Top Shadow IT Discovery Tools in 2024

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Have you ever been overwhelmed by the threat of unauthorized apps in your organization?

Unapproved apps sneaking in, unseen and uncontrolled, pose a significant threat to the enterprise's safety, compliance, and budget. The pain and agony of shadow IT are real.

The 2022 SaaS Visibility and Impact Report stated that 69% of IT executives feel that shadow IT is a significant concern for SaaS and cloud adoption.

Every hidden SaaS application is a potential risk. But this article will reveal the top shadow IT discovery tools to identify and eliminate unsanctioned applications.

To mitigate the inefficiencies and risks associated with shadow IT, an efficient system is required to give complete visibility into an organization's software assets. And you will find the right shadow IT discovery system in this list. So, without further ado, let’s get started.
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Shadow IT discovery: Why it is important?

According to a McAfee study, 80% of employees admit that they have been or are using non-approved SaaS applications to do their jobs.

Shadow IT, or using uncontrolled or unapproved apps by employees, poses substantial risks to the enterprise's cybersecurity and operational effectiveness.

Understanding the significance of shadow IT discovery is critical for reducing risks and maintaining a safe and compliant business environment.

Data Security and Breach Prevention: When staff members utilize unsanctioned apps, there is a lack of visibility into data storage, access, and encryption. This creates a significant security risk, potentially resulting in data breaches and compliance violations. Effective discovery tools safeguard sensitive data by discovering and securing unauthorized apps.

Risk assessment and mitigation: Unsanctioned cloud and SaaS apps pose deeper safety concerns, making identifying these hidden IT assets critical. Shadow IT discovery identifies apps that operate outside permitted channels, allowing enterprises to implement essential security controls.

Compliance Assurance: In an era of stringent regulations, firms must follow compliance requirements to avoid legal ramifications. Shadow IT discovery guarantees all applications comply with regulatory standards, avoiding non-compliance concerns arising from using unauthorized apps.

Operational visibility: Managing and regulating multiple apps becomes challenging without complete visibility. Shadow IT discovery offers an inventory of all SaaS apps, giving IT staff complete visibility into data storage, access, and security parameters.

Security management: Shadow IT discovery makes it easier to detect and manage new cyber risks ahead of time. IT teams can strengthen cybersecurity protections and prevent attacks by identifying vulnerabilities in unauthorized apps.
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Top Shadow IT discovery tools

77% of surveyed professionals believe their organization could benefit from embracing shadow IT solutions.

CloudEagle

CloudEagle is the leader in shadow IT and cloud discovery. It provides a complete solution for mitigating shadow IT risks. The platform helps identify and manage unauthorized apps within your IT portfolio.

CloudEagle enables you to get complete visibility and precise usage insights on applications and licenses. It allows swift onboarding and offboarding of employees and delivers centralized SaaS and user management.

You can easily identify hidden apps, eliminate redundant/duplicate apps, track usage, and configure alerts to prevent shadow IT. CloudEagle will enable you to gain complete control over your SaaS landscape, assuring compliance and enhancing security.

Thanks to its 300+ integrations, CloudEagle will provide a bird’s eye view of your SaaS stack, making shadow IT discovery easier. You can use the reports to identify applications purchased using credit cards.

Additionally, you can email the users to understand why they purchased an unsanctioned application and gauge their requirements before optimizing it. CloudEagle will also automatically organize the free, duplicate apps in your system. You can analyze the usage of these unsanctioned apps and make the right shadow IT optimization decisions.

With CloudEagle, you can be more proactive than reactive about shadow IT. You can configure alerts and receive notifications when an unsanctioned application enters your system, preventing shadow IT in its early stages.

Features

App Discovery: CloudEagle offers complete visibility into your SaaS portfolio and proactively prevents shadow IT through alert notifications for unapproved apps. It does this by integrating with internal systems and applications through API connectors.

For example, Rec Room wanted better control over its unmanaged SaaS stack. They used CloudEagle to get complete visibility by integrating it with SSO and finance tools, and they identified all apps, including unauthorized ones. They used this insight to eliminate unnecessary apps and manage shadow IT effectively.

