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Cybersecurity · head to head

Cosign vs Steampipe

Cosign logo

Cosign

Cybersecurity

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

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Steampipe logo

Steampipe

Developer Tools

Query cloud APIs, SaaS tools and code with SQL, with no extract or load step

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.; Steampipe aGPL-3.0 across all four engines is a procurement blocker at organisations that ban the licence outright, and the network clause reaches any internal portal or service that puts a web interface in front of it.
  • They diverge on capability: Cosign covers Keyless signing, Steampipe covers SQL over live APIs.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Cosign and Steampipe actually diverge.

Attributes where Cosign and Steampipe differ
AttributeCosignSteampipe
Pricing modelOpen source, no licence feeOpen source, with paid hosting through Turbot Pipes
PlatformsmacOS, Linux, Windows, DockermacOS, Linux, Windows, Docker, Web
CategoryCybersecurityDeveloper Tools

Identical on both: starting price (Free), 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 Steampipe

  • SQL over live APIs
  • Wide plugin set
  • Embedded Postgres
  • Compliance benchmarks
  • Joins across providers
  • Hosted option

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

Steampipe

  • Security teams answering posture questions against live cloud accounts rather than a nightly exportnot Cosign
  • Compliance evidence gathering where the answer must reflect the account at the moment it is askednot Cosign
  • Inventory and drift questions spanning several cloud providers in one querynot Cosign
  • Engineers who would rather write SQL than learn each provider command line toolnot 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.

Steampipe

  • AGPL-3.0 across all four engines is a procurement blocker at organisations that ban the licence outright, and the network clause reaches any internal portal or service that puts a web interface in front of it.
  • Dashboards, benchmarks and mods were removed from Steampipe entirely at version 1.0 in October 2024 and now live in a separate product, so pre-2024 documentation and tutorials describe commands that no longer exist.
  • Live querying is bound by cloud provider API rate limits and keeps no persistent store by default, which is why a separate DuckDB-backed product exists for log volumes and why large accounts return slowly.
  • The company is fifteen people and bootstrapped, maintaining four command line tools plus a hosted service plus two further products, and the newer tools have thin community traction relative to that surface area.
  • Hosted tiers include only three users regardless of tier, with additional Enterprise users charged separately, so a team of thirty costs an order of magnitude more than the headline figure before compute and storage are counted.

Pricing, plan by plan

Cosign

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

Steampipe

Free
  • Steampipe CLIFree
    • AGPL-3.0
    • All plugins
    • No user or query limits
  • Pipes DeveloperFree
    • One user
    • 400 compute minutes
    • 3GB storage
  • Pipes Team$49/month
    • Three users
    • 2,000 compute minutes
    • 20GB storage
  • Pipes Enterprise$249/month
    • Three users
    • 10,000 compute minutes
    • 100GB storage

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 Steampipe if

  • You need sql over live apis.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on macOS, Linux, Windows, Docker, Web.
  • You also want wide plugin set.
Steampipe review

Questions people ask

Is Cosign or Steampipe better?
Neither clearly leads. Cosign starts at Free and Steampipe at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Cosign or Steampipe?
Cosign starts at Free and Steampipe at Free.
Does Cosign or Steampipe run on more platforms?
Cosign runs on macOS, Linux, Windows, Docker. Steampipe runs on macOS, Linux, Windows, Docker, Web.
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 Steampipe is typically brought in for.
What can Cosign do that Steampipe cannot?
Cosign covers Keyless signing, Key and KMS signing, Registry-native storage, In-toto attestations. Steampipe covers SQL over live APIs, Wide plugin set, Embedded Postgres, Compliance benchmarks.

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.

Steampipe: When did Steampipe become AGPL?

May 2021, about four months after the project went public. It is a settled licence rather than a recent change, and predates the Business Source Licence wave it is often confused with.

Cosign: Is signing alone enough?

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

Steampipe: Where did the dashboards and benchmarks go?

Into Powerpipe. They were deprecated in March 2024 and removed from Steampipe at version 1.0 in October 2024, so the check, dashboard, mod and variable commands are gone.

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.

Steampipe: Is it fast on a large cloud estate?

Not always. Queries call provider APIs at request time, so rate limits rather than query planning set the pace, and there is no persistent store by default.

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.

Steampipe: Does the AGPL affect internal use?

Running it internally for your own analysis is fine. Putting a web interface in front of it that other people use is where the network clause becomes a question for your legal team.

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.

Steampipe: Is a bootstrapped vendor a risk?

It cuts both ways. There is no investor pressure toward a licence change or an exit, and there are also fifteen people supporting a large product surface.

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