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Cybersecurity · head to head

Cosign vs Trimble Unity Maintain

Cosign logo

Cosign

Cybersecurity

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

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Full reviewWebsite
Trimble Unity Maintain logo

Trimble Unity Maintain

Government

GIS-centric public asset and work management, the product formerly sold as Cityworks

From
On request
Free plan
No
Full reviewWebsite

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.; Trimble Unity Maintain esri ArcGIS is a hard prerequisite, so an organisation without it faces a second substantial licence and a GIS programme before the maintenance system can be used at all.
  • They diverge on capability: Cosign covers Keyless signing, Trimble Unity Maintain covers Built on ArcGIS.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Cosign and Trimble Unity Maintain actually diverge.

Attributes where Cosign and Trimble Unity Maintain differ
AttributeCosignTrimble Unity Maintain
Starting priceFreeOn request
Pricing modelOpen source, no licence feequote
Free tierYesNo
PlatformsmacOS, Linux, Windows, DockerWeb, iOS, Android, Windows
CategoryCybersecurityGovernment

Identical on both: 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 Trimble Unity Maintain

  • Built on ArcGIS
  • Service requests
  • Work order management
  • Permits and licensing
  • Mobile field access
  • Storeroom and inventory
  • Operational Insights
  • AgileAssets convergence

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

Trimble Unity Maintain

  • A water utility wanting valve exercising and hydrant flushing recorded against the same GIS features the engineering team maintainsnot Cosign
  • A city consolidating a citizen service request line, work orders and inspections into one location-based systemnot Cosign
  • A state transportation department managing pavement and bridge assets with linear referencing rather than point assetsnot Cosign
  • A public works department that has already licensed ArcGIS Enterprise and wants to avoid rekeying its asset inventorynot 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.

Trimble Unity Maintain

  • Esri ArcGIS is a hard prerequisite, so an organisation without it faces a second substantial licence and a GIS programme before the maintenance system can be used at all.
  • The product is mid-rename from Cityworks to Trimble Unity Maintain with transition timelines Trimble has not committed to publicly, leaving contracts, documentation and integrator experience split between two names.
  • CVE-2025-0994, a deserialisation flaw in Cityworks, was exploited in the wild and listed by CISA in February 2025, which makes on-premise deployments a patching obligation rather than a set-and-forget install.
  • Because assets live in the GIS, changing the asset model is a GIS division change, so maintenance teams cannot restructure their own hierarchy without another department in the loop.
  • It is built for North American public sector practice, and the permitting, funding source and reporting models do not map cleanly onto other countries or onto private industrial estates.

Pricing, plan by plan

Cosign

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

Trimble Unity Maintain

On request
  • Trimble Unity Maintain$undefined/year
    • Annual subscription sized by population served, asset volume and user count
    • Esri ArcGIS Enterprise or ArcGIS Online licensing required separately
    • Hosted and on-premise deployment priced differently

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 Trimble Unity Maintain if

  • You need built on arcgis.
  • You work on Web, iOS, Android, Windows.
  • You also want service requests.
Trimble Unity Maintain review

Questions people ask

Is Cosign or Trimble Unity Maintain better?
Neither clearly leads. Cosign starts at Free and Trimble Unity Maintain at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Cosign or Trimble Unity Maintain?
Cosign has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Cosign and On request for Trimble Unity Maintain.
Does Cosign or Trimble Unity Maintain run on more platforms?
Cosign runs on macOS, Linux, Windows, Docker. Trimble Unity Maintain runs on Web, iOS, Android, Windows.
Can I use Cosign for free?
Yes. Cosign has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Trimble Unity Maintain 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 Trimble Unity Maintain is typically brought in for.
What can Cosign do that Trimble Unity Maintain cannot?
Cosign covers Keyless signing, Key and KMS signing, Registry-native storage, In-toto attestations. Trimble Unity Maintain covers Built on ArcGIS, Service requests, Work order management, Permits and licensing.

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.

Trimble Unity Maintain: Is Cityworks discontinued?

Not discontinued, renamed. It is becoming Trimble Unity Maintain, converging with AgileAssets, and Trimble has not published a final transition date.

Cosign: Is signing alone enough?

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

Trimble Unity Maintain: Do I need Esri ArcGIS?

Yes. The product is built on ArcGIS and cannot be deployed without an Esri licence.

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.

Trimble Unity Maintain: Was there a security incident?

Yes. CVE-2025-0994 in Cityworks was exploited in the wild and added to the CISA known exploited vulnerabilities catalogue in February 2025.

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.

Trimble Unity Maintain: Can it handle roads and pavement as well as pipes?

Yes, through the AgileAssets lineage now inside the Unity Maintain family, which adds linear referencing for transportation assets.

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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