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Features in Technical Due Diligence Tools
for Due Diligence
Solutions for evaluating startup technology stacks, code quality, scalability, technical debt, and intellectual property assets.
We ask vendors to mark their product against our feature list. It is not available for all products and in some cases we have derived data from publicly available sources. The list of features follows. Vendors can add a further 10 key features of their own.
Architecture Evaluation
Tools and features focused on reviewing software/system architecture, design patterns, and future readiness.
- API Surface Analysis
- Analyzes API surface size, versioning, and backward compatibility.
- Automated Architecture Diagramming
- Automatically generates diagrams of system/class/module dependencies.
- Change Impact Simulation
- Models potential impact of architectural changes.
- Cloud Native Compatibility
- Assesses if the architecture supports cloud-native principles.
- Data Flow Visualization
- Visualizes how data moves through the system.
- Documentation Coverage
- Measures the presence/quality of architecture documentation.
- Legacy Component Identification
- Detects outdated or obsolete technologies in use.
- Microservices Detection
- Detects presence and design of microservices in the stack.
- Modularity Assessment
- Evaluates modularity and separation of concerns in the architecture.
- Redundancy & High Availability Analysis
- Identifies points of failure and resiliency mechanisms.
- Service Dependency Mapping
- Maps out internal and external service dependencies.
Code Quality & Analysis
Capabilities for automated and manual assessment of codebases to detect issues, enforce standards, and measure maintainability.
- API for Data Export
- Availability of API for exporting scan data/results.
- Automated Code Scans
- Support for automated code quality analysis, identifying technical debt, code smells, and adherence to best practices.
- Automated Test Coverage Analysis
- Measures and reports on the percentage of code covered by tests.
- Code Review Collaboration
- Enables team-based code review, comment, and approval workflows.
- Continuous Integration Integration
- Ability to integrate with CI/CD pipelines to trigger scans automatically.
- Custom Rule Definitions
- Allows creation or editing of custom code analysis rules.
- Historical Analysis
- Ability to analyze code quality trends over time or across codebase versions.
- Issue Reporting
- Generates actionable issue and remediation reports.
- Language Support
- Number of programming languages that the tool can analyze.
- Metric Coverage
- Variety of code quality metrics tracked (e.g., cyclomatic complexity, code duplication, test coverage).
- Open Source Dependency Scanning
- Checks for open-source packages, their licenses, and known vulnerabilities.
- Refactoring Suggestions
- Offers automated suggestions or guidance for code improvements.
- Visualization
- Provides visual dashboards or charts for code quality trends and hotspots.
Collaboration & Workflow
Features to enable cross-functional teams to review, annotate, and act on due diligence findings efficiently.
- Audit Trail
- Maintains a secure record of all changes and actions for compliance/audit purposes.
- Collaboration History/Tracking
- Tracks changes, comments, and actions taken in collaborative reviews.
- Document/File Attachments
- Allows uploading and linking supporting documentation within reviews.
- In-Tool Commenting/Annotation
- Enables commenting directly on findings or code.
- Integration with Project Management Tools
- Pushes findings and tasks to external systems like Jira, Trello, Asana.
- Multi-User Access
- Allows multiple users to participate in analysis/review.
- Role-Based Permissions
- Supports granular roles and access rights.
- Task Assignment
- Assigns review tasks or remediation actions to team members.
- User Notifications
- Notifies users of mentions, assignments, or status changes.
- Workflow Customization
- Supports custom workflows tailored to specific due diligence processes.
Documentation & Maintainability
Assessment of technical documentation quality, onboarding processes, and knowledge transfer mechanisms.
- API Documentation Completeness
- Evaluates documentation for each public API endpoint.
- Automated Documentation Generation
- Supports auto-generation of code or API docs.
- Changelog Automation
- Automates changelog generation between software versions.
- Code Documentation Coverage
- Measures percentage of code adequately documented.
- Diagram Generation
- Creates diagrams for data flow, architecture, or infrastructure.
- Documentation Search Functionality
- Powerful search in all available documentation.
- Knowledge Base Integration
- Links to or includes wikis, FAQs, or internal documentation.
- Maintenance Guide Availability
- Availability of guides for system maintenance.
- Onboarding Analytics
- Tracks onboarding time and pain points for new engineers.
- ReadMe/Onboarding Quality
- Qualitative review of onboarding materials and process.
Integration & Interoperability
Features assessing the ease of integrating the technology stack with other systems and supporting interoperability.
- API Integration Support
- Assesses how many types of standardized APIs are supported.
- Authentication/SSO Integration
- Supports connection to SSO and IAM providers.
- Cross-Platform Compatibility
- Operates across multiple environments (e.g., Windows, Linux, macOS).
- Data Import/Export Tools
- Supports easy migration or syncing of data.
- Native Cloud Integrations
- Prebuilt integrations for AWS, GCP, Azure, etc.
- Plug-in Architecture
- Supports extension through plug-ins or modules.
- SDK Availability
- Availability of official client SDKs for integration.
- Standard Protocol Support
- Supports industry-standard protocols (e.g., OAuth, SAML, REST, gRPC).
- Third-Party Tool Compatibility
- Confirms compatibility with common development, monitoring, and management tools.
