The top Borealis competitors: evaluating the market

Borealis is a stakeholder engagement platform used across nine published industries including oil and gas, mining, renewables, utilities, transport, government and healthcare, with strengths its own site emphasises in segmentation, reporting, grievance management and land access and acquisition, particularly in complex or politically sensitive environments. It is typically positioned as an enterprise-grade solution with a particular emphasis on analytics, stakeholder mapping and large-scale deployment.

Borealis is a capable, well-established platform for organisations that want to professionalise stakeholder engagement. Buyers comparing it with Tractivity most often weigh three things: what is included in the subscription and what is priced as an add-on, how long implementation takes, and which working hours support is delivered in.

Borealis promotes a broad range of functionality, including stakeholder mapping, sentiment analysis, reporting dashboards and structured engagement workflows. These capabilities are typically marketed as being best suited to large, mature organisations with complex governance requirements.

Borealis is sold as three packages, Essential, Professional and Enterprise, with separately priced add-ons. Its Essential package includes core stakeholder management, mapping, AI tools, a native mobile application with offline mode, a Chrome extension, unlimited engagement plans and analytics. Professional adds mass communications, SMS, team data segregation, land management, grievance and donation portals and commitment tracking. Its own G-Cloud 14 pricing document, dated May 2024, prices Smart Communications, SMS messaging, Team Data Segregation, Corporate View, Issue and Complaint Management and Social Investment separately, each with a one-time set-up fee plus a recurring annual fee.

Where Tractivity differs is the commercial shape rather than the capability: one subscription, every module included, and no set-up fee per module. Ask both suppliers for a three-year total including add-ons, set-up fees and any per-user uplift.

Let's take a closer look at how Borealis' top competitor, Tractivity, compares across the key factors that most commonly influence buying decisions for Irish organisations.

Onboarding and total cost of ownership

One of the most significant practical differences between Borealis and Tractivity is the onboarding model.

Borealis requires a structured implementation and onboarding programme. Borealis’s own G-Cloud 14 listing, in a pricing document dated May 2024, records a one-time service fee of £14,550 covering data gathering, configuration and user training, separate from subscription costs and add-on module fees. The same listing records subscription pricing of £1,137 to £2,674 per user per year. This is separate from subscription costs and any additional module fees.

Borealis’s own published position is that “a typical implementation” takes “a few weeks for a full enterprise rollout (including data migration and training)”, and that “most teams begin logging stakeholder data in Borealis within days of configuration”. Timelines on any platform stretch where data migration, custom configuration and user enablement are extensive, so ask both suppliers for a worked plan against your own data. This can make Borealis difficult to justify for programmes that need to move quickly or demonstrate early value, including Irish capital projects subject to NDP delivery timelines.

Tractivity takes a different approach. All onboarding, setup, and tailored training are included at no additional cost. Typical implementations complete within four to six weeks, including configuration, data migration and team training. Pricing is transparent and starts from €10,995 per year, with all modules and future upgrades included.

This difference alone often changes the commercial conversation, particularly for Irish local authorities, semi-state bodies and mid-sized organisations operating under tight delivery timelines and public spending scrutiny.

Modules versus complete functionality

Borealis' modular commercial model also affects day-to-day value. Core subscription pricing does not always include all engagement and communication functionality, meaning organisations may need to license additional modules to manage communications, handle issues and complaints, or segregate data across programmes.

An alternative approach is to retain Borealis for stakeholder analysis while continuing to use separate communication tools available elsewhere in the market. However, this typically introduces additional subscription costs, the need for complex integrations, and increased operational overhead. Where stakeholder records sit in more than one system, an Irish organisation will want a data processing agreement, a transfer basis and a retention position for each one, so it is worth asking every supplier in a shortlist to set those out in writing.

Tractivity includes all core engagement functionality as standard, with all stakeholder interactions captured and managed within a single, central system. Communications, newsletters, consultation surveys, event and workshop management, contact management, stakeholder mapping and reporting and full engagement history are all built directly into the platform, with unlimited use and no add-on fees.

Because these communication and engagement tools are native to Tractivity, there is no need to purchase additional third-party subscriptions or manage complex integrations. This not only simplifies delivery for teams but also ensures that stakeholder data remains in one secure, governed environment, removing concerns around data sovereignty and oversight for DPOs and information governance officers.

This all-inclusive model significantly reduces procurement friction, avoids incremental cost growth, and gives organisations confidence that all engagement activity is consistently captured, auditable and compliant, without having to decide which aspects of engagement they can afford to switch on.

Adoption, usability and internal capacity

Borealis’s own published position on usability is that “even non-tech-savvy users will find Borealis intuitive and easy to use” and that “if you can use basic office software, you can use Borealis”, and its Essential package is aimed at “smaller teams or those just starting their stakeholder management journey”.

