Harbor vs Trivy

Harbor is an open-source registry for managing artifacts across cloud-native platforms such as Kubernetes and Docker. It offers a web UI and extensible API, and can be installed on Kubernetes or a system with Docker support. Security features include policies, role-based access control, vulnerability scanning, and image signing and validation. Image scanning uses Trivy when enabled during installation, and Harbor can connect to additional scanners. It replicates images and charts to or from other registries in pull or push mode; listed adapters include Docker Hub, Amazon ECR, Google Container Registry, Azure Container Registry, and GitLab Registry. Authentication options are database, LDAP/Active Directory, and OIDC, though choosing database authentication and adding local users prevents a later switch to another mode. Project storage quotas are unlimited by default but can be set globally or per project. Robot account secrets are not stored by Harbor, so they must be saved when created; robot accounts cannot log into the user interface. Harbor is a CNCF Graduated project. HTTPS is recommended for production use.

Trivy is a free, Apache-2.0-licensed scanner for code repositories, binary artifacts, container images, and Kubernetes clusters. Its scanners cover vulnerabilities, infrastructure-as-code misconfigurations, secrets, and licenses, and it can generate software bills of materials. Vulnerability checks include operating-system and language-specific packages, some non-packaged software, and Kubernetes components. Configuration checks cover Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform, and CloudFormation files, and users can write custom checks. Trivy supports ecosystems including Ruby, Python, PHP, Node.js, .NET, Java, Go, Rust, C/C++, Elixir, Dart, Swift, Julia, and operating-system packages. It can run as a CI/CD binary without middleware or database dependencies and can be used in air-gapped environments. Installation options include container images, release binaries, package repositories, Homebrew, and Windows downloads; official integrations include Azure DevOps and GitHub Actions. Results can be exported as JUnit XML, SARIF, and ASFF. The vulnerability scanner documentation says third-party or self-compiled packages and binaries are unsupported, and the scanner may skip third-party packages. Trivy automatically fetches and maintains the security databases it needs for scans. The project is identified as Go software under the Apache-2.0 License; Aqua Security is listed as founded in 2015 with headquarters in Boston and Ramat Gan.