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Government · head to head

CivicPlus Asset Management vs Cosign

CivicPlus Asset Management logo

CivicPlus Asset Management

Government

Local government asset and work order software, the former Beehive Industries platform

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: CivicPlus Asset Management the product changed owner and name in January 2025, so references, documentation and community knowledge are split between Beehive Industries and CivicPlus Asset Management.; 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: CivicPlus Asset Management covers Asset register, Cosign covers Keyless signing.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which CivicPlus Asset Management and Cosign actually diverge.

Attributes where CivicPlus Asset Management and Cosign differ
AttributeCivicPlus Asset ManagementCosign
Starting priceOn requestFree
Pricing modelquoteOpen source, no licence fee
Free tierNoYes
PlatformsWeb, iOS, AndroidmacOS, 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 CivicPlus Asset Management

  • Asset register
  • Work order management
  • Preventive maintenance
  • Esri ArcGIS integration
  • SeeClickFix integration
  • Inventory and stores
  • Service request tracking
  • Utility billing link

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.

CivicPlus Asset Management

  • A town of fifteen thousand that already runs its website and 311 line on CivicPlus and wants work orders in the same vendor relationshipnot Cosign
  • A rural utility district needing asset records and utility billing from one supplier with one support contactnot Cosign
  • A public works department converting citizen-reported potholes directly into scheduled work without an integration projectnot Cosign
  • A county replacing spreadsheets and paper work orders with a system its staff can learn in days rather than weeksnot Cosign

Cosign

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

Where each one falls short

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

CivicPlus Asset Management

  • The product changed owner and name in January 2025, so references, documentation and community knowledge are split between Beehive Industries and CivicPlus Asset Management.
  • Existing Beehive customers face a migration to CivicPlus Asset Management 2.0 that involves data mapping and retraining, not a routine upgrade, and the timing is set by the vendor rather than the customer.
  • It is designed for small and mid-sized municipalities, and larger utilities with complex linear assets or regulatory reporting will find the asset model too shallow.
  • CivicPlus is a private-equity-backed consolidator with many acquired products, so investment in any single acquired line depends on portfolio decisions the customer has no visibility into.
  • No pricing is published and it is frequently sold as part of a wider CivicPlus bundle, which makes a like-for-like comparison against a standalone CMMS difficult.

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

CivicPlus Asset Management

On request
  • CivicPlus Asset Management$undefined/year
    • Annual subscription sized by population served and module selection
    • Bundled pricing available alongside other CivicPlus municipal products
    • Implementation, data migration and training quoted separately

Cosign

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

Which should you pick?

Choose CivicPlus Asset Management if

  • You need asset register.
  • You work on Web, iOS, Android.
  • You also want work order management.
CivicPlus Asset Management 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 CivicPlus Asset Management or Cosign better?
Neither clearly leads. CivicPlus Asset Management 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, CivicPlus Asset Management or Cosign?
Cosign has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at On request for CivicPlus Asset Management and Free for Cosign.
Does CivicPlus Asset Management or Cosign run on more platforms?
CivicPlus Asset Management runs on Web, iOS, Android. 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. CivicPlus Asset Management starts at On request.
What is CivicPlus Asset Management best used for?
CivicPlus Asset Management is most often used for a town of fifteen thousand that already runs its website and 311 line on civicplus and wants work orders in the same vendor relationship, a rural utility district needing asset records and utility billing from one supplier with one support contact, a public works department converting citizen-reported potholes directly into scheduled work without an integration project, a county replacing spreadsheets and paper work orders with a system its staff can learn in days rather than weeks. Of those, a town of fifteen thousand that already runs its website and 311 line on civicplus and wants work orders in the same vendor relationship and a rural utility district needing asset records and utility billing from one supplier with one support contact are not what Cosign is typically brought in for.
What can CivicPlus Asset Management do that Cosign cannot?
CivicPlus Asset Management covers Asset register, Work order management, Preventive maintenance, Esri ArcGIS integration. Cosign covers Keyless signing, Key and KMS signing, Registry-native storage, In-toto attestations.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

CivicPlus Asset Management: Is Beehive Industries software still sold under that name?

No. CivicPlus acquired the asset management and utility billing products in January 2025 and sells them under the CivicPlus name.

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.

CivicPlus Asset Management: Do I have to migrate from the legacy Beehive platform?

Yes. CivicPlus is transitioning customers to CivicPlus Asset Management 2.0, which requires data migration and retraining.

Cosign: Is signing alone enough?

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

CivicPlus Asset Management: Does it need Esri ArcGIS?

No, it integrates with ArcGIS but does not depend on it the way a GIS-centric product does.

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.

CivicPlus Asset Management: Is utility billing included?

No, that is a separate product from the same acquisition and is licensed separately.

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.

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