ClearlyDefined vs licscan
ClearlyDefined
clearlydefined.io
licscan
licscan.devSide by side
| Figure | ClearlyDefined | licscan |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | — |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| macOS | — | Yes |
| Linux | — | Yes |
| API | Yes | — |
| Self-hosted | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Open Source License Compliance Software | 8.0 (#10) | 7.7 (#13) |
| Purpose | ClearlyDefined is an open source project that crowdsources the gathering, curation, and upstreaming of licensing, security, and other data about free and open source projects. | LicScan scans project dependencies for license risk and generates SBOMs and EU CRA evidence. |
Plans
In their own words
ClearlyDefined
ClearlyDefined has no write-up on Specifiction yet; its figures are above.
licscan
licscan is a free command-line tool for checking project dependencies for license risk and producing software bills of materials and EU CRA evidence. It supports Go, Node.js, PHP, Python, Ruby, Rust, and Java projects. Its configurable five-level risk model can deny, warn about, or allow licenses, with exceptions. Output formats include table, JSON, HTML, Markdown, CycloneDX, SPDX, CRA PDF, SARIF, and JUnit. CRA mode creates a PDF and an extended CycloneDX JSON SBOM containing manufacturer and product metadata. LicScan runs locally without an account, telemetry, backend connection, or phone-home behavior; the maker describes scans as deterministic for the same inputs. Its official GitHub Action can post verdicts on pull requests, fail builds for denied licenses, and upload SBOM artifacts. SARIF and JUnit outputs support other CI workflows. It runs on Linux, macOS, and Windows, with installation options including Homebrew, curl, and go install. The free open-source plan is listed at free, with $0 per scan and an Apache 2.0 license.