Softwr

Government · head to head

Bonfire vs Cosign

Bonfire logo

Bonfire

Government

Public sector sourcing and bid evaluation software with scored, auditable award decisions

From
On request
Free plan
No
Full reviewWebsite
Cosign logo

Cosign

Cybersecurity

Signs and verifies container images and artifacts, with or without managing keys

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Cosign has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: Bonfire it is a sourcing and evaluation tool rather than full procure to pay, so requisitions, purchase orders and invoicing stay in the finance system and the join between them is the agency's problem.; Cosign keyless signing inherits every weakness of the identity provider behind it. Sigstore’s own threat model states that if an identity provider is compromised, Sigstore will issue certificates to those identities, so a compromised account produces perfectly valid signatures.
  • They diverge on capability: Bonfire covers Solicitation posting, Cosign covers Keyless signing.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Bonfire and Cosign actually diverge.

Attributes where Bonfire and Cosign differ
AttributeBonfireCosign
Starting priceOn requestFree
Pricing modelquoteOpen source, no licence fee
Free tierNoYes
PlatformsWebmacOS, Linux, Windows, Docker
CategoryGovernmentCybersecurity

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 Bonfire

  • Solicitation posting
  • Sealed submission intake
  • Scored evaluation workspace
  • Audit trail
  • Supplier portal
  • Requirement matrices

Only in Cosign

  • Keyless signing
  • Key and KMS signing
  • Registry-native storage
  • In-toto attestations
  • Offline verification
  • Trusted root and signing config

What people use each for

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

Bonfire

  • An agency that has lost or nearly lost a bid protest and needs a defensible evaluation recordnot Cosign
  • A procurement team running scoring committees currently held together by spreadsheets and emailnot Cosign
  • A university or health system applying public procurement rules without a public procurement systemnot Cosign
  • An agency wanting suppliers to self register and receive addenda automatically rather than by mailing listnot Cosign

Cosign

  • Signing container images in a build pipeline without managing long-lived private keysnot Bonfire
  • Attaching a signed bill of materials to a release so consumers can verify its provenancenot Bonfire
  • Meeting a customer or regulatory requirement for signed artifactsnot Bonfire
  • Verifying third-party images before they enter an internal registrynot Bonfire

Where each one falls short

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

Bonfire

  • It is a sourcing and evaluation tool rather than full procure to pay, so requisitions, purchase orders and invoicing stay in the finance system and the join between them is the agency's problem.
  • Since the acquisition path from GTY to GI Partners to Euna Solutions, Bonfire sits in a portfolio alongside products it once competed with, which narrows a shortlist that appears independent.
  • Suppliers must register on the portal to bid, and small local vendors reliably complain about the extra account, which can reduce responses on low value solicitations.
  • Pricing is quoted rather than published and scales with solicitation volume, so an agency with a few very large procurements pays a model designed around throughput.
  • Contract management after award is thin compared with dedicated contract lifecycle products, so agencies often buy a second system for the obligations the award created.

Cosign

  • Keyless signing inherits every weakness of the identity provider behind it. Sigstore’s own threat model states that if an identity provider is compromised, Sigstore will issue certificates to those identities, so a compromised account produces perfectly valid signatures.
  • A signature proves who signed, never whether they should have. The documentation is explicit that Sigstore cannot determine authorisation, so every consumer must write and maintain their own identity and issuer policy or verification means nothing.
  • Nothing is enforced without an admission controller. Signing changes what you can prove, not what runs, and the official policy controller has a small maintainer base for a component sitting in a cluster admission path.
  • Upgrades break pipelines. Version 3 changed defaults, version 4 is announced as removing legacy functionality and roughly half the command line flags, and two official client libraries still lacked support for the new log format as of mid 2026.
  • Signatures do not expire. An artifact signed before a maintainer account was compromised and one signed after are indistinguishable unless somebody is actively monitoring the transparency log, and almost nobody is.

Pricing, plan by plan

Bonfire

On request
  • Bonfire$undefined/year
    • Quoted by agency size and annual solicitation volume
    • Supplier side registration is free, which is how the vendor network grows
    • Implementation and training quoted separately from subscription

Cosign

Free
  • CosignFree
    • Apache-2.0
    • Public Sigstore infrastructure free to use
    • No usage limits published

Which should you pick?

Choose Bonfire if

  • You need solicitation posting.
  • You also want sealed submission intake.
Bonfire review

Choose Cosign if

  • You need keyless signing.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on macOS, Linux, Windows, Docker.
  • You also want key and kms signing.
Cosign review

Questions people ask

Is Bonfire or Cosign better?
Neither clearly leads. Bonfire starts at On request and Cosign at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Bonfire or Cosign?
Cosign has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at On request for Bonfire and Free for Cosign.
Does Bonfire or Cosign run on more platforms?
Bonfire runs on Web. Cosign runs on macOS, Linux, Windows, Docker.
Can I use Cosign for free?
Yes. Cosign has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Bonfire starts at On request.
What is Bonfire best used for?
Bonfire is most often used for an agency that has lost or nearly lost a bid protest and needs a defensible evaluation record, a procurement team running scoring committees currently held together by spreadsheets and email, a university or health system applying public procurement rules without a public procurement system, an agency wanting suppliers to self register and receive addenda automatically rather than by mailing list. Of those, an agency that has lost or nearly lost a bid protest and needs a defensible evaluation record and a procurement team running scoring committees currently held together by spreadsheets and email are not what Cosign is typically brought in for.
What can Bonfire do that Cosign cannot?
Bonfire covers Solicitation posting, Sealed submission intake, Scored evaluation workspace, Audit trail. Cosign covers Keyless signing, Key and KMS signing, Registry-native storage, In-toto attestations.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Bonfire: Who owns Bonfire?

Euna Solutions. Bonfire was acquired by GTY Technology in 2019, GTY was taken private by GI Partners in 2022, and the portfolio was rebranded Euna Solutions in 2023.

Cosign: Does Cosign tell me if an image is vulnerable?

No. It has no vulnerability knowledge whatsoever. It can carry an SBOM as a signed attestation but never reads it. Pair it with a scanner.

Bonfire: Is it full procure to pay?

No. It covers sourcing and evaluation through award. Purchase orders and invoicing remain in the finance system.

Cosign: Is signing alone enough?

No. Verification is a command somebody runs. Without an admission controller enforcing it, an unsigned image still runs.

Bonfire: What is the real value?

A defensible, time stamped evaluation record when an award is protested, which is the expensive failure mode in public procurement.

Cosign: What does a bare cosign verify actually prove?

Very little. Without a pinned certificate identity and OIDC issuer, it accepts a valid signature from any identity at all.

Bonfire: Can we see what other agencies pay?

Yes. These contracts are public records. Read several comparable awards before negotiating.

Cosign: What is the risk of keyless signing?

Your OIDC provider becomes the root of trust. Compromise of that account yields genuine, verifiable signatures, so account security is the control that matters.

Cosign: Should we expect breaking changes?

Yes. Version 4 is announced to remove roughly half the flags, and a post-quantum migration is named as a further breaking change after that.

Share

Related pages

More on Bonfire

More on Cosign

Keep looking

Other head to heads