Adoption is worth testing rather than assuming. Ask both suppliers how many named users a comparable client has live, who maintains the reporting models, and what proportion of engagement records are created by non-specialist staff.

Tractivity is designed for everyday use by non-technical users, without sacrificing capability. Project managers, engagement officers, communications teams and senior stakeholders can all work confidently within the system without specialist training or reliance on administrators.

The platform includes comprehensive stakeholder mapping and analysis tools, allowing teams to understand influence, interest and relationships, track sentiment over time, and see how engagement activity is landing across different audiences. Engagement plans and structured workflows help teams move from intention to action, ensuring engagement activity is planned, delivered and reviewed consistently across programmes.

Tractivity also supports dynamically generated mailing lists based on live stakeholder data, removing the need for manual list management and reducing the risk of outdated or inaccurate communications. Internal notification alerts keep users informed of engagement activity, updates or actions requiring attention, supporting collaboration and visibility across teams.

The Outlook integration allows emails and meetings to be captured directly from users' inboxes, ensuring engagement activity is recorded once and shared across the organisation. Together, this creates a collaborative environment where stakeholder engagement is easy to manage, transparent and embedded into day-to-day working rather than treated as a specialist task.

The result is broader adoption, better data quality and far less reliance on parallel systems.

Geography, support and responsiveness

Borealis is headquartered in Magog, Quebec, and has been part of Irth Solutions of Columbus, Ohio, since October 2025. Its help centre publishes hours of 9am to 5pm Eastern Time, its Master Subscription Agreement SLA lists three service windows including a Paris window, and its own G-Cloud 14 listing states “Phone support availability, 9 to 5 (UK time), Monday to Friday”. Support is offered in English, French and Spanish, and the product interface is available in five languages: English, Spanish, French, Portuguese and Arabic.

Because those published positions differ, ask Borealis in writing which hours an Irish contract would actually be serviced in, and get the answer into the contract. Tractivity’s client success and technical teams are UK-based and work Irish, UK and EU hours, with support time unmetered and uncapped.

Tractivity has both client success and technical support teams operating entirely within Irish, UK and EU working hours. Platform data is held in Europe under EU GDPR-aligned hosting arrangements. This means faster response times, easier collaboration and consistent availability during normal working hours, particularly during critical phases of delivery.

It is closely aligned with EU GDPR as enforced by the DPC in Ireland, security policies, and the regulatory environments its clients work within. This gives organisations confidence that both the platform and the support around it are designed with public sector and regulated sector requirements firmly in mind.

Support is a core part of the Tractivity offering. Time spent supporting clients is not restricted or capped, whether during onboarding, system configuration, day-to-day use or longer-term programme delivery. The ethos is straightforward: investing in client success leads to better outcomes, stronger relationships and, ultimately, recommendations to other like-minded professionals.

Update cadence and product evolution

Borealis publishes a quarterly release cycle, stating that the platform “is updated 4 times each year”, with public releases in September 2025, January 2026, March 2026 and June 2026.

New functionality in Borealis can depend on which modules a client has licensed. Tractivity releases smaller improvements, usability enhancements and feature updates every three to four weeks, with larger strategic releases quarterly, and all updates are included in the core subscription with no module-based restrictions.

Tractivity releases smaller improvements, usability enhancements and feature updates every three to four weeks, ensuring that practical changes reach users quickly. More substantial, strategically significant enhancements are delivered on a quarterly basis, allowing the platform to scale and evolve in line with more complex programme needs.

All updates and new functionality are included as part of the core subscription, with no additional charges or module-based restrictions. To ensure development remains genuinely client-led, Tractivity regularly hosts product workshops and full-day sessions where all clients are invited to attend, meet other organisations using the platform and provide direct input into the development roadmap.

Scale and suitability

Borealis positions itself for both ends of the market. Its own pricing page says its packages are “designed to grow with you, whether you’re a small team managing local initiatives or a global organization running complex and multi-site operations”, and its Essential package is aimed at smaller teams.

On cost, the comparison an Irish buyer can actually run is the published one. Borealis’s G-Cloud 14 listing, pricing document dated May 2024, records a one-time service fee of £14,550 plus £1,137 to £2,674 per user per year, with add-on modules priced separately. Tractivity publishes from €10,995 per year with all modules, onboarding, training and support included. Build both into a three-year total against your own user and project numbers.

Tractivity delivers equivalent core capability for stakeholder management alongside more comprehensive, built-in engagement tools as part of the subscription, with a lower barrier to entry and a clear focus on outcomes, adoption and governance. This makes it particularly attractive for Irish energy and infrastructure programmes, local authorities and public sector teams that need transparency, consistency and value for money, including those delivering against Project Ireland 2040 and the National Development Plan.