Permissions tell you what's possible. Activity tells you what happened.
DSPM platforms like Wiz, Cyera, and Sentra analyze data posture: where sensitive data lives and who could reach it. reCost analyzes access activity: who actually touched what, when, and how. Different questions - most teams need both answered.
Book a DemoPosture-based DSPM vs. activity-based access intelligence
| Permissions-based DSPM | reCost - activity-based | |
|---|---|---|
| Core question | Who could access this data? | Who did access this data? |
| Data source | Cloud configuration, IAM policies, data scanning | S3 server access logs + inventory |
| Sensitive data discovery & classification | Yes - core capability | No - pairs with your DSPM's classification |
| Actual access history per object | Not from permissions alone | Yes - every read, by every identity |
| Stale credentials still in use | Flags unused permissions | Shows dormant identities actively reading data |
| AI agent behavior monitoring | Not activity-based | Yes - fingerprinted from access patterns |
| Vulnerable SDK detection | Varies by platform | Yes - SDK versions observed in live requests |
| Query & pipeline observability | No | Yes - same logs, data engineering lens |
| Deployment | Varies; often requires scanning access to data | Agentless, read-only, metadata only |
DSPM characterization based on publicly available product documentation of the category. Capabilities vary by vendor.
Posture plus activity
Your DSPM tells you a bucket holds sensitive data and forty identities can reach it. reCost tells you three of them actually did last month - one of which was an AI agent on a deprecated SDK, at 3am, for the first time ever. Posture scopes the risk; activity catches the event.
reCost and DSPM, answered
Is reCost a DSPM?
No. DSPM platforms discover and classify sensitive data and analyze who could access it based on permissions and configuration. reCost analyzes S3 access logs to show who actually accessed what. The two approaches answer different questions and are complementary.
Does reCost replace Wiz, Cyera, or Sentra?
No. Those platforms cover posture: data discovery, classification, and permission analysis across clouds. reCost covers activity: the request-level record of every read and write in S3. Many teams run both - posture tells you the blast radius, activity tells you what happened.
Why isn't permission analysis enough?
Permissions describe what is possible, not what occurs. A correctly-permissioned identity can still exfiltrate data, a stale credential can still be in active use, and an approved AI agent can still read far more than intended. Only access activity shows these.
Start with proof,
not a pitch.
Scoped read-only role, 30-day lookback, results in 48 hours.