Read the complete success story here.

Reports: You can find 44 reports with historical data on applications, vendor spend, departments, etc. ‘Purchases using credit cards’ is one of the reports where you can identify all shadow IT applications purchased without IT approval.

SaaS Spend visibility: Using CloudEagle's unified dashboard, you can comprehensively gain visibility and control over SaaS spend, usage, licenses, and users. You can then utilize the detailed data you gain to negotiate favorable deals with vendors.

Contract management: By using CloudEagle's integrated solution, you can centralize the management of contracts and invoices. You can categorize the contracts using names, tags, renewal dates, etc, and use dynamic filters to retrieve these contracts during renewals or audits.

Renewal Monitoring: Take charge of SaaS license renewals with CloudEagle's proactive renewal workflows. CloudEagle will create a renewal calendar and send alerts via Slack and email 30, 60, and 90 days in advance. You can analyze your usage, review contracts, and renew them on time using CloudEagle.

Assisted Buying: Leverage CloudEagle's skilled negotiators for streamlined vendor negotiations, evaluation of market trends, and product purchasing based on peer benchmarks. If you have a lean procurement team, you can let our experts handle your negotiations while your team can focus on critical tasks.

Nowports is a prime example of how effective this service can be. Previously lacking crucial data such as app usage and contract renewal dates, they often missed deadlines and overspent. 

CloudEagle provided access to critical usage data and timely renewal reminders, leading to a 34% reduction in their total SaaS costs.

Automated Workflows: CloudEagle's no-code procurement workflows boost transparency, minimize bottlenecks, and save time for your team. They don’t have to chase behind stakeholders for approvals.

Stakeholders will be automatically notified via Slack and email to approve the request. The progress of the request can be tracked in real-time, expediting the procurement process.

Slack Integration for Procurement: CloudEagle’s Slackbot will enable you to raise purchase requests from Slack. Each stakeholder will be notified via Slack to approve or reject the request.

You can also create a private Slack channel for collaboration. Renewals can also be managed completely from Slack, making your process effortless.

Vendor Research: CloudEagle's AI-powered vendor recommendation system enables in-depth research by comparing pricing, features, and benchmarks. You don’t have to visit external review websites; CloudEagle will display relevant reviews of vendors and enable you to connect with your peers for informed decision-making.

Cost Optimization: With CloudEagle's user-friendly dashboard, you can identify free, duplicate, and underused apps and reduce wasteful SaaS spending. This enables thorough analysis and optimization decisions for optimal resource and license allocation.

Automated User Provisioning and Deprovisioning: CloudEagle's automated workflows simplify user provisioning and de-provisioning by recommending apps based on roles and departments and allowing for easy access revocation during offboarding.

When your priority is eliminating shadow IT to optimize resources and costs, CloudEagle can be highly beneficial. Eric Silver, AVP and Head of Procurement at RingCentral highlights how CloudEagle helped them achieve a 3x return on investment by rationalizing applications, setting renewal benchmarks, and integrating teams, thereby significantly boosting efficiency.

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Additional features:

• Extensive SaaS application catalog
• Pre-negotiated vendor discounts
• Custom fields
• Workflows for Various Purchase Types
• SaaS marketplace
• Latest pricing benchmarks
• Quick onboarding procedure.

Pricing

CloudEagle offers three plans free of hidden charges.

1. Starter - $2000/month

2. Growth - $3000/month

3. Enterprise - $4000/month

Tropic

Tropic is a notable player in shadow IT discovery tools. It emphasizes streamlining SaaS procurement processes for enterprises' IT, procurement, and finance teams.

Unlike comprehensive SaaS management platforms, Tropic streamlines procurement with Fortune 500-level efficiency. Also, it provides a user-friendly interface for personalized software solutions.

Features

SaaS App Discovery: Easily find optimal SaaS apps utilizing TropicApp's intuitive platform, which is customized for discovering and suggesting tailored software solutions.

Automated Approvals: Tropic's automated system streamlines the approval process, reducing manual intervention and expediting procurement times.

