cfn-lint vs KICS
cfn-lint
github.com
KICS
kics.ioSide by side
| Figure | cfn-lint | KICS |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Infrastructure Testing Tools | 8.1 (#8) | 7.9 (#12) |
| Installation | The project documents installation with pip, Homebrew for macOS, or Docker. | KICS can be run as a Docker image or built from source; its documentation also provides downloadable releases for Linux, Windows, and macOS. |
| Purpose | cfn-lint validates AWS CloudFormation YAML and JSON templates against resource provider schemas and additional checks, including valid property values and best practices. | KICS is an open-source static code analysis solution that finds security vulnerabilities, compliance issues, and infrastructure misconfigurations in Infrastructure as Code. |
| Support | The project invites users to join its Discord community to discuss cfn-lint and get help. | The KICS core team can be contacted at [email protected], and the site points users to GitHub Discussions. |
Plans
In their own words
cfn-lint
cfn-lint is a free, open-source validator for AWS CloudFormation YAML and JSON templates. It checks templates against resource provider schemas and applies additional rules, including validation of property values and best practices. AWS Serverless Application Model templates are processed after transformation with AWS SAM. Users can configure built-in checks through command-line options, configuration files, or CloudFormation template metadata, and can add custom rules. Results can be emitted as quiet, parseable, JSON, JUnit, pretty, or SARIF output. Installation options documented by the project include pip, Homebrew for macOS, and Docker; supported Python versions are 3.10 through 3.14. Listed integrations include Atom, Emacs, NeoVim/Vim, Sublime, Visual Studio Code, IntelliJ IDEA, GitHub Actions, and pre-commit. The project treats complex template-value validation as best effort and does not fail merely because it cannot interpret or translate a value. The repository identifies its license as MIT No Attribution, and the plan costs nothing.
KICS
KICS is a free, open-source static analysis solution powered by Checkmarx. It scans Infrastructure as Code for security vulnerabilities, compliance issues, and configuration mistakes across Terraform, Kubernetes, Docker, AWS CloudFormation, Ansible, Helm, Google Deployment Manager, AWS SAM, Microsoft ARM, Azure Blueprints, OpenAPI, Pulumi, Crossplane, Knative, and Serverless Framework files. Its security queries can be edited, extended, or supplemented with new queries, using OPA Rego policy language. Documented CI and delivery integrations include GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Jenkins, Azure Pipelines, CircleCI, Bitbucket Pipelines, Terraform Cloud, AWS CodeBuild, pre-commit hooks, and others. A Visual Studio Code extension can scan automatically. KICS runs as a Docker image, from source, or through downloadable Linux, Windows, and macOS releases. Reports can be exported as JSON, SARIF, GitLab SAST, JUnit, HTML, PDF, CycloneDX, ASFF, or CSV. Terraform functions and environment variables are unsupported, and unofficial or custom Terraform modules are not supported.