Cybersecurity · head to head
Cosign vs Signicat
Cosign
Cybersecurity
Signs and verifies container images and artifacts, with or without managing keys
- From
- Free
- Rated
- -
Signicat
Cybersecurity
European digital identity hub connecting national eID schemes
- 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.; Signicat national eID scheme fees are passed through on top of Signicat's own charge, so a single-country business almost always pays less by integrating with the scheme directly.
- They diverge on capability: Cosign covers Keyless signing, Signicat covers eID scheme brokering.
- Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which Cosign and Signicat 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 Signicat
- eID scheme brokering
- Qualified electronic signatures
- Document verification
- AML screening
- Authentication
- Digital onboarding flows
- eIDAS compliance
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 Signicat
- Attaching a signed bill of materials to a release so consumers can verify its provenancenot Signicat
- Meeting a customer or regulatory requirement for signed artifactsnot Signicat
- Verifying third-party images before they enter an internal registrynot Signicat
Signicat
- A lender expanding from Norway into Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands without four separate eID integrationsnot Cosign
- An insurer needing eIDAS qualified signatures on policy documents that will hold up in a European courtnot Cosign
- A bank that wants customers to onboard with their existing national bank ID rather than photographing a passportnot Cosign
- A public sector body needing cross-border recognition of notified eID schemes under eIDASnot 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.
Signicat
- National eID scheme fees are passed through on top of Signicat's own charge, so a single-country business almost always pays less by integrating with the scheme directly.
- Value is concentrated in Northern and Western Europe, and coverage in Southern and Eastern Europe is thinner, so a pan-European rollout still hits gaps requiring document fallback.
- Pricing is per transaction and quoted, and because scheme rates vary by country the cost per onboarded customer differs materially between markets in ways that complicate unit economics.
- Each eID scheme connection typically carries its own setup fee and approval process, so adding a country is a project with a lead time rather than a configuration change.
- Availability is tied to the national schemes, meaning an outage at BankID or MitID stops your onboarding entirely and there is no vendor-side mitigation for it.
Pricing, plan by plan
Cosign
Free- CosignFree
- Apache-2.0
- Public Sigstore infrastructure free to use
- No usage limits published
Signicat
On request- Signicat Platform$undefined/year
- Priced per transaction with national scheme fees passed through
- Signature and verification products licensed separately
- Setup fee per eID scheme connected
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 Signicat if
- You need eid scheme brokering.
- You work on Web, iOS, Android.
- You also want qualified electronic signatures.
Questions people ask
- Is Cosign or Signicat better?
- Neither clearly leads. Cosign starts at Free and Signicat at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
- Which is cheaper, Cosign or Signicat?
- Cosign has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Cosign and On request for Signicat.
- Does Cosign or Signicat run on more platforms?
- Cosign runs on macOS, Linux, Windows, Docker. Signicat runs on Web, iOS, Android.
- Can I use Cosign for free?
- Yes. Cosign has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Signicat 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 Signicat is typically brought in for.
- What can Cosign do that Signicat cannot?
- Cosign covers Keyless signing, Key and KMS signing, Registry-native storage, In-toto attestations. Signicat covers eID scheme brokering, Qualified electronic signatures, Document verification, AML screening.
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.
Signicat: Is this an alternative to a document verification vendor?
Only where national eID exists. In markets with a mature bank ID scheme it is better; elsewhere you fall back to document checks, which Signicat also provides.
Cosign: Is signing alone enough?
No. Verification is a command somebody runs. Without an admission controller enforcing it, an unsigned image still runs.
Signicat: Do we still pay the eID schemes?
Yes. Scheme fees are passed through in addition to Signicat charges. Ask for the split when comparing to a direct integration.
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.
Signicat: Are signatures legally qualified?
Signicat supports eIDAS qualified electronic signatures, which carry the highest legal standing in the EU, as well as advanced signatures.
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.
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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