Developer Tools · head to head
Cody vs Semperis
Semperis
Cybersecurity
Identity threat detection and Active Directory forest recovery for AD, Entra ID and Okta, from a privately held US vendor.
- From
- On request
- Free plan
- No
The short version
- Only Cody has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
- Each has a real cost: Cody sourcegraph now publishes a single Enterprise plan starting at $16K, with no free or individual Pro tier listed on the pricing page; Semperis scope is limited to Active Directory, Entra ID and Okta, so an organisation whose critical identity lives elsewhere gets little from it, and the recovery value declines in direct proportion to how much has already moved off on-premises AD.
- Prices and features above were last checked on 30 August 2026.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which Cody and Semperis actually diverge.
Identical on both: platforms (Web), 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 Cody
Nothing recorded that Semperis does not also cover.
Only in Semperis
- Active Directory Forest Recovery
- Malware-free restore
- Replication-stream monitoring
- Automated rollback
- Attack indicator scoring
- Entra ID and Okta coverage
- Purple Knight
- Forest Druid
What people use each for
The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.
Cody
- Code completion and intelligent autocomplete in IDEsnot Semperis
- Developer chat with codebase context awarenessnot Semperis
- Automated debugging and error identificationnot Semperis
- Customizable prompts for workflow automationnot Semperis
Semperis
- An organisation that cannot answer an auditor or insurer asking how long it would take to rebuild Active Directory after a destructive attacknot Cody
- Post-incident recovery where domain controllers are compromised and restoring from system-state backup would reintroduce the attacker's footholdnot Cody
- Continuous detection of privileged group changes and directory-level tampering that domain controller security logs missnot Cody
- Hybrid estates where AD, Entra ID and Okta all matter and no single tool currently shows changes across the threenot Cody
Where each one falls short
Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.
Cody
- Sourcegraph now publishes a single Enterprise plan starting at $16K, with no free or individual Pro tier listed on the pricing page
- sourcegraph.com/cody redirects to the documentation rather than a Cody product or pricing page
- AI features are metered as credits included per user, and exceeding the allocation requires buying a higher volume bucket
- Volume credit buckets are sold as an add-on rather than included
- A customer success manager and premium support are optional paid extras on top of the Enterprise plan
- Standard support is 24x5 rather than 24x7, with round-the-clock coverage sold as an upgrade
- The published $16K figure is a starting price that scales with team size, so the actual cost is quoted rather than listed
Semperis
- Scope is limited to Active Directory, Entra ID and Okta, so an organisation whose critical identity lives elsewhere gets little from it, and the recovery value declines in direct proportion to how much has already moved off on-premises AD.
- The licence buys tooling, not a proven runbook: forest recovery is only worth what your last rehearsal demonstrated, and a plan that has never been executed end to end in a lab is an untested assumption regardless of what was purchased.
- It overlaps with backup and directory management products from Quest, Veeam, Commvault and others, so the buyer must argue internally why a dedicated product is needed alongside a backup contract that already claims to protect Active Directory.
- Running Directory Services Protector well requires someone who understands AD internals, replication metadata and Tier 0 attack paths, and without that person the alerts on privileged changes are either ignored or auto-reverted in ways that break legitimate administration.
- Licensing is driven by identity object counts, so directories carrying years of stale user accounts and service principals pay for objects that should have been deleted, and the cleanup project that would reduce the bill is the one nobody has time for.
Pricing, plan by plan
Cody
FreeNo published plan breakdown. See the Cody review.
Semperis
On requestNo published plan breakdown. See the Semperis review.
Which should you pick?
Choose Semperis if
- You need active directory forest recovery.
- You also want malware-free restore.
Questions people ask
- Is Cody or Semperis better?
- Neither clearly leads. Cody starts at Free and Semperis at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
- Which is cheaper, Cody or Semperis?
- Cody has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Cody and On request for Semperis.
- Does Cody or Semperis run on more platforms?
- Both run on Web, so platform support will not decide this one for you.
- Can I use Cody for free?
- Yes. Cody has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Semperis starts at On request.
- What is Cody best used for?
- Cody is most often used for code completion and intelligent autocomplete in ides, developer chat with codebase context awareness, automated debugging and error identification, customizable prompts for workflow automation. Of those, code completion and intelligent autocomplete in ides and developer chat with codebase context awareness are not what Semperis is typically brought in for.
- What can Cody do that Semperis cannot?
