Falco vs KubeArmor
Falco
falco.orgKubeArmor
kubearmor.ioSide by side
| Figure | Falco | KubeArmor |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | — | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Cloud Workload Protection Platforms | 7.7 (#9) | 8.5 (#3) |
| Spec score · Kubernetes Security Software | 7.9 (#11) | 8.6 (#3) |
| Spec score · Container Security Software | 7.8 (#13) | 8.6 (#4) |
| Deployment | The project provides installation options for Linux hosts, Docker containers, and Kubernetes, including official Helm charts. | The support matrix documents Kubernetes, non-Kubernetes container, virtual-machine, and bare-metal workload deployments. |
| Founded | 2016 | 2020 |
| Integrations | Falco's plugins include sources for GitHub webhooks, Kubernetes audit events, AWS EKS audit events, CloudTrail logs, Docker events, Okta audit logs, and Nomad events. | Project repositories include OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, Kafka, Grafana, ELK dashboards, a GitHub Action, and a Rancher UI extension. |
| Project status | Falco is an open source project hosted by the CNCF and is described on its site as a CNCF graduated project. | KubeArmor is a community-governed open-source project and a CNCF Sandbox project. |
| Purpose | Falco provides runtime security across hosts, containers, Kubernetes, and cloud environments, detecting abnormal behavior, potential threats, and compliance violations in real time. | KubeArmor is an open-source, cloud-native runtime security system that hardens workloads and enforces security policies. |
| Support | Community support is available through Kubernetes Slack and the project's mailing list; the project also lists partner-provided enterprise offerings. | Project-level questions can be directed to the maintainer group by email, CNCF Slack, GitHub Discussions, or GitHub Issues. |
Plans
In their own words
Falco
Falco is a free, open source runtime security project for Linux and self-hosted environments. It monitors hosts, containers, Kubernetes, and cloud environments for abnormal behavior, potential threats, and compliance violations in real time. Events are compared with built-in detection rules, and users can create rules for their own environments. Sources include Linux kernel system calls, Kubernetes audit logs, cloud events such as AWS CloudTrail, and events from GitHub and Okta. For kernel event monitoring, Falco uses an eBPF driver by default and offers a kernel module for wider compatibility. Installation options cover Linux hosts, Docker containers, and Kubernetes, including official Helm charts; supported architectures include x86_64 and ARM64. Falcosidekick can forward events to more than 50 systems, including email, chat, message queues, serverless functions, and databases. Falco is hosted by the CNCF as a graduated project. Detection depends on having appropriate rules in place, while resource use varies with server load and workload. The project recommends testing performance in the target environment.
KubeArmor
KubeArmor is an open-source runtime security system for enforcing policies on cloud-native workloads. It uses Linux Security Modules such as AppArmor, SELinux, and BPF-LSM, with eBPF for alerts, telemetry, and container-process tracking. Policies can restrict process execution, file access, networking operations, and resource use. Container policies support Allow, Audit, and Block actions, with Block as the default; system-call monitoring is audit-only. Kubernetes policies can target pods through labels and label expressions, and rules can match paths, network protocols, capabilities, and system calls. The deployment matrix covers Kubernetes, non-Kubernetes containers, virtual machines, and bare-metal hosts. It lists Kubernetes environments including GKE, AKS, OKE, IKS, EKS, OpenShift, Rancher, and DigitalOcean Kubernetes, but support varies by operating system, architecture, and enforcement mode. Some environments are observability-only, and VMware Tanzu entries are under construction. KubeArmor is a community-governed CNCF Sandbox project. The free plan is free; installation guidance uses Helm and kubectl.