Bandit vs Microsoft DevSkim
Bandit
github.comMicrosoft DevSkim
github.comSide by side
| Figure | Bandit | Microsoft DevSkim |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | Yes | — |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | — | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 2 | 1 |
| Spec score · Static Application Security Testing Software | 9.0 (#1) | 7.9 (#12) |
| License | The project is distributed under the Apache License 2.0. | DevSkim is licensed under the MIT License. |
| Purpose | Bandit scans Python code to find common security issues by building an AST and running plugins against its nodes. | DevSkim provides IDE plugins, language analyzers, and rules for security linting and static source-code analysis. |
| Security reporting | The security policy directs vulnerability reports to GitHub's private vulnerability reporting and asks reporters to inform Tidelift security. | The project asks users to report vulnerabilities privately to Microsoft's Security Response Center rather than through public GitHub issues. |
| Support | The documentation links to the GitHub issue tracker and a Bandit Discord community. | Support is limited to GitHub issues and the project wiki resources listed in its support policy. |
Plans
In their own words
Bandit
Bandit is free software for finding common security issues in Python source code. It builds an abstract syntax tree from scanned files and runs plugins against that tree, then produces a report. A JSON baseline can exclude findings that a team considers non-issues. The project is distributed through PyPI and recommends installation with pip. It runs on Linux and macOS and can be used in self-hosted environments. Optional installation extras add TOML support, the bandit-baseline command-line tool, and SARIF output formatting. Documentation describes pre-commit configuration and integrations with Visual Studio Code, Sublime Text, Vim, Neovim, Emacs, GitHub Actions, Jenkins, Ruff, and Flake8. A published container image supports amd64, arm64, armv7, and armv8 architectures. The project says images are signed with Sigstore Cosign and provides source-verification instructions. Bandit is licensed under Apache License 2.0, with support links to GitHub issues and Discord.
Microsoft DevSkim
Microsoft DevSkim is a free, MIT-licensed toolkit for security linting and static source-code analysis. It provides IDE extensions, language analyzers, and rules to help developers identify and address security vulnerabilities early. It includes built-in rules and allows teams to write their own using JSONPath, XPath, and YmlPath. Listed language support includes C, C++, C#, Cobol, Go, Java, JavaScript/TypeScript, and Python, among others. Its cross-platform .NET CLI analyzes files and directories and can be installed as a global tool or obtained as binaries for Windows, macOS, and Linux. A C# library is also available for embedding analysis in other tools. Results can be emitted as SARIF, JSON, or text; the CLI can apply suggested fixes from SARIF results and add suppression comments. The project lists extensions for Visual Studio Code and Visual Studio, and supports CI/CD in self-hosted environments. Support is limited to GitHub issues and project wiki resources. Vulnerability reports should be sent privately to Microsoft's Security Response Center rather than posted publicly.