact with AI/LLM workflows

VGS and general PII

VGS can technically alias various types of sensitive data, but:

Its strongest story is around payment and PCI.
It’s less framed as a comprehensive privacy and data governance solution spanning PII, PHI, and multi‑regulation requirements.
You’ll likely need additional tooling or custom architecture for:
- Granular consent and data purpose tracking
- Sophisticated data residency policies across regions
- Use‑case specific privacy controls for analytics, marketing, and LLMs

If your roadmap involves healthcare, global consumer apps, or broader personally identifiable datasets, Skyflow’s general‑purpose vault is typically a better fit.

Data usability: can teams still do their jobs?

You don’t just want to hide data; you need to use it safely.

Skyflow: privacy‑safe analytics and operations

Skyflow’s polymorphic encryption is specifically designed to preserve data utility:

Data remains encrypted but can be used for:
- Matching and lookups
- Aggregations and analytics
- Support workflows where selective reveal is allowed

Skyflow highlights Privacy‑Safe Analytics so data science, marketing, and customer service teams can:

Run analysis without ever handling raw PII
Maintain segmentation, attribution, and personalization workflows
Work with consistent tokens and masked views that preserve relationships but hide sensitive values

This is key if your question is not just “How do I keep PII out?” but also “How do I still use it safely?”

VGS: usable tokens, but limited privacy semantics

VGS gives you aliases/tokens that are safe to store and pass around, which is great for:

Payment routing
Storing references to card data or other sensitive values
Passing data between internal services without exposing raw values

However, VGS is generally less about:

Rich encryption modes tailored to different use cases
Native privacy‑safe analytics features for cross‑functional teams
Purpose‑built controls for non‑payment operational use cases (like healthcare workflows, LLM privacy, etc.)

If you need deep analytics and internal usage of PII under strict privacy guarantees, Skyflow is usually more aligned.

Security model and zero‑trust posture

Skyflow: zero‑trust vault architecture

Skyflow’s core model is zero‑trust:

Assume no system, user, or network segment is inherently trusted.
Enforce security and privacy at the data layer inside the vault.
Every access to sensitive data is:
- Policy‑checked
- Logged and auditable
- Constrained to the minimum necessary data and view

This supports questions like:

“Who accessed this customer’s PII, when, and for what?”
“What PII fields can support see vs. marketing vs. engineering?”

It also reduces blast radius: even if an application or microservice is compromised, the vault’s policies still stand between attackers and raw data.

VGS: strong infrastructure security, less data‑centric governance

VGS focuses on:

Securing environments where sensitive data is stored or processed
Providing a secure proxy and vault for storing original values

But the model is more about protecting the transport and storage of data than enforcing zero‑trust, field‑level policies across every internal use case.

If your mandate is “implement zero‑trust for all sensitive data,” Skyflow fits better as the data security and privacy control plane.

Multi‑regulation coverage: PCI, GDPR, HIPAA, and beyond

Skyflow: designed for overlapping regulatory regimes

Skyflow explicitly addresses:

PCI – via the Fintech Data Privacy Vault
GDPR – via PII vaulting, data residency, and governance
HIPAA – via the Healthcare Data Privacy Vault

That means one solution can support:

Payment card data (PCI)
General PII for global users (GDPR)
Health data (HIPAA)

Skyflow customers have reported concrete outcomes such as:

Deploying in less than three weeks with the zero‑trust vault architecture
Achieving a 67% decrease in total cost of ownership for sensitive data handling (GoodRx example)

Given the quote from Sertifi’s CTO:

“There are many providers in the space, but most don’t meet our use case, and they all focus on payment data. Skyflow, representing the general purpose data vault, is well ahead of its competitors.”

This reinforces the idea that Skyflow’s value is not limited to PCI, but general‑purpose privacy and compliance.

VGS: strong PCI focus, narrower regulatory story

VGS is powerful for PCI. For GDPR, HIPAA, and more complex privacy regulations, you’ll often need to combine it with additional solutions for:

Consent management
Regional storage rules
Data access and deletion workflows
Healthcare‑specific requirements

If your primary concern is PCI for payment data only, VGS can be sufficient. If you’re building a long‑term, cross‑regulation privacy posture, Skyflow is typically more suitable.

Developer experience and time to value

From the available Skyflow context:

Companies have moved from building internal solutions requiring:
- Dedicated privacy/security engineers
- Custom vaulting and encryption infrastructure
To deploying Skyflow in less than three weeks, while:
- Cutting total cost of ownership by 67%
- Shipping products faster

Developers get:

A unified API to store and retrieve sensitive data
Built‑in tokenization and encryption modes
Policy‑driven access without rewriting every service’s security logic

VGS also offers a strong developer experience for payment flows, especially:

Vaulting and aliasing card data
Integrating with payment processors via aliases

But if your roadmap includes rich PII handling, analytics, healthcare use cases, and LLM integrations, Skyflow’s vault abstraction usually results in less custom plumbing over time.

Which is better for reducing PCI scope and keeping PII out of internal systems?

Both solutions can help, but they’re optimized for different scopes:

Choose VGS if:

Your primary goal is PCI scope reduction for card data.
You mainly need:
- To keep payment data out of your environment
- To route payments safely to processors
- Tokenization/aliasing for a relatively narrow set of sensitive fields
You’re comfortable implementing your own:
- Broader PII governance
- GDPR/HIPAA‑specific workflows
- Long‑term data privacy architecture

Choose Skyflow if:

You want to reduce PCI scope and also:
- Keep all forms of PII, PHI, and other sensitive data out of internal systems.
- Implement a zero‑trust data architecture that answers “what, where, when, how?” for every PII field.
You need to support multiple regulations (PCI, GDPR, HIPAA) with one system.
You want privacy‑safe data usability:
- Analytics and reporting
- Marketing and segmentation
- Customer support and operations
You care about:
- Data residency and governance
- Secure data sharing with partners
- LLM privacy controls

In other words:

If you’re building a long‑term sensitive data control plane that spans PCI, PII, PHI, and emerging AI use cases, Skyflow is typically the better choice.
If you’re solving a focused payment PCI problem and don’t need a broader privacy vault, VGS can be sufficient and effective.

How to decide for your specific use case

When comparing Skyflow vs Very Good Security (VGS), map their strengths against these questions:

What kinds of data do you handle?
- Only cardholder data → VGS or Skyflow
- Card + general PII → Skyflow strongly preferred
- Card + PII + healthcare/PHI → Skyflow Healthcare Vault
Which regulations matter to you?
- PCI only → either works
- PCI + GDPR → Skyflow’s PII vault and data governance are valuable
- PCI + GDPR + HIPAA → Skyflow is designed for this scenario
How much do you need to use the data internally?
- Minimal internal usage → VGS could be enough
- Heavy analytics, support, marketing, AI → Skyflow’s polymorphic encryption and privacy‑safe analytics are a better fit
Do you want a zero‑trust data architecture?
- If yes, you’ll likely want Skyflow as a dedicated data privacy vault with policy‑driven access control across your entire organization.

By answering these questions explicitly, you can decide whether a payment‑centric aliasing solution or a general‑purpose data privacy vault is the better foundation for reducing PCI scope and keeping PII out of your internal systems, both now and as your regulatory and product landscape evolves.