- Semperis covers Active Directory Forest Recovery, Malware-free restore, Replication-stream monitoring, Automated rollback.
Answered from the vendors’ own pages
Cody: Is Cody free?
Cody offers a free tier for individual developers via VS Code, JetBrains, Visual Studio, and the web app. Unlimited free usage is available for solo developers.
SourceSemperis: Does this replace my backups?
No. It replaces the Active Directory recovery procedure specifically. You still need backups for everything else, and the point of Semperis is that a generic system-state backup of a domain controller is a poor way to recover a forest because it restores the operating system along with whatever compromised it.
Cody: What does Cody Enterprise cost?
Cody Enterprise pricing is custom and requires contacting Sourcegraph sales. It is available for Sourcegraph Enterprise customers and must be quoted based on your deployment and usage needs.
SourceSemperis: Is it useful if we are cloud-only on Entra ID?
Partly. Directory Services Protector covers Entra ID and Okta for change tracking and posture, but the forest recovery product, which is the strongest reason to buy, applies to on-premises Active Directory. A genuinely cloud-only organisation should weigh it against Microsoft's own tooling.
Cody: What LLMs does Cody use?
Cody uses the latest large language models for code completions, chat, and debugging. It leverages Sourcegraph's advanced Search API to pull codebase context from local and remote repositories.
SourceSemperis: Are Purple Knight and Forest Druid really free?
Yes, both are free downloads with no licence requirement, and they are widely used by organisations that are not Semperis customers. They are also, transparently, the top of the sales funnel.
Semperis: How long does forest recovery actually take?
The honest answer is whatever your rehearsal took. The vendor's case is hours instead of days, and automation genuinely removes most manual steps, but the number that matters for your board is the one from a test in your own environment.
Semperis: Does it require agents on domain controllers?
It collects directory changes from the AD replication stream, which is what lets it see changes that bypass the security log. Deployment details vary by product and version, so confirm the exact architecture against your domain controller change-control rules.
Related pages
Other head to heads
- Cody vs Turborepo
- Cody vs Visual Studio Code
- Cody vs ESLint
- Cody vs pnpm
- Cody vs Sourcegraph
- Cody vs Sweep
- Cody vs Deep Code
- Cody vs GitHub Copilot
- Cody vs Bazel
- Cody vs Fig
- Cody vs GoLand
- Cody vs Steampipe
- Cody vs Tilt
- Cody vs WarpBuild
- Cody vs Webpack
- Cody vs Avo
- Cody vs Azure DevOps
- Cody vs PhpStorm
- Cody vs Bitdefender Total Security
- Cody vs 1Password
- Cody vs Norton 360
- Cody vs LastPass
- Cody vs NICE Actimize
- Cody vs Netwrix
- Cody vs VMware Carbon Black
- Cody vs LogRhythm SIEM
- Cody vs One Identity
- Cody vs Ping Identity
- Cody vs Signicat
- Cody vs CrowdStrike Falcon
- Cody vs Authy
- Cody vs Baffle
- Cody vs Beyond Identity
- Cody vs BeyondTrust
- Cody vs Burp Suite
- Cody vs Bitdefender VPN
- Semperis vs Turborepo
- Semperis vs Visual Studio Code
- Semperis vs ESLint
- Semperis vs pnpm
- Semperis vs Sourcegraph
- Semperis vs Sweep
- Semperis vs Deep Code
- Semperis vs GitHub Copilot
- Semperis vs Bazel
- Semperis vs Fig
- Semperis vs GoLand
- Semperis vs Steampipe
- Semperis vs Tilt
- Semperis vs WarpBuild
- Semperis vs Webpack
- Semperis vs Avo
- Semperis vs Azure DevOps
- Semperis vs PhpStorm
- Semperis vs Bitdefender Total Security
- Semperis vs 1Password
- Semperis vs Norton 360
- Semperis vs LastPass
- Semperis vs NICE Actimize
- Semperis vs Netwrix
- Semperis vs VMware Carbon Black
- Semperis vs LogRhythm SIEM
- Semperis vs One Identity
- Semperis vs Ping Identity
- Semperis vs Signicat
- Semperis vs CrowdStrike Falcon
- Semperis vs Authy
- Semperis vs Baffle
- Semperis vs Beyond Identity
- Semperis vs BeyondTrust
- Semperis vs Burp Suite
- Semperis vs Bitdefender VPN