Cosign vs Keyfactor Platform
Cosign
github.com
Keyfactor Platform
keyfactor.comSide by side
| Figure | Cosign | Keyfactor Platform |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | — |
| Free plan | Yes | — |
| Free trial | — | Yes |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | — | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | — |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | — |
| API | — | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Code Signing Software | 8.5 (#3) | 7.9 (#10) |
| Intended users | The Sigstore integration guidance identifies open-source package managers as primary stakeholders for artifact signing and verification workflows. | The product is presented for PKI, security, infrastructure, and DevOps teams, including organizations operating across on-premises and multi-cloud environments. |
| Purpose | Cosign signs and verifies OCI containers and other software artifacts. | Keyfactor Certificate Lifecycle Automation discovers, manages, and automates digital certificates across an enterprise. |
| Support | The project directs users with issues to open a GitHub issue or ask in its Slack channel. | Keyfactor advertises PKI expertise and provides customers with a support portal. |
Plans
Keyfactor Platform
- Keyfactor Certificate Lifecycle AutomationPriced on request
In their own words
Cosign
Cosign is a free tool for signing and verifying OCI container images and other software artifacts. It can store container signatures in an OCI registry and publish generic artifacts through OCI. Supported targets include blobs, binaries, scripts, configuration files, SBOMs, WASM modules, Tekton bundles, eBPF modules, and in-toto attestations whose payloads use DSSE. Its default keyless workflow uses temporary keys held in memory, short-lived certificates from Sigstore’s Fulcio certificate authority, and entries in the Rekor transparency log. Other signing options include hardware and KMS-backed keys, encrypted keypairs generated by Cosign, and user-provided PKI. Cosign supports CI/CD signing, with guidance for GitHub Actions and GitLab CI/CD. Offline verification is possible when the image and signature materials are available locally and a trusted root is supplied. The project describes Cosign as a legacy signing system and recommends Sigstore-go for verification integrations. Its CLI-focused design has no API stability guarantees, and the documentation does not recommend it for application integration.
Keyfactor Platform
Keyfactor Platform, through Keyfactor Command, gives PKI, security, infrastructure, and DevOps teams visibility into certificates and tools to govern their lifecycle. It can inventory certificates from certificate authorities, scan networks for unknown SSL/TLS certificates, and connect to key and certificate stores. Teams can automate enrollment, renewal, revocation, and provisioning, with self-service workflows available through a user interface or API. Listed enrollment protocols are SCEP, ACME, and EST. Administrators can set role-based permissions, protect private keys with retention and storage policies, and require enrollment or approval workflows. Integrations span CI/CD, cloud, HSM, IoT, ITSM, public and private certificate authorities, and web servers. Deployment options are on premises, as a hosted certificate lifecycle service, or as fully managed PKI in a single-tenant cloud platform. Keyfactor says Command has been tested for deployments with more than 500 million certificates. A 30-day trial is offered. Pricing is available on request, and there are no per-certificate fees listed.