Sutro Software started life in 2005 as a consulting company specializing in Vignette Portal related software development. At Vignette Village 2008 Sutro launched the first production version of its flagship software product, Portal Spy. Portal Spy 3.0 debuted at OpenText Content World 2010.

Sutro founder John Petersen helped create one of the first enterprise portal products at Epicentric. After Epicentric's acquisition by Vignette, he managed the Vignette Portal development team before leaving to start Sutro.

Sutro Software is an official OpenText partner.