Cybersecurity · head to head
Cosign vs Frontegg
Cosign
Cybersecurity
Signs and verifies container images and artifacts, with or without managing keys
- From
- Free
- Rated
- -
Frontegg
Cybersecurity
Customer identity and access management platform for SaaS applications
- From
- Free
- Rated
- -
The short version
- Each has a real cost: 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.; Frontegg detailed per-unit pricing beyond the free tier is not published, requiring use of an online calculator or sales contact to estimate costs.
- They diverge on capability: Cosign covers Keyless signing, Frontegg covers Hosted login.
- Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which Cosign and Frontegg actually diverge.
Identical on both: starting price (Free), free tier (Yes), user rating (Not yet rated), category (Cybersecurity).
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 Cosign
- Keyless signing
- Key and KMS signing
- Registry-native storage
- In-toto attestations
- Offline verification
- Trusted root and signing config
Only in Frontegg
- Hosted login
- Enterprise SSO/SCIM
- Multi-tenant organizations
- Custom domains
- M2M tokens
- Fraud protection
What people use each for
The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.
Cosign
- Signing container images in a build pipeline without managing long-lived private keysnot Frontegg
- Attaching a signed bill of materials to a release so consumers can verify its provenancenot Frontegg
- Meeting a customer or regulatory requirement for signed artifactsnot Frontegg
- Verifying third-party images before they enter an internal registrynot Frontegg
Frontegg
- Adding enterprise SSO/SCIM to a B2B SaaS productnot Cosign
- Multi-tenant customer identity managementnot Cosign
- White-labeled, custom-domain login experiencesnot Cosign
- Securing AI agent access to a SaaS product via Agen.conot Cosign
Where each one falls short
Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.
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.
Frontegg
- Detailed per-unit pricing beyond the free tier is not published, requiring use of an online calculator or sales contact to estimate costs.
- Advanced fraud protection and multiple environments are Enterprise-only, unavailable on the Pay As You Go plan.
- The 7,500 free monthly active users is comparatively modest next to some competitors' free tiers.
- As a broader CIAM platform, it can be more complex to integrate than lighter-weight developer-first auth tools for smaller apps.
Pricing, plan by plan
Cosign
Free- CosignFree
- Apache-2.0
- Public Sigstore infrastructure free to use
- No usage limits published
Frontegg
Free- Pay As You GoFree
- 7,500 monthly active users included
- 5 enterprise connections (SSO/SCIM)
- Unlimited organizations
- Enterprise$undefined/month
- Custom pricing
- Multiple environments
- Advanced fraud protection
Which should you pick?
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.
Choose Frontegg if
- You need hosted login.
- You want to start without paying.
- You work on web, api.
- You also want enterprise sso/scim.
Questions people ask
- Is Cosign or Frontegg better?
- Neither clearly leads. Cosign starts at Free and Frontegg at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
- Which is cheaper, Cosign or Frontegg?
- Cosign starts at Free and Frontegg at Free.
- Does Cosign or Frontegg run on more platforms?
- Cosign runs on macOS, Linux, Windows, Docker. Frontegg runs on web, api.
- Can I use Cosign for free?
- Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
- What is Cosign best used for?
- Cosign is most often used for signing container images in a build pipeline without managing long-lived private keys, attaching a signed bill of materials to a release so consumers can verify its provenance, meeting a customer or regulatory requirement for signed artifacts, verifying third-party images before they enter an internal registry. Of those, signing container images in a build pipeline without managing long-lived private keys and attaching a signed bill of materials to a release so consumers can verify its provenance are not what Frontegg is typically brought in for.
- What can Cosign do that Frontegg cannot?
- Cosign covers Keyless signing, Key and KMS signing, Registry-native storage, In-toto attestations. Frontegg covers Hosted login, Enterprise SSO/SCIM, Multi-tenant organizations, Custom domains.
Answered from the vendors’ own pages
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.
Frontegg: What does Frontegg cost?
Frontegg's Pay As You Go plan is free up to 7,500 monthly active users, after which pricing scales with users, enterprise connections and M2M tokens via an online calculator; Enterprise pricing is custom.
SourceCosign: Is signing alone enough?
No. Verification is a command somebody runs. Without an admission controller enforcing it, an unsigned image still runs.
Frontegg: Is there a free plan and what are its limits?
Yes, the free Pay As You Go plan includes 7,500 monthly active users, 5 enterprise SSO/SCIM connections, unlimited organizations, and a custom domain.
SourceCosign: 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.
Frontegg: How is usage metered?
Pricing is consumption-based, driven by monthly active users, monthly enterprise connections (SSO/SCIM), and monthly M2M tokens, with customers paying only for usage beyond the free 7,500-user threshold.
SourceCosign: 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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