Cybersecurity · head to head
Cosign vs Resolver
Cosign
Cybersecurity
Signs and verifies container images and artifacts, with or without managing keys
- From
- Free
- Rated
- -
Resolver
Cybersecurity
Risk, incident and investigations platform for corporate security and operational risk teams, owned by Kroll
- From
- On request
- Rated
- -
The short version
- Only Cosign has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
- 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.; Resolver kroll ownership since 2022 means the product is sold alongside risk consulting services, so buyers who want software with no services attach should expect that conversation and should price the licence separately in negotiation.
- They diverge on capability: Cosign covers Keyless signing, Resolver covers Incident management.
- Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which Cosign and Resolver actually diverge.
Identical on both: 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 Resolver
- Incident management
- Investigations
- Enterprise risk management
- Internal audit
- Compliance and obligations
- Business continuity
- Risk Event Management
- Configurable dashboards
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 Resolver
- Attaching a signed bill of materials to a release so consumers can verify its provenancenot Resolver
- Meeting a customer or regulatory requirement for signed artifactsnot Resolver
- Verifying third-party images before they enter an internal registrynot Resolver
Resolver
- A national retailer consolidating store incident reporting, loss prevention cases and investigations into one system with defensible evidence handlingnot Cosign
- A bank that needs operational risk events captured against a risk and control register rather than in spreadsheets and emailnot Cosign
- A university security operations centre running dispatch, case management and clery-style reporting from a single recordnot Cosign
- An organisation that already retains Kroll for investigations and wants case intake and vendor handoff in the same platformnot 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.
Resolver
- Kroll ownership since 2022 means the product is sold alongside risk consulting services, so buyers who want software with no services attach should expect that conversation and should price the licence separately in negotiation.
- Configuration flexibility comes at the cost of implementation time, with deployments commonly running several months and typically requiring vendor or partner services, so the first-year cost is well above the annual licence.
- Module-based pricing means the platform gets expensive quickly once you add audit, compliance and continuity to a security-led purchase, and modules bought later rarely carry the discount of the original deal.
- The IT and cyber compliance side is thinner than dedicated tools, so organisations chasing SOC 2 or ISO 27001 evidence automation will find it does not replace a Drata or Vanta.
- Reporting is capable but the drag and drop builder has a real learning curve, and organisations that do not train an internal administrator end up raising support tickets for changes that should be self-service.
Pricing, plan by plan
Cosign
Free- CosignFree
- Apache-2.0
- Public Sigstore infrastructure free to use
- No usage limits published
Resolver
On request- Resolver Core$undefined/year
- Priced by modules selected and number of users
- Annual or multi-year enterprise agreement
- Implementation and configuration quoted separately
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 Resolver if
- You need incident management.
- You work on Web, iOS, Android.
- You also want investigations.
Questions people ask
- Is Cosign or Resolver better?
- Neither clearly leads. Cosign starts at Free and Resolver at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
- Which is cheaper, Cosign or Resolver?
- Cosign has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Cosign and On request for Resolver.
- Does Cosign or Resolver run on more platforms?
- Cosign runs on macOS, Linux, Windows, Docker. Resolver runs on Web, iOS, Android.
- Can I use Cosign for free?
- Yes. Cosign has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Resolver starts at On request.
- 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 Resolver is typically brought in for.
- What can Cosign do that Resolver cannot?
- Cosign covers Keyless signing, Key and KMS signing, Registry-native storage, In-toto attestations. Resolver covers Incident management, Investigations, Enterprise risk management, Internal audit.
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.
Resolver: Who owns Resolver?
Kroll, which acquired it in 2022. It is marketed as a Kroll business and sold alongside Kroll risk and investigations services.
Cosign: Is signing alone enough?
No. Verification is a command somebody runs. Without an admission controller enforcing it, an unsigned image still runs.
Resolver: What does Resolver cost?
Pricing is not published. It is quoted by module and user count on an annual or multi-year enterprise agreement, with implementation charged separately.
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.
Resolver: Is Resolver a SOC 2 compliance tool?
No. It is a risk, incident and investigations platform. Automated evidence collection for security certifications is not its strength.
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.
Resolver: How long does implementation take?
Months rather than weeks for a multi-module deployment, and most customers use vendor or partner services to configure it.
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.
Related pages
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- Resolver vs Diligent
- Resolver vs MetricStream
- Resolver vs NICE Actimize
- Resolver vs Sardine
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- Resolver vs Splunk Enterprise Security
- Resolver vs Varonis Data Security Platform
- Resolver vs OneTrust
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- Resolver vs Trulioo
- Resolver vs ESET NOD32 Antivirus
- Resolver vs ExpressVPN
- Resolver vs Falco
- Resolver vs Fenergo
- Resolver vs Google Authenticator