Checkov vs Tirith

Checkov is a free tool for scanning infrastructure-as-code files for configuration problems that could affect security or compliance. Its documented targets include Terraform, CloudFormation, ARM, Serverless, Helm, Kubernetes, and Docker. The policy library contains more than 750 predefined checks, including checks for standards such as CIS and the AWS Foundations Benchmark. Checkov can also identify common credentials in IaC files, including AWS access keys, Azure service credentials, and private keys. Teams can create custom attribute policies in Python or YAML and composite policies in YAML. Documented continuous-integration integrations include Jenkins, Bitbucket Cloud Pipelines, GitHub Actions, and GitLab CI. Add-ons for Visual Studio Code and JetBrains provide real-time scanning and inline fixes. Installation is documented through pip and Homebrew, with Homebrew specified for macOS or Linux. The project supports Python 3.9 through 3.13 and is distributed under the Apache-2.0 license. Prisma Cloud extends Checkov with runtime scanning, visibility, native VCS integrations, drift detection, and pull request annotations. Alpine is not officially tested or supported; it requires Python 3.11 or later.

Tirith is a free, open-source Linux command-line tool that evaluates infrastructure documents against declarative JSON policies. It reports passed and failed rules together with the affected resource and value. Its pipeline gate checks Terraform plan output and can return a nonzero exit code when a policy violation appears, before infrastructure changes are applied. Documented inputs include Terraform plans and state, Kubernetes manifests, Infracost breakdowns, and other JSON documents. Policies can use providers and evaluators such as ContainedIn, Equals, and RegexMatch, while the provider architecture can be extended for other formats. Local evaluation runs on the user’s runner, and the project says policies and documents are not sent elsewhere. Optional organization mode checks plans against StackGuardian policies and uploads a masked document. Tirith documents GitHub Actions, GitLab CLI use, Bitbucket Pipelines, other CI, and local execution. OpenTofu plans work like Terraform plans for the documented gate.