Comparison
Velado vs Presidio: open-source SDK or ready-made app for removing client data before AI?
By Hugo Ribeiro · Updated
| Velado | Presidio | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Desktop and browser app | Open-source SDK (Python, Docker) |
| Who it's for | Accountants, auditors, lawyers, HR | Developers and data teams |
| Set-up | Install and open | pip install, spaCy language models, code |
| Files | Word, Excel, PDF (with OCR), SAF-T, e-invoices, CSV, images | Text, images, structured data (DataFrames) |
| Country identifiers | PT, ES, BR, UK, IE, US, CA, FR, MT, with checksum validation where one exists | Built-in for some countries (e.g. US SSN, UK NINO, Spanish NIF/NIE, Italian fiscal code); others need custom recognisers |
| Reversible | Yes: encrypted vault per client, one-click restore | Yes, via the encrypt/decrypt operators or a custom de-anonymiser |
| Review screen | Yes, before export | No (you build it) |
| Price | From €129/year (beta free until 31 Jan 2027) | Free (open source) |
What Presidio does well
Presidio, originally developed at Microsoft, is the reference open-source toolkit for PII detection. It combines named-entity recognition, regular expressions, rules and checksums, runs from Python to Kubernetes, and can redact text in images. Its anonymiser supports replace, redact, mask, hash and encrypt operators, and a decrypt operator to reverse encryption (documentation). Many commercial products, including some in our alternatives list, are built on it.
Presidio is honest about its limits: because it uses automated detection, there is no guarantee it will find all sensitive information. That's true of every tool, Velado included, which is why Velado shows you what it found before it exports anything.
Where Velado is different
- No code. A partner or a trainee can use it. There's nothing to install beyond the app.
- Office files in, office files out. Velado opens a Word document or an Excel workbook and returns the same file with codes, formulas and layout intact, including hidden sheets, comments and headers.
- Country identifiers with validation. Portuguese NIF and NISS, Spanish DNI/NIE/CIF, Brazilian CPF/CNPJ, UK National Insurance numbers, Irish PPS numbers, US SSNs and EINs, Canadian SINs and Business Numbers, French NIR and SIREN, Maltese ID cards: checked against their control digits where they have one.
- A vault per client. The same company gets the same code across every file of the engagement, and the mapping is encrypted with your password.
FAQ
Is Velado built on Presidio?
No. Velado's detection engine is its own, written in TypeScript so the same code runs in the desktop app and in the browser, with country-specific validators.
Can I use both?
Yes. Data teams can use Presidio in pipelines while professionals use Velado on documents. They solve different problems.
Read next
Request early access
The first 100 customers lock in the founder price for life. We reply within 1 business day.