FossID Workbench vs FOSSology

FossID Workbench is a software composition analysis tool for identifying and governing third-party software in codebases. It analyzes direct and transitive dependencies, scans unmanaged source code across programming languages, and detects embedded open-source snippets, including modified code. ID Assist proposes component identifications, while License Extractor extracts file-level license text. Vulnerable Snippet Finder locates code blocks linked to CVEs, with VEX data adding exploitability context. Workbench creates, imports, consolidates, and exports software bills of materials with component, license, vulnerability, and usage information in SPDX or CycloneDX formats. Policy Management can enforce license, security, and usage rules across projects. GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket imports are supported, alongside CI/CD scanning, gating, pull-request notifications, and API workflows. Deployment options include cloud, hybrid, on-premises, and offline air-gapped setups. It supports many ecosystems, including JavaScript, Java/Kotlin, Python, Rust, Go, C/C++, .NET, and others. Pricing is available on request.

FOSSology is an open-source system for examining software for license, copyright, and export-control information. Upload individual files or packages, then unpack and scan them with selected agents. Nomos looks for license indicators through phrases, regular expressions, and heuristics; Monk checks text against stored license texts or phrases supplied by users. Its web interface supports review of findings, license-text management, bulk recognition, aggregated file views, and reusing reviews for files with matching hashes. It can identify copyright statements and presents keyword-based findings that users can review for possible export-control relevance. Reports include SPDX 2.0 exports, Debian copyright files, hierarchical file lists with license identifiers, and Readme files with identified license and copyright details. A REST API supports CI/CD use, uploads, and scan triggers from other applications; the command line can retrieve SPDX files. Deployment options include Docker, Vagrant with VirtualBox, or source installation. It is free, with on-premise deployment options. One stated limit: it cannot determine which libraries produced a binary; binary analysis tools are needed for that task.