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Cybersecurity · head to head

Diligent vs Syft

Diligent logo

Diligent

Cybersecurity

Board management and enterprise GRC platform assembled from Galvanize, Steele and Diligent Boards

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Syft logo

Syft

Cybersecurity

Generates a software bill of materials from images, filesystems and archives

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Syft has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: Diligent the platform is an assembly of acquisitions, with the analytics engine from ACL, risk from Rsam, ethics and third-party diligence from Steele and the board portal from Diligent itself, so cross-module reporting and consistent user experience should be tested in a proof of concept rather than assumed.; Syft lockfile parsing can drop packages silently. An open issue filed in August 2026 reports the yarn v1 cataloguer returning 118 of 745 packages with no error raised, which means a complete bill of materials and an 84 percent incomplete one look identical to the caller.
  • They diverge on capability: Diligent covers Diligent Boards, Syft covers Multi-format output.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Diligent and Syft actually diverge.

Attributes where Diligent and Syft differ
AttributeDiligentSyft
Starting priceOn requestFree
Pricing modelquoteOpen source, no licence fee
Free tierNoYes
PlatformsWeb, iOS, Android, WindowsmacOS, Linux, Windows, Docker

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 Diligent

  • Diligent Boards
  • Entity management
  • Audit and analytics
  • Risk management
  • Third-party risk
  • Ethics and compliance
  • ESG and sustainability
  • Market intelligence

Only in Syft

  • Multi-format output
  • Broad ecosystem coverage
  • Binary classifiers
  • In-toto attestations
  • Library and CLI
  • Pairs with Grype

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Diligent

  • A listed company that wants board papers, entity records and the audit committee reporting pack produced from one governance systemnot Syft
  • An internal audit function moving from sampling to full-population transaction testing using the ACL heritage analytics enginenot Syft
  • A regulated firm consolidating a whistleblower hotline, third-party due diligence and policy attestation after an enforcement findingnot Syft
  • A group needing sustainability disclosure data collected with the same audit trail and controls as financial reportingnot Syft

Syft

  • Producing a bill of materials for a customer or regulator that requires onenot Diligent
  • Feeding an inventory into a vulnerability scanner rather than scanning images directlynot Diligent
  • Recording what shipped in a build so a future disclosure can be answered quicklynot Diligent
  • Public sector work where an SBOM is a contractual deliverablenot Diligent

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Diligent

  • The platform is an assembly of acquisitions, with the analytics engine from ACL, risk from Rsam, ethics and third-party diligence from Steele and the board portal from Diligent itself, so cross-module reporting and consistent user experience should be tested in a proof of concept rather than assumed.
  • Pricing is unpublished and consistently at the top of the market, and organisations that need only one capability, a board portal or an audit analytics tool, generally pay less and get more from a specialist.
  • Renewal leverage is weak once the board portal is embedded, because directors are the least willing user group to be migrated and that dependency is well understood by the vendor at renewal time.
  • The analytics engine expects real data skills, and audit teams without an analytics-capable member typically use a fraction of what they licensed while paying for all of it.
  • Module-by-module implementation means the promised single view of governance and risk usually arrives years after the first