SaaS Contract Management: Ensure total visibility and control over contractual agreements by centralizing all SaaS contracts with Tropic's unified interface.

End-to-end Procurement: Delegate tasks to Tropic professionals and use the platform's end-to-end procurement capabilities for a hassle-free experience.

SaaS Spend Optimization: Tropic's streamlined procurement and automated procedures help optimize SaaS expenditure, saving time and resources while maintaining cost-effectiveness.

Pricing

TropicApp has three price tiers: essentials, plus, and premium. For tailored pricing, users must directly contact the TropicApp team.

BetterCloud

BetterCloud is another prominent shadow IT discovery tool. The SaaS management platform reduces security vulnerabilities by eliminating unauthorized or unnecessary third-party applications.

It provides you with a comprehensive platform for streamlining administration, strengthening security, and optimizing operations across numerous SaaS apps.

With an emphasis on improving visibility and control, BetterCloud enables IT teams to navigate the complex world of SaaS applications easily.

Features

Consolidated SaaS visibility: BetterCloud offers centralized administration to manage numerous SaaS apps easily. Gain complete visibility and control of all SaaS applications.

Informed Decision Making: Enhance decision-making with BetterCloud's powerful reporting and alerting features. Thereby enabling data-driven insights for optimal SaaS usage and management.

Proactive Security Measures: BetterCloud automatically discovers and handles risky application access. As a result, ensure proactive protection against internal and external threats.

Cost-effective Optimization: Optimize spending by identifying and combining redundant/ duplicate applications, resulting in lower operating costs and greater resource efficiency.

Automated efficiency and customization: Streamline processes using automated workflows to save time and enable customization based on individual business demands and an efficient user experience.

Pricing

Users must contact the team to know more about the pricing.

Zluri

Zluri, an all-in-one SaaS management platform, is dedicated to helping enterprises eliminate shadow IT and streamline SaaS management processes.

Zluri streamlines procurement, automates user onboarding/offboarding and ensures compliance with security and data protection standards by offering total insight into SaaS apps used inside an organization.

Features

Direct Integration with Apps (600+ SaaS apps): Zluri easily interfaces with more than 600 SaaS apps, giving businesses comprehensive details on how each app is used. This enables more efficient data access, licensing management, and audit recording, which improves overall visibility and control.

Single Sign-On (SSO) and Identity Providers (IDP): Zluri enables streamlined authentication processes by integrating easily with SSO and ID providers, including Azure Active Directory, Okta, and Google Workspace. Zluri enables complete supervision of SaaS usage within the enterprise by tracking app users, departments, and hierarchy.

Expense and Finance Management Systems Integration: Zluri tracks all SaaS apps employees purchase by integrating with expense and finance management systems- Quickbooks and Netsuite. This integration offers useful transaction details, enabling businesses to correlate SaaS usage with financial data for better cost control.

Desktop Agents: Zluri provides optional desktop agents for SaaS discovery and monitoring vital information like installed apps and device details. While unnecessary, desktop agents provide visibility by gathering app use and device-level data, contributing to efficient SaaS management.

Browser Extension: Zluri monitors browsing behaviors to identify SaaS apps utilized inside the enterprise. It has optional browser extensions that work with Chrome, Firefox, Microsoft Edge, and Safari. These extensions provide significant information regarding website traffic, allowing for more informed decision-making.

Pricing

Zluri offers three pricing tiers: Starter, Growth, and Enterprise. For specific details, users need to contact Zluri's team directly.

Flexera

Flexera One is a comprehensive IT management solution that provides complete visibility across on-premise, SaaS, and cloud-based environments. With an emphasis on risk mitigation, cost reduction, and eradicating shadow IT, it emerges as a strategic asset for enterprises.

Its capabilities include discovering and optimizing SaaS subscriptions, negotiating deals with providers such as Microsoft and Google Workspace, and automating IT spend monitoring.

Features

SaaS Portfolio Optimization: Flexera One identifies and eliminates unused SaaS subscriptions. This allows businesses to manage and maximize the performance of their SaaS portfolio effectively.

Renewal Management: Easily handle renewals with significant SaaS vendors like Microsoft and Google Workspace. Use Flexera One's features for strategic negotiation and cost savings.

