Manav vs Civic, SpruceID, Privado, Polygon ID
Five SSI vendors, one matrix, no marketing-speak. Each excels at something. None of them solve the agent layer the way buyers need.
The fast read
Civic, SpruceID, Privado ID, and Polygon ID are mature self-sovereign identity vendors with thoughtful primitives at Layer 1 (verified human) and partial coverage of Layer 3 (verifiable credentials). Manav builds on the same standards but extends into Layer 2 (delegation), Layer 4 (trust scoring), and Layer 5 (settlement) — the layers the agent age needs that pure SSI vendors have not yet shipped.
Vendor by vendor
Civic. Strong consumer KYC, deep crypto-native customer base. Best at: verified-human attestation for Web3 apps. Less of: agent delegation, work attestation. Use when: your buyer is a DeFi protocol that needs proof-of-personhood plus residency claims.
SpruceID. Open-standard, developer-first, donated significant tooling to the W3C ecosystem. Best at: verifiable credential issuance and presentation primitives. Less of: consumer brand, integrated trust score. Use when: you are building a custom SSI flow and want clean primitives.
Privado ID. ZK-native, strong privacy posture, on-chain credential proofs. Best at: privacy-preserving claims at protocol scale. Less of: enterprise channels, agent-native delegation. Use when: privacy is the binding constraint and your audience is on-chain.
Polygon ID. Built on Polygon's ZK stack, ecosystem-aligned with the broader Polygon developer base. Best at: composable on-chain credentials. Less of: off-chain enterprise, EU AI Act-shaped artifacts. Use when: your stack is Polygon-native.
The matrix
| Civic | SpruceID | Privado | Polygon ID | Manav | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| L1: identity | Strong | Strong | Strong | Strong | Federated (incl. above) |
| L2: delegation | Partial | No | No | Partial | Native |
| L3: attestation | Partial | Strong | Strong | Strong | Native |
| L4: trust score | No | No | No | No | Native |
| L5: settlement | No | No | No | Partial | $MANAV |
| Article 14 fit | Partial | Build-on-top | Build-on-top | Build-on-top | Native |
| Enterprise channel | Limited | Limited | Limited | Limited | Native |
The honest takeaway
Picking among SSI vendors is choosing the strongest L1/L3 primitives for your specific stack. Picking Manav is choosing a coherent stack across all five layers in exchange for being earlier on the maturity curve. The right answer depends on your timeline, your buyer, and how much you want to integrate yourself.
The good news: Manav supports any of the four vendors above as a Layer 1 anchor. You do not have to choose; you can stack.
Common objections
Buyers reasonably ask: do we have to choose? No. Most production stacks run both — the incumbent for the layer it owns, the new category for the layer the incumbent does not. The category split is real; the integration is clean; the procurement question is sequencing, not selection.
Frequently asked questions
Why not just use the incumbent for both? Because the incumbent was built for the previous problem. The fact that the workflow looks similar masks an architectural mismatch the incumbent cannot fix without rebuilding. We respect the incumbent; we do not pretend they ship the answer.
Where does the incumbent still win? In its native category. Use the incumbent where it was designed to operate; use the new layer where the new category begins. Most production stacks end up running both, with a clean handoff between them.
How long until we have to choose? You don't, mostly. The clean integration runs both side-by-side. The choice arrives only when a procurement contract forces consolidation, and by then the data on which layer is doing the work is usually clear.
Where to start
To go deeper, read manav vs w3c vc for the architectural diff and ssi without crypto headache for the broader vendor map. Most procurement teams converge on the same composition — incumbent plus the new layer — once they have walked both.
Adjacent reading
For the broader vendor map, see the HATI vendor map and the honest buyer's guide. For the architectural diff that drives the comparison, see the seven layers of trust. The three together let you compose the right stack rather than picking the wrong single vendor.
Why SSI plus a wallet is not enough
Self-sovereign identity solved the issuance and storage problem and stopped there. The user holds a verifiable credential. The verifier accepts the signature. The audit log records the verification. What SSI does not solve is the action problem. When the user delegates an agent to take action on their behalf — a procurement, a posting, a filing — SSI has nothing to say about what scope, what magnitude, or what witness applies. Manav inherits SSI's issuance primitives and adds the action layer SSI never built. The cleanest deployments combine the two: SSI for credential storage, Manav for action delegation. SSI vendors who attempt to bolt on action-level delegation discover the data model does not extend cleanly; Manav, built around the action from day one, did not have to retrofit. The lesson is architectural sequencing. Build for the action, derive the credential. Building credential-first leaves you with credentials in search of an action layer.
Pure SSI vendors built the rails. The train still has to be assembled.