Clair vs Sysdig Secure

Clair is a free, Apache 2.0-licensed open-source service for static vulnerability analysis of OCI and Docker container images. It runs self-hosted on Linux and exposes an API: clients submit image manifests, Clair indexes their layers, scans image contents, and returns a persisted IndexReport. Analysis examines image contents rather than runtime behavior. Content-addressed OCI manifests and layers help avoid duplicate indexing. Clair continually ingests security data, while matcher requests provide current vulnerability analysis for an IndexReport; its notifier checks indexed manifests when new vulnerabilities appear and follows configured actions. The documented support matrix includes Ubuntu, Debian, RHEL, SUSE, Oracle, Alpine, AWS Linux, VMware Photon, and Python base containers. Clair v4 uses ClairCore as its analysis engine. Release 4.9.0 notes NVD 2.0 JSON feeds for CVSS enrichment and SPDX 2.3 encoding for index reports. The README lists a mailing list, IRC channel, and GitHub issues for community contact, and directs users to releases because the main branch may be unstable or broken. The listed plan is free.

Sysdig Secure is a cloud-native application protection platform for cloud environments, containers, Kubernetes, hosts, and serverless workloads. It uses runtime insights to prioritize risks that are exploitable in a customer’s environment. Threat detection runs in real time using Falco rules, machine learning, and drift control; vulnerability scanning is available with agent-based or agentless approaches and prioritizes vulnerabilities in use. Cloud Attack Graph connects vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and excessive permissions to map potential attack paths. Sysdig Sage is an AI assistant for security search, vulnerability management, threat investigation, and response. The platform connects to AWS, GCP, and Azure, and documents integrations including Git, Jira, Snyk, Docker Scout, Splunk, Elasticsearch, and Syslog. Sysdig describes support for on-premises, air-gapped, and private cloud environments. Deployment is hybrid, with licensing based on hosts or compute instances for CSPM. The documented agent supports Linux distributions and Windows Server 2019 and later; the vulnerability CLI scanner is available for Linux and macOS. Pricing is by quote rather than displayed.