AWS Threat Composer vs OWASP Threat Dragon
AWS Threat Composer
awslabs.github.ioOWASP Threat Dragon
threatdragon.comSide by side
| Figure | AWS Threat Composer | OWASP Threat Dragon |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | — | Free |
| Free plan | — | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | — |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 0 | 1 |
| Spec score · Threat Modeling Software | 7.9 (#4) | 7.9 (#6) |
| Purpose | Threat Composer is a threat modeling ecosystem for identifying security issues and developing strategies to address them in the context of a system. | Threat Dragon creates threat model diagrams and lists threats for diagram elements as part of a secure development lifecycle. |
| Support | The project directs users to GitHub Issues and GitHub Discussions for bug reports, feature requests, and questions. | The project directs users to its mailing list, OWASP Slack channel, GitHub issues and public discussions for questions, bugs and feature requests. |
Plans
In their own words
AWS Threat Composer
AWS Threat Composer is a threat-modeling project for identifying security issues and developing ways to address them. Its structured threat grammar offers adaptive suggestions for composing threat statements. Models can include architecture and data-flow diagrams, tracked assumptions, links between threats and mitigations, and an insights dashboard with quality metrics and improvement suggestions. Users can manage multiple models and export them as JSON, Markdown, DOCX, or PDF. The web application stores data in the browser, supports import and export, and is available as a hosted demo or as a static site deployed in an AWS account. The VS Code extension in AWS Toolkit edits .tc.json files, works offline, and stores data locally. A browser extension displays threat model files on GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, and Amazon CodeCatalyst; it is read-only and requires internet access for web-hosted files. The AI-assisted CLI and MCP server can analyze source code to create starter models, but the tools are experimental. They use AWS Bedrock, and inference costs apply.
OWASP Threat Dragon
OWASP Threat Dragon creates threat-model diagrams and records threats associated with diagram elements as part of a secure development lifecycle. Diagrams can represent processes, data stores, actors, data flows and trust boundaries. It supports STRIDE, LINDDUN, CIA, CIA-DIE, DIE and PLOT4ai threat categories. A rule engine can propose threats and mitigations based on properties of diagram elements. Threat Dragon can run as a containerized, self-hosted web application or as a desktop app with installers for Windows, macOS and Linux. The web app supports local file storage and configurable access to GitHub, GitHub Enterprise, Google Drive, Bitbucket, Bitbucket Enterprise and GitLab; the desktop app saves models locally. The project lists Apache License 2.0. Analytics are disabled by default and require server configuration. The project is volunteer-maintained and notes that immediate investigation or response to incidents is not always possible. Threat Dragon is listed at free, with no paid plans or usage limits stated.