FossID Workbench vs licscan

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.

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.