-- ThirdPatch has secured a 2026 Global Recognition Award, with judges naming the third-party patch management platform Startup Of The Year for closing a security gap that has persisted across the managed service provider industry for years. The distinction recognizes a company that identified a narrow, overlooked problem and built dedicated infrastructure to solve it, treating third-party patching as a standalone discipline rather than a secondary feature bolted onto broader software. Judges evaluated the company alongside a wide field of applicants, and ThirdPatch stood out because its product closely matched a documented, persistent industry need.
Photo Courtesy of ThirdPatch
Industry data underscores why the recognition matters: researchers at FIRST.org project that published CVEs will approach 59,000 in 2026, with some estimates as high as 70,000 to 100,000 once AI-assisted vulnerability discovery is factored in. A separate analysis of Verizon's 2025 breach dataset found that only 26% of critical vulnerabilities listed in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog were fully remediated, down from 38% the prior year, while the median time to patch rose from 32 days to 43 days. Those figures describe an environment where operating systems are patched with reasonable consistency. In contrast, the browsers, communication tools, and utility software running on the same endpoints are frequently left exposed to attackers who exploit persistent gaps for weeks or months.
Closing A Gap The Industry Overlooked
ThirdPatch's central achievement lies in treating third-party patching as its own discipline rather than a secondary feature attached to an existing RMM. This focus distinguishes it from broader platforms that address patch updates only in passing while devoting most engineering attention elsewhere. The system works with any RMM and integrates with ConnectWise Automate, CIPP, Atera, NinjaOne, JumpCloud, and any other tool that can run PowerShell, so providers are not required to abandon existing infrastructure to close the gap. That flexibility carries weight because providers frequently switch RMM platforms or operate mixed environments across client accounts, a reality that shapes purchasing decisions across the trade.
Jeremy Oaks, Founder of ThirdPatch, worked in the MSP industry as an RMM administrator before developing the platform. This experience shaped a product designed around the daily realities of running patch programs across multiple client environments simultaneously. "Operating systems get patched because the tooling for that has existed for years, but everything else on the endpoint tends to fall through the cracks," Oaks said. "We built ThirdPatch because that gap was the source of most of the exploitable risk we were seeing, and closing it required a platform built specifically for that purpose rather than adapted from something broader."
Automation Built For Real-World Exceptions
Its package-based structure allows MSPs to nest automation the way interlocking blocks snap together, so an entire stack of client-specific applications and MSP base tools can be deployed or updated with a single command rather than dozens of separate actions. The platform's library of more than 10,000 available software packages, paired with templates for building custom applications, helps technicians standardize remediation across accounts with widely different needs. Flat-rate pricing removes the per-app and per-endpoint charges that typically make comprehensive third-party update management cost-prohibitive at scale, enabling providers to deliver consistent value without having to recalculate costs whenever a new application is added to an environment.
Set-it-and-forget-it automation only holds up if it can accommodate exceptions, and ThirdPatch's package framework was designed with that tension in mind from the outset, rather than as an afterthought added only after early adopters reported problems. Custom application support extends that same logic further, since any application with silent-install parameters can be packaged and deployed centrally while versioning and reporting remain fully intact throughout the process. "Most of the providers we surveyed during development told us the same thing, since they wanted updated programs without an unreliable agent or another portal to log into," Oaks said, adding that feedback shaped the Pro version, which installs with one line of PowerShell and can optionally discover and patch existing apps on a system.
Final Words
"The panel noted that ThirdPatch's product precisely matched a problem the MSP industry had openly struggled to solve for years," said Alex Sterling, spokesperson for Global Recognition Awards, adding that the panel's assessment centered on how directly the platform's design responded to a documented operational problem. "ThirdPatch didn't try to be everything to everyone, since it picked the hardest, most overlooked piece of the patching puzzle and built a workable solution around it, and that kind of focus is exactly what this award is meant to recognize," Sterling said. Sterling further noted that the recognition places ThirdPatch among a small group of companies whose growth stems less from market timing than from solving a problem their own trade could see clearly but had not yet addressed.
ThirdPatch's growth illustrates a broader pattern in the MSP software market, as the largest opportunities often lie in the gaps left by established, general-purpose tools that address only part of a provider's technical burden. Third-party patching was treated as a secondary concern for years, even as it became one of the largest sources of exploitable risk on managed endpoints across the industry, prompting ThirdPatch to build its entire business around closing that specific gap rather than expanding into unrelated services. Its RMM-neutral, package-based approach gives the company room to grow alongside whatever tools providers choose to run, positioning it well regardless of how the broader RMM market shifts.
About Global Recognition Awards
Global Recognition Awards is an international organization that recognizes exceptional companies and individuals for their significant contributions to their industries.
Contact Info:
Name: Alexander Sterling
Email: Send Email
Organization: Global Recognition Awards
Website: https://globalrecognitionawards.org
Release ID: 89203055
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