KICS vs TaskCat
KICS
kics.io
TaskCat
aws-ia.github.ioSide by side
| Figure | KICS | TaskCat |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | — |
| Free plan | Yes | — |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | Yes | — |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | — | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 1 | 0 |
| Spec score · Infrastructure Testing Tools | 7.9 (#12) | 6.6 (#26) |
| Installation | KICS can be run as a Docker image or built from source; its documentation also provides downloadable releases for Linux, Windows, and macOS. | The guide offers installation through PyPI, a development install from GitHub, or the official Docker image. |
| Purpose | KICS is an open-source static code analysis solution that finds security vulnerabilities, compliance issues, and infrastructure misconfigurations in Infrastructure as Code. | TaskCat tests AWS CloudFormation templates by deploying them across multiple AWS Regions and reporting pass or fail for each Region. |
| Reports | KICS can export scan results in multiple formats, including JSON, SARIF, GitLab SAST, JUnit, HTML, PDF, CycloneDX, ASFF, and CSV. | TaskCat can generate reports containing deployment status, logs, stack outputs, resource details, and deployment timelines. |
| Support | The KICS core team can be contacted at [email protected], and the site points users to GitHub Discussions. | The documentation directs users to its guides, GitHub issues, and community discussions for help. |
Plans
In their own words
KICS
KICS is a free, open-source static analysis solution powered by Checkmarx. It scans Infrastructure as Code for security vulnerabilities, compliance issues, and configuration mistakes across Terraform, Kubernetes, Docker, AWS CloudFormation, Ansible, Helm, Google Deployment Manager, AWS SAM, Microsoft ARM, Azure Blueprints, OpenAPI, Pulumi, Crossplane, Knative, and Serverless Framework files. Its security queries can be edited, extended, or supplemented with new queries, using OPA Rego policy language. Documented CI and delivery integrations include GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Jenkins, Azure Pipelines, CircleCI, Bitbucket Pipelines, Terraform Cloud, AWS CodeBuild, pre-commit hooks, and others. A Visual Studio Code extension can scan automatically. KICS runs as a Docker image, from source, or through downloadable Linux, Windows, and macOS releases. Reports can be exported as JSON, SARIF, GitLab SAST, JUnit, HTML, PDF, CycloneDX, ASFF, or CSV. Terraform functions and environment variables are unsupported, and unofficial or custom Terraform modules are not supported.