Kingfisher vs TruffleHog

Kingfisher is a free tool for scanning for leaked secrets, checking whether credentials are live, mapping their blast radius, and supporting revocation for some credentials. It can scan files, directories, Git repositories and history, archives, SQLite databases, Python bytecode, Docker images, cloud storage, and developer platforms. Documented integrations include GitHub, GitLab, Azure Repos, Bitbucket, Gitea, Hugging Face, AWS S3, Google Cloud Storage, Docker, Jira, Confluence, Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Postman. The project describes a multithreaded Vectorscan engine and supports Betterleaks TOML and Kingfisher YAML rules. Reports can be human-readable or exported as TOON, JSON, JSONL, SARIF, BSON, or HTML. A local viewer can combine and deduplicate Kingfisher, SARIF, Gitleaks, and TruffleHog reports. Revocation is opt-in and depends on a supported provider workflow. Live validation and blast-radius mapping make provider API requests, which should only be used when authorized. Kingfisher runs on Linux, macOS, and Windows, and supports self-hosted use.

TruffleHog scans code repositories and other sources for exposed secrets, passwords, and sensitive keys. It checks version history across branches and can find credentials in comments and Docker images, among other locations. For detected credentials, it checks the relevant protocol or API to determine whether they are live, helping reduce false positives. Its Analyze feature identifies the resources and permissions associated with API keys and other secrets without requiring access to a provider’s user interface. Pre-commit and pre-receive hooks can scan changes before they are committed. Alerts can point to credential-rotation actions and security guidance. Integrations include GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, Gerrit, Docker, Jenkins, Slack, Teams, Jira, Confluence, Google Drive, S3, and SharePoint, among others. Notifications can go to Slack, Jira, Splunk, webhooks, email, or stdout. The open-source plan costs nothing and includes 800+ secret detectors.