c7n-left vs Kyverno
c7n-left
cloudcustodian.ioKyverno
kyverno.ioSide by side
| Figure | c7n-left | Kyverno |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | — | Free |
| Free plan | — | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | Yes |
| Web | — | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | — | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 0 | 2 |
| Spec score · Infrastructure as Code Security Software | 7.7 (#17) | 8.4 (#8) |
| CI integration | Its GitHub output mode reports annotations directly into pull requests. | Official documentation provides GitHub Actions workflows for testing policies in continuous integration. |
| Intended users | The documentation says c7n-left is typically run in CI systems. | The project describes Kyverno as designed for platform engineering teams and enabling security, compliance, automation, and governance through policy as code. |
| Policy language | Policies support standard Custodian filters, multiple resource types, taggable-resource filtering, and multi-hop resource graph traversal. | Kyverno supports CEL-based policy types and describes applying Kubernetes-style policies outside Kubernetes as part of its mission. |
| Purpose | c7n-left evaluates Cloud Custodian policies directly against infrastructure-as-code source assets. | Kyverno is a Kubernetes-native policy engine for defining and enforcing policy as code. |
Plans
In their own words
c7n-left
c7n-left has no write-up on Specifiction yet; its figures are above.
Kyverno
Kyverno is a free, open-source policy engine for defining and enforcing policy as code in Kubernetes. Its stable policy types can validate, mutate, generate or delete resources, and verify container image signatures and attestations. The Kyverno CLI can test policies against Kubernetes resource manifests in CI before they are applied to a live cluster. Documentation describes use with Helm, YAML manifests, GitHub Actions and GitOps tools such as ArgoCD. Kyverno is installed in a Kubernetes cluster; Helm is recommended for production, and YAML manifests are also available. A standard installation requires an admission controller, while background, reports and cleanup controllers are optional. Production installations should use high availability mode. The project supports CEL-based policy types and describes applying Kubernetes-style policies outside Kubernetes as part of its mission. Its webhooks default to fail-closed, so matching requests can fail if the API server cannot reach Kyverno. The project documents Cosign signatures for images and manifests, and lists CLI binaries for Linux, macOS and Windows.