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Cybersecurity · head to head

Cosign vs Mautic

Cosign logo

Cosign

Cybersecurity

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

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Mautic logo

Mautic

Marketing

The main open source marketing automation platform, self-hosted and GPL licensed

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

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.; Mautic mautic depends on reliably scheduled cron jobs to process segments and send campaigns, and a misconfigured or silently failing schedule stops sends without an obvious error, which is the most common way Mautic deployments fail in production.
  • They diverge on capability: Cosign covers Keyless signing, Mautic covers Visual campaign builder.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Cosign and Mautic actually diverge.

Attributes where Cosign and Mautic differ
AttributeCosignMautic
PlatformsmacOS, Linux, Windows, DockerWeb, Linux, Self-hosted, Docker
CategoryCybersecurityMarketing

Identical on both: starting price (Free), pricing model (Open source, no licence fee), free tier (Yes), 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 Cosign

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

Only in Mautic

  • Visual campaign builder
  • Contact management and segmentation
  • Landing pages and forms
  • Lead scoring
  • Dynamic web content
  • Email builder and A/B testing
  • Self-hosted data control
  • No feature gating

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 Mautic
  • Attaching a signed bill of materials to a release so consumers can verify its provenancenot Mautic
  • Meeting a customer or regulatory requirement for signed artifactsnot Mautic
  • Verifying third-party images before they enter an internal registrynot Mautic

Mautic

  • A marketing agency running automation for many clients that cannot pass on per-contact SaaS pricing at scalenot Cosign
  • A European university or public body whose data protection position requires contact data to stay on infrastructure it controlsnot Cosign
  • A company with a list of several hundred thousand contacts where SaaS per-contact pricing has become the largest line in the marketing budgetnot Cosign
  • A team that needs to modify the automation logic itself, not just configure it, and wants source access to do sonot 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.

Mautic

  • Mautic depends on reliably scheduled cron jobs to process segments and send campaigns, and a misconfigured or silently failing schedule stops sends without an obvious error, which is the most common way Mautic deployments fail in production.
  • Email sending is not included: you must arrange, pay for and warm up your own sending infrastructure through Amazon SES, SendGrid or similar, and deliverability problems become entirely your problem with no vendor to escalate to.
  • Acquia owns the commercial descendant, Campaign Studio, and is the largest contributor, so the loudest commercial interest in the ecosystem benefits from a hosted product rather than from the self-hosted one being easy.
  • Upgrades between major versions have historically been disruptive, requiring database migrations and plugin compatibility checks, so a neglected instance can become expensive to bring current.
  • The interface and the reporting are noticeably behind commercial platforms, so marketing teams that came from HubSpot or ActiveCampaign will find everyday tasks slower and will need training.

Pricing, plan by plan

Cosign

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

Mautic

Free
  • Self-hosted communityFree
    • GPL licensed, no licence fee and no contact limits
    • All features included, no paid edition
    • You provide hosting, database, cron scheduling and email sending
  • Managed Mautic hosting$undefined/month
    • Third-party managed hosting listed by the project
    • Updates, backups and cron scheduling handled for you
    • Pricing varies by provider and is not set by the project

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.
Cosign review

Choose Mautic if

  • You need visual campaign builder.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, Linux, Self-hosted, Docker.
  • You also want contact management and segmentation.
Mautic review

Questions people ask

Is Cosign or Mautic better?
Neither clearly leads. Cosign starts at Free and Mautic at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Cosign or Mautic?
Cosign starts at Free and Mautic at Free.
Does Cosign or Mautic run on more platforms?
Cosign runs on macOS, Linux, Windows, Docker. Mautic runs on Web, Linux, Self-hosted, Docker.
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 Mautic is typically brought in for.
What can Cosign do that Mautic cannot?
Cosign covers Keyless signing, Key and KMS signing, Registry-native storage, In-toto attestations. Mautic covers Visual campaign builder, Contact management and segmentation, Landing pages and forms, Lead scoring.

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.

Mautic: Is Mautic free?

Yes, GPL licensed with no licence fee and no contact limits. You pay for hosting, email sending and the staff time to maintain it.

Cosign: Is signing alone enough?

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

Mautic: Does Acquia own Mautic?

Acquia acquired the founding commercial entity in 2019 and sells Campaign Studio built on it, but the Mautic trademark sits with the Open Source Collective and the project is community governed.

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.

Mautic: What breaks most often?

Cron scheduling. If segment rebuilding and campaign triggers are not running on schedule, campaigns quietly stop sending with no alert.

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.

Mautic: Can it handle large contact lists?

Yes, but performance at several hundred thousand contacts depends on database tuning and queue configuration, which is work you must do yourself.

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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