Softwr

Developer Tools · head to head

Atlantis vs Silent Eight

Atlantis logo

Atlantis

Developer Tools

Runs Terraform plan and apply from pull request comments, self-hosted and free

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Full reviewWebsite
Silent Eight logo

Silent Eight

Cybersecurity

AI adjudication of sanctions screening and AML alerts

From
On request
Free plan
No
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Atlantis has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: Atlantis there is no company, no service level agreement and no paid support at any price, and the six maintainers are volunteers with day jobs, which some risk committees will not accept for a component holding production cloud credentials.; Silent Eight automated disposition has to clear model risk governance and a regulator, and the shadow running period before auto-close is permitted can consume most of the first year of the contract.
  • They diverge on capability: Atlantis covers Pull request plans, Silent Eight covers Alert adjudication.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Atlantis and Silent Eight actually diverge.

Attributes where Atlantis and Silent Eight differ
AttributeAtlantisSilent Eight
Starting priceFreeOn request
Pricing modelOpen source, no licence feequote
Free tierYesNo
PlatformsLinux, Docker, Kubernetes, Self-hostedWeb, Linux
CategoryDeveloper ToolsCybersecurity

Identical on both: user rating (Not yet rated).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Atlantis

  • Pull request plans
  • Comment driven apply
  • Workspace locking
  • Policy checking
  • Multi-platform webhooks
  • Custom workflows

Only in Silent Eight

  • Alert adjudication
  • Narrative generation
  • Name screening automation
  • Quality assurance
  • Shadow mode
  • Model transparency reporting

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Atlantis

  • Making Terraform review meaningful by putting the actual plan output in front of the approvernot Silent Eight
  • Removing local applies and the credential sprawl that comes with every engineer holding production keysnot Silent Eight
  • Getting pull request driven infrastructure without paying a per-user subscription for a hosted platformnot Silent Eight
  • Enforcing Conftest policies as a blocking check before an apply can runnot Silent Eight

Silent Eight

  • A bank whose level one screening team spends most of its time closing obvious false name matchesnot Atlantis
  • A payments institution with alert volumes growing faster than it can recruit and train analystsnot Atlantis
  • A compliance function asked by a regulator to demonstrate consistency of alert decisions across offshore teamsnot Atlantis
  • An institution that has just tightened screening thresholds after an enforcement action and cannot staff the resulting alert increasenot Atlantis

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Atlantis

  • There is no company, no service level agreement and no paid support at any price, and the six maintainers are volunteers with day jobs, which some risk committees will not accept for a component holding production cloud credentials.
  • The security surface is inherently sharp, because it is an internet-reachable webhook endpoint that executes applies with privileged credentials, gated by pull request comment authorisation that is coarse next to a real policy engine.
  • It is stateful, holding a working directory and lock database on local disk, so high availability and horizontal scaling are awkward and you own upgrades, webhook plumbing, secret rotation and the host itself.
  • It lacks the features that distinguish the commercial alternatives, with no native drift detection, no cost estimation, no managed state interface and no policy engine beyond the Conftest integration.
  • Terragrunt and monorepo layouts are not first-class, requiring hand-written custom workflows and repository configuration that becomes a growing maintenance burden as the number of repositories increases.

Silent Eight

  • Automated disposition has to clear model risk governance and a regulator, and the shadow running period before auto-close is permitted can consume most of the first year of the contract.
  • It does not improve detection, so an institution with a poorly tuned monitoring system automates the handling of bad alerts rather than fixing why they exist.
  • Pricing is tied to alert volume, which means efficiency gains elsewhere that reduce alerts also reduce the vendor bill in a way sales teams structure minimums against.
  • The headcount saving is only realised if the institution actually reduces the analyst pool, and many banks redeploy rather than cut, leaving the business case unrealised on paper.
  • As a mid-sized private vendor serving tier one banks, concentration risk cuts both ways; the loss of one large client materially affects the company, and buyers should ask about financial stability during diligence.

Pricing, plan by plan

Atlantis

Free
  • AtlantisFree
    • Apache-2.0, no usage limits and no seat count
    • No commercial edition and no paid support tier
    • Community support through GitHub and the CNCF Slack channel

Silent Eight

On request
  • Iris$undefined/year
    • Priced by alert volume adjudicated
    • Deploys against existing screening and monitoring systems
    • Shadow mode evaluation period

Which should you pick?

Choose Atlantis if

  • You need pull request plans.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Self-hosted.
  • You also want comment driven apply.
Atlantis review

Choose Silent Eight if

  • You need alert adjudication.
  • You work on Web, Linux.
  • You also want narrative generation.
Silent Eight review

Questions people ask

Is Atlantis or Silent Eight better?
Neither clearly leads. Atlantis starts at Free and Silent Eight at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Atlantis or Silent Eight?
Atlantis has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Atlantis and On request for Silent Eight.
Does Atlantis or Silent Eight run on more platforms?
Atlantis runs on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Self-hosted. Silent Eight runs on Web, Linux.
Can I use Atlantis for free?
Yes. Atlantis has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Silent Eight starts at On request.
What is Atlantis best used for?
Atlantis is most often used for making terraform review meaningful by putting the actual plan output in front of the approver, removing local applies and the credential sprawl that comes with every engineer holding production keys, getting pull request driven infrastructure without paying a per-user subscription for a hosted platform, enforcing conftest policies as a blocking check before an apply can run. Of those, making terraform review meaningful by putting the actual plan output in front of the approver and removing local applies and the credential sprawl that comes with every engineer holding production keys are not what Silent Eight is typically brought in for.
What can Atlantis do that Silent Eight cannot?
Atlantis covers Pull request plans, Comment driven apply, Workspace locking, Policy checking. Silent Eight covers Alert adjudication, Narrative generation, Name screening automation, Quality assurance.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Atlantis: Is there a company behind Atlantis?

No. It runs as a series of LF Projects under the Linux Foundation and is maintained by volunteers. There is no vendor to buy support from and no service level agreement.

Silent Eight: Does Silent Eight replace our screening system?

No. It consumes alerts from your existing screening and monitoring systems and decides them. The detection layer stays where it is.

Atlantis: Is it a CNCF project?

No. It uses a channel in the CNCF Slack, which is often misread as membership, but the project sits under LF Projects rather than the CNCF.

Silent Eight: Will a regulator accept AI closing alerts?

It depends on your jurisdiction and your model governance evidence. Banks typically run extended shadow mode first and phase auto-closure by alert type.

Atlantis: Does it work with OpenTofu?

Yes, there is a dedicated integration guide alongside Terraform, and it also has configuration for working with hosted Terraform backends.

Silent Eight: Where is the company based?

Singapore, with offices in New York, London and Warsaw.

Atlantis: What does it not do that a paid platform does?

Drift detection, cost estimation, a managed state and run interface, and a real policy engine. Atlantis does pull request plan and apply well and stops there.

Share

Related pages

More on Atlantis

More on Silent Eight

Keep looking

Other head to heads