- Webhooks/Event Streaming
- Supports event streaming or webhook-based integrations.
Intellectual Property (IP) Analysis
Assessment capabilities targeting IP risk evaluation, software origin tracing, licensing compliance, and IP portfolio mapping.
- Code Origin Tracing
- Analyzes codebase to trace third-party, open-source, or internally developed code.
- Data Export/Reporting
- Exports data for external legal review.
- Export Control Compliance
- Assesses compliance with software export regulations.
- IP Ownership Mapping
- Maps and documents who owns or controls the codebase or platform IP.
- IP Portfolio Visualization
- Provides visual mapping of patents, copyrights, and trademarks.
- License Change Notification
- Notifies users on detected changes in license status.
- License Risk Assessment
- Identifies risky or incompatible open-source licenses in use.
- Open Source License Detection
- Detects open source usage and associated licenses.
- Patent Discovery
- Searches for pertinent patents held by the company.
- Potential Infringement Detection
- Flags possible IP infringements.
- SBOM (Software Bill of Materials) Generation
- Generates comprehensive inventories of third-party and open-source components.
Reporting & Visualization
Features supporting in-depth, accessible reporting and visual analytics for both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
- API Access for Reports
- Allows API queries to retrieve any report dataset.
- Automated Scheduling
- Enables scheduling regular reports delivery.
- Custom Alerts & Notifications
- Configurable notifications for key events/findings.
- Custom Report Builder
- Allows building custom reports from assessment data.
- Export Formats Supported
- Number of export formats supported (PDF, Excel, CSV, JSON, etc).
- Historical Data Comparison
- Supports side-by-side comparison of past and present assessment results.
- Interactive Dashboards
- Provides dynamic, filterable dashboards for different data views.
- Role-Based Views
- Customizes views/reports by user role (e.g., engineer, investor).
- Shareable Report Links
- Generates secure, shareable links for stakeholder access.
- Visualization Types
- Number of built-in chart/visualization types available.
Scalability & Performance Assessment
Tools and analysis for evaluating how the technology stack can scale to meet growth in users or data, and how it performs under load.
- Automated Load Testing
- Performs automated tests to simulate user traffic and stress on application components.
- Automated Reporting
- Generates reports on scalability and performance findings.
- Benchmark Comparisons
- Compares performance metrics against industry or historical benchmarks.
- Bottleneck Detection
- Identifies performance bottlenecks in code or infrastructure.
- Cloud Readiness Assessment
- Analyzes how applications and workloads can be migrated or operated in cloud environments.
- Concurrency Testing
- Tests how well the application handles concurrent operations.
- Latency Tracking
- Tracks response times and latencies for various system operations.
- Network Load Simulation
- Simulates network constraints (e.g. latency, packet loss) in testing scenarios.
- Peak Load Estimation
- Estimates the maximum load the system can handle before failure.
- Resource Utilization Metrics
- Monitors and reports on CPU, memory, and storage usage under various loads.
- Scalability Simulation
- Simulates and models scaling scenarios (e.g. horizontal, vertical scaling).
- Service Degradation Identification
- Detects and reports at which points the system functionality degrades under load.
- Throughput Measurement
- Measures the system's throughput under test loads.
Security Assessment
Verification and monitoring of security practices, vulnerabilities, and compliance standards within the technology stack.
- Access Control Review
- Analyzes role-based access and permission models.
- Audit Logging Analysis
- Validates logging of security-relevant events.
- Automated Patch Recommendations
- Suggests or applies patches for security vulnerabilities.
- Automated Vulnerability Scanning
- Performs security scans for known vulnerabilities in source and dependencies.
- Compliance Framework Mapping
- Assesses compliance against standards (e.g., SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR).
- Dependency Vulnerability Alerts
- Notifies when new vulnerabilities are discovered in dependencies.
- Encryption Verification
- Verifies use of encryption in transit and at rest.
- Incident Response Assessment
- Evaluates tools and protocols for incident detection and response.
- Penetration Testing
- Supports or integrates with penetration testing tools/workflows.
- Secrets Management
- Checks for secret/token exposure in code.
- Security Policy Auditing
- Checks for adherence to internal security policies.
Technical Debt Evaluation
Assessment tools focused on identifying, quantifying, and prioritizing technical debt across the codebase, architecture, and processes.
- Change Impact Tracking
- Monitors how software changes affect technical debt.
- Debt Categorization
- Classifies debt into types (e.g. design, code, architectural).
- Debt Identification Automation
- Automatically detects potential areas of technical debt.
- Debt Quantification
- Provides effort or cost estimates to address technical debt.
- Debt Tracking
- Tracks technical debt items over time for trend analysis.
- Impact Analysis
- Analyzes and reports the impact of technical debt on future development.
- Integration with Issue Trackers
- Links technical debt items to Jira, GitHub Issues, etc.
- Manual Annotation
- Allows manual input and tracking of technical debt not automatically detected.
- ROI Estimation
- Estimates potential ROI for technical debt remediation efforts.
- Remediation Prioritization
- Ranks or prioritizes technical debt based on severity and risk.
- Visualization of Debt Hotspots
- Visual maps highlighting parts of the codebase with high technical debt.