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Government · head to head

ClearGov vs Syft

ClearGov logo

ClearGov

Government

Financial Transparency for Government

From
$200/month
Free plan
No
Full reviewWebsite
Syft logo

Syft

Cybersecurity

Generates a software bill of materials from images, filesystems and archives

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Syft has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: ClearGov no pricing is published at any level, and the pricing page states no cost structure or model at all; Syft lockfile parsing can drop packages silently. An open issue filed in August 2026 reports the yarn v1 cataloguer returning 118 of 745 packages with no error raised, which means a complete bill of materials and an 84 percent incomplete one look identical to the caller.
  • They diverge on capability: ClearGov covers Budget Visualization, Syft covers Multi-format output.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which ClearGov and Syft actually diverge.

Attributes where ClearGov and Syft differ
AttributeClearGovSyft
Starting price$200/monthFree
Pricing modelsubscriptionOpen source, no licence fee
Free tierNoYes
PlatformsWebmacOS, Linux, Windows, Docker
CategoryGovernmentCybersecurity
Founded2014Unknown

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 ClearGov

  • Budget Visualization
  • Financial Benchmarking
  • Capital Planning
  • Digital Budget Books
  • Public Dashboards
  • Tyler Munis
  • OpenGov
  • Excel

Only in Syft

  • Multi-format output
  • Broad ecosystem coverage
  • Binary classifiers
  • In-toto attestations
  • Library and CLI
  • Pairs with Grype

What people use each for

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

ClearGov

  • municipal budget and financial transparencynot Syft
  • government finance analytics and reportingnot Syft
  • civic engagement and public recordsnot Syft

Syft

  • Producing a bill of materials for a customer or regulator that requires onenot ClearGov
  • Feeding an inventory into a vulnerability scanner rather than scanning images directlynot ClearGov
  • Recording what shipped in a build so a future disclosure can be answered quicklynot ClearGov
  • Public sector work where an SBOM is a contractual deliverablenot ClearGov

Where each one falls short

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

ClearGov

  • No pricing is published at any level, and the pricing page states no cost structure or model at all
  • No cost driver such as population, budget size or user count is named
  • The only routes to a figure are an email address and a demo booking

Syft

  • Lockfile parsing can drop packages silently. An open issue filed in August 2026 reports the yarn v1 cataloguer returning 118 of 745 packages with no error raised, which means a complete bill of materials and an 84 percent incomplete one look identical to the caller.
  • Fidelity varies sharply by ecosystem. Conan for C and C++, Haskell and Terraform get cataloguer support with no licence data, no dependency relationships and no file ownership, so a C and C++ shop gets the least from it.
  • Binary classification yields no licence or dependency metadata, and vendored or statically linked code is exactly where supply chain risk hides, so the blind spot and the risk overlap.
  • Incorrect CPE values and CPE collisions are recorded as open issues, and since Grype matches on CPE and PURL, an inventory error becomes a false negative in the security report downstream.
  • An inventory is not a risk assessment. Even a perfect bill of materials says a vulnerable version is present, never that the vulnerable function is called, and the triage burden lands entirely on the reader.

Pricing, plan by plan

ClearGov

$200/month
  • Transparency$200/month
    • Budget Visualization
    • Benchmarking
    • Public Dashboards

Syft

Free
  • SyftFree
    • Apache-2.0
    • No usage limits
    • Community support
  • Anchore Enterprise$undefined/year
    • Policy enforcement and reporting
    • Federal and commercial tiers
    • Pricing not published, quoted on request

Which should you pick?

Choose ClearGov if

  • You need budget visualization.
  • You also want financial benchmarking.
ClearGov review

Choose Syft if

  • You need multi-format output.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on macOS, Linux, Windows, Docker.
  • You also want broad ecosystem coverage.
Syft review

Questions people ask

Is ClearGov or Syft better?
Neither clearly leads. ClearGov starts at $200/month and Syft at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, ClearGov or Syft?
Syft has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at $200/month for ClearGov and Free for Syft.
Does ClearGov or Syft run on more platforms?
ClearGov runs on Web. Syft runs on macOS, Linux, Windows, Docker.
Can I use Syft for free?
Yes. Syft has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. ClearGov starts at $200/month.
What is ClearGov best used for?
ClearGov is most often used for municipal budget and financial transparency, government finance analytics and reporting, civic engagement and public records. Of those, municipal budget and financial transparency and government finance analytics and reporting are not what Syft is typically brought in for.
What can ClearGov do that Syft cannot?
ClearGov covers Budget Visualization, Financial Benchmarking, Capital Planning, Digital Budget Books. Syft covers Multi-format output, Broad ecosystem coverage, Binary classifiers, In-toto attestations.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

ClearGov: How much does ClearGov cost?

ClearGov pricing is not published; you must schedule a demo or contact [email protected] to request pricing information.

Source
Syft: Does Syft find vulnerabilities?

No. It produces an inventory. Grype, from the same company, matches that inventory against vulnerability feeds. They are separate tools and the distinction is frequently lost.

ClearGov: Does ClearGov offer a free trial?

ClearGov does not publish a free trial option; pricing inquiry and trial availability must be discussed through a demo request with their sales team.

Source
Syft: Does anything in the Anchore stack do reachability analysis?

No. Neither Syft, Grype nor the commercial Anchore platform performs call graph or reachability analysis, so none of them tells you whether a vulnerable code path is actually invoked.

ClearGov: What is ClearGov's pricing model?

ClearGov appears to operate on a custom, quote-based pricing model; costs are tailored to specific municipalities based on population size, features, and implementation requirements.

Source
Syft: Is it a CNCF or OpenSSF project?

No. It is single-vendor open source owned by Anchore, with no foundation governance. That is a different licence risk profile from Sigstore.

ClearGov: How do I get a ClearGov pricing quote?

Visit cleargov.com and click the demo scheduling button, or email [email protected]; provide details about your municipality size and required features for an accurate quote.

Source
Syft: What does Anchore Enterprise cost?

Not published. The pricing page is contact-sales only, with named but unpriced commercial and federal tiers.

Syft: How do I know my SBOM is complete?

You largely cannot, which is the honest answer. Silent partial parsing is a known open defect, so a bill of materials used for compliance should be spot-checked against a known dependency list.

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