Lynis vs Prowler Cloud

Lynis performs security health scans to support system hardening and compliance testing on Linux, macOS, and Unix-based systems. Its stated uses also include security auditing, penetration testing, and vulnerability detection, for audiences such as developers, system administrators, IT auditors, and penetration testers. The tool checks components and tools found on each system through modular, opportunistic scans and is described as having almost no dependencies. It includes 300+ built-in tests and allows custom tests. Results appear on screen; technical details go to a log file, while warnings and suggestions are kept in a separate report. Lynis can help test security practices associated with CIS benchmarks, NIST, NSA, OpenSCAP data, and vendor guides. Listed systems include AIX, FreeBSD, HP-UX, Linux, macOS, NetBSD, NixOS, OpenBSD, and Solaris, along with Raspberry Pi, IoT, and QNAP devices. The free GPLv3 version costs nothing and comes without warranties or support. Lynis Enterprise SaaS is listed at $36 a year per system, billed annually; self-hosted Enterprise pricing is by quote.

Prowler Cloud is a managed platform for finding, prioritizing, and fixing cloud security risks. It covers cloud infrastructure, SaaS, Kubernetes, containers, and infrastructure-as-code providers, with scheduled scans and continuous compliance. Prowler says it runs more than 2,500 checks and maps findings to over 70 compliance frameworks. Findings are ranked by severity and include step-by-step remediation guidance; Lighthouse AI can explain fixes. Integrations include Jira, Slack, email alerts, Power BI, API access, and AWS Security Hub. Connected cloud accounts use a read-only role, and Prowler says it does not write to those environments. The pricing note lists a starting price of $79/mo with annual billing; plan details list Prowler Cloud at $99 a month, billed monthly per provider account, GitHub repository, or Microsoft 365 tenant. Annual billing saves 20%. A 15-day free trial and free Apache-2.0 CLI and self-hosted Local Server options are available. Private Cloud pricing is custom and not listed.