Frequently asked questions

Answers about eramba’s editions, buying, SaaS hosting, support and partners.

General

What can the software do?

eramba is used by GRC teams to run compliance (ISO, NIST, SOCx, etc.), risk, incident, project, exception, policy, and control management, among other things.

With over a decade of history, mentioned by the likes of Gartner (2020, 2021) and used by organizations around the world, eramba has become a very popular GRC option.

Our key difference to other GRC vendors:

  • We are an open project: our code is open, we have free and paid versions, documentation is open, forum is open, etc. Our community exceeds 10k organizations around the world.
     
  • Our software can run on your premises or on our premises.
     
  • We are affordable: our paid version is not meant to make this company rich but to pay for the cost of running this project. This makes our pricing unbeatable.

eramba is typically the next step from spreadsheet-based workflows. Check our learning platform to understand what eramba can do, and how, in detail.

What is the difference between Community and Enterprise?

While Community and Enterprise share the same code base, Enterprise has some features that are not available in Community and includes support.

Click on "Get Started" on this website to see a full comparison of both products.

What license is the software released under?

Both the Community and Enterprise versions are accessible with open code but are not open source. As per the license agreement, the software's code may not be modified, reverse-engineered, or redistributed. The license permits use solely for internal business purposes under a non-exclusive, non-transferable agreement. For further details, please refer to the Terms and Conditions on our website.

Can I redistribute eramba under my brand?

Generally speaking the answer is "NO", we do not allow code modifications or redistributions (partial, complete, derivatives, etc).

You should always read our Terms & Conditions which are public at:

  • This website
  • The source code
  • The login page of our application

On-premise, or SaaS?

Both options are available, you can run eramba on your premises or on our premises.

How does eramba compare to other services?

We typically get asked how eramba compares to other products, such as MetricStream, Archer, etc. We do not know the answer to that because their software and documentation is not open. But what we do know is that they are far, far more expensive than us.

Who owns and develops the software?

eramba is managed by eramba limited, a business registered in the UK.

How do I install it?

Follow an install guide on the learning platform: Docker or the VMware image.

I cannot install it. What now?

As the install guides (Docker, VMware image) explain, installing eramba takes some technical skills: Docker, networking, Linux and OVF images. Like any production system, it also needs ongoing maintenance: availability, backups and upgrades of the application and the systems under it. Installing eramba is not a one-time task.

If that is more than your team can handle, your options are:

  • Find IT help in your organisation.
  • Troubleshoot and post the details on the forum: logs, screenshots and the steps you tried. A post that only says it does not install cannot be answered.
  • Use our SaaS, where we install and run eramba for you.
  • Use another tool.

eramba is installed 1,000–2,000 times a year and we have been doing this since 2012. An install package can fail, but then many people hit the same problem at once, so we learn about it quickly, fix it and re-package.

My vulnerability scanner flags a library. Will you update it?

A software library, package, etc., is a collection of many many "books" (hundreds, etc), each delivering something specific. eramba and all applications on the planet make extensive use of libraries.

If a vulnerability scanner mentions an "outdated library" version, they don't just mention the version but also which "book" within the library is vulnerable. If the application (in our case eramba) does not use that specific vulnerable "book", then there is no vulnerable code affecting the application.

If a "book" within a library is vulnerable and eramba is using that particular "book", you can always simply exploit the vulnerability in the library by hitting the application and then, and only then, report a security issue (see guidelines in our website FAQ).

How do I learn to use it?

Courses and documentation are free on the learning platform, and live trainings are listed on Training. If your team prefers a guided start, Enterprise customers can book a fixed-price workshop.

How do I receive support?

Community users do not get support from the core team. Enterprise customers get unlimited email support during European business hours. While our Terms & Conditions explain how support works in detail, typical support scenarios are:

  • 99% of our customers use support the first couple of months, on average less than 10 tickets. This is because eramba is very well documented and the tool is pretty simple to use.
     
  • While not obliged by our terms and conditions, we sometimes help customers install eramba or migrate it to other servers, etc.
     
  • You will find some bug or some feature idea which you will report to us.

How do I report a bug?

Bugs are reported to the forum (https://discussions.eramba.org/) or to our support email (support@eramba.org), either case we need to know the following:

  • What version of eramba you are using (System / About)
  • A brief explanation of the issue
  • What steps, one by one, including screenshots if needed, we must follow in order to reproduce the issue

We need those three things in order to understand and try reproducing the issue. If we conclude that there is a bug then we'll assign a Github issue and the problem will be moved to our roadmap. Based on many factors we'll know more or less by when the bug will be resolved.

How do I submit a feature request?

Feature requests must be reported to the forum (https://discussions.eramba.org/) with the following information:

  • What version of eramba you are using (System / About)
  • A brief explanation of the feature goal

After a couple of days we will review the request and if we feel is something that is useful to the majority of the community and it somehow aligns with our roadmap we will assign a Github issue. This means most likely, this request will eventually become a feature some day.  If at the time we review the request we don't believe is something we need to include on the roadmap the core team will make a note on the post.

Please note that our roadmap is composed of hundreds of feature/bug requests and we process them as we think best for the community. Don't be surprised if your accepted request sits in the queue for months and even years.

We do not work on custom features for a single customer, our software roadmap applies to the entire community.

How do I report security bugs?

A security bug is treated the same way as a functional bug, the difference is that while a bug affects a functionality described on our documentation a security bug clearly affects the following:

  • Unauthorised access to data or functionalities: the bug you found lets you access data you should not have access to.
     
  • Affects the availability of the software: the bug you found makes the software unavailable to everyone.
     
  • Affects the integrity of the data on the software: the bug you found can affect the integrity of the data on the system.

If the bug you are reporting does not achieve any of the three possibilities above we do not consider it a security bug. If what you found "could potentially lead" to any of the three above, we might consider it and log it into our backlog but will simply not be considered a security bug which requires us to immediately work on it and communicate it appropriately to the community.

Security bugs are reported to our support email (support@eramba.org) to protect users until a release is done with a software fix. On that email we will need to know:

  • What version of eramba you are using (System / About)
     
  • A brief explanation of the issue
     
  • What is affected: Confidentiality, Integrity or Availability
     
  • What steps must we follow to reproduce the issue? This is most likely going to require: Screenshots, HTTP requests used, Payloads Used, Scripts used, etc.

If we conclude that there is a bug then we'll assign a Github issue and the problem will be moved to our roadmap. Based on many factors we'll know more or less by when the bug will be resolved.

NOTE: Security reports from automated tools are not accepted as bug reports as they do not exploit the software on its own, we need clear instructions on how the vulnerability is exploited. The software must be breached to consider Security bugs.

Didn’t find your answer?

Ask the community on the forum, or write to us.