Shadow IT Reduction: Address unauthorized software and cloud services efficiently. Provide excellent visibility and control methods to help limit associated risks.

IT Spend Monitoring: Get a simple yet comprehensive overview of IT expenses. Access data-driven insights for negotiating and optimizing spending on-premise and in the cloud.

Holistic IT Infrastructure Management: Gain unparalleled visibility into on-premises, SaaS, and cloud environments. With an emphasis on minimizing risks, cost reduction, and the eradication of shadow IT, Flexera One is a strategic asset for comprehensive IT management.

Pricing

Contact the team to get a customized quote.

Snow Software

Snow's SaaS management solution provides complete insight into known and unknown apps. It analyzes usage data from web browsers and API connectors to identify redundant subscriptions and reduce risks and expenses.

Snow is a powerful IT discovery tool that discovers sanctioned, alternative, and risky apps while offering comprehensive usage details. It improves visibility in hybrid cloud systems, optimizes resource allocation, and reduces costs.

Features

Complete IT Visibility: Snow provides complete visibility, allowing enterprises to reduce risks and make strategic decisions based on comprehensive insights.

Snow Commander: This feature gives a holistic perspective of the entire technological estate, facilitating better governance and decision-making.

Adoption Tracker: It provides real-time insights while monitoring and optimizing SaaS use, guaranteeing optimum resource allocation.

Asset Discovery and Inventory: Snow reduces IT blind spots, improving governance and compliance.

Snow SaaS Management: Effectively detects and manages SaaS applications, giving enterprises control and agility.

Pricing

Snow software offers three bundles - SaaS Excellence, ITAM Excellence, and Complete Tech Intelligence with FINOPS. So you may Contact the team for customized pricing depending on your organization's needs.

Productiv

Productiv transforms data breach monitoring for businesses by expanding its scope beyond login and data loss. It enables more precise tracking of employee app and feature engagement.

This platform also includes segmentation and benchmarking tools, enabling corporate networks to evaluate their SaaS app portfolio and user engagement compared to industry rivals. Productiv's extensive portfolio of tools enables teams to improve collaboration, organization, and productivity.

Features

Comprehensive Discovery and Visibility: Productiv offers a complete discovery mechanism that provides enterprises with unmatched visibility. This ensures enterprises have a complete view of their SaaS ecosystem.

Actionable Alerts for New SaaS Apps: Productiv's proactive alerting makes it possible for IT teams to discover and handle newly set up SaaS applications in the IT environment. This feature keeps enterprises ahead of the curve when managing their burgeoning app ecosystem.

Granular Insights on App Usage: Productiv provides detailed information on app usage that goes beyond basic analytics. Users can drill down into data by user, feature, team, and other criteria, offering a more detailed picture of how apps are used within the business.

Benchmarks and Segmentation: Businesses can compare their SaaS portfolio and user engagement to those of their industry competitors by using Productiv's benchmarks and segmentation. This data-driven strategy allows for strategic decision-making.

Deep Integrations for Real Employee Engagement: Productiv is a leader in deep integrations, which go beyond traditional analytics to track true employee and feature engagement. This feature allows for a more accurate assessment of how teams engage with their SaaS solutions.

Pricing

Productiv offers customized packages to meet the specific requirements of each business. For a personalized quote, you must contact the Productiv team directly.
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Conclusion

Shadow IT discovery tool is essential for organizations. It optimizes your stack, minimizes data risks, and minimizes expenses related to unauthorized applications.

Choosing the right tool depends on your specific needs and requirements, and the cost varies depending on the size of employees and annual software spend.

The tools listed in this article have superior features that can help eliminate shadow IT from the firm. However, CloudEagle emerges as the best shadow IT discovery solution compared to the tools mentioned.

It offers comprehensive features for mitigating the risks of shadow IT, ensuring complete visibility of the SaaS stack, security, compliance, and cost optimization. With configurable alerts and integrations, CloudEagle ensures you identify and eliminate shadow IT in its early stages.

Schedule a demo with CloudEagle today.

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