Sigstore vs StepSecurity

Sigstore is a free, open source project for signing and verifying software artifacts to improve supply chain security. It supports release files, container images, binaries, software bills of materials, and more. Signatures use temporary keys, so developers do not have to manage signing keys; events are recorded in a tamper-resistant public log for audit. Its components include Cosign, Fulcio, Rekor, OpenID Connect, and Policy Controller. Cosign signs and verifies artifacts and stores signatures in an OCI registry. Fulcio issues temporary certificates to authorized identities, while Rekor keeps signed metadata in a searchable ledger. OpenID Connect authenticates users through providers such as GitHub and Google. The trust root uses The Update Framework and is maintained by five keyholders from different companies and academic institutions. Sigstore provides GitHub Actions, documents GitLab CI installation, and offers official clients for Go, Java, JavaScript, Python, Ruby, and Rust. It supports API, Linux, macOS, Windows, and self-hosted environments. One integration caveat is that Cosign has no API stability guarantees, does not follow semantic versioning, and is not recommended for application integration because of its dependencies.

StepSecurity is a software supply chain security platform spanning developer environments, code repositories, and CI/CD pipelines. Harden-Runner uses eBPF to monitor network calls, file writes, and process executions, then relates activity to workflow steps. Dev Machine Guard inventories AI coding agents, MCP servers, IDE extensions, and local packages on developer machines. Secure Registry provides package cooldowns, blocks compromised versions, and offers typosquat protection and blocklists. Code Repo Security screens pull requests and can open remediation pull requests according to policies. Security alerts can go to email, Slack, or Microsoft Teams. Dev Machine Guard can be deployed without an agent through Intune, SCCM, or Jamf on macOS, Windows, and Linux. The Community plan is free for unlimited public repositories and lists GitHub-hosted runners on GitHub Cloud; private repositories are included in the 14-day trial. Dev Machine Guard costs $8 a month per device, while Enterprise costs $16 a month per contributing developer. The Trust Center lists SOC 2 Type 2 and ISO 27001:2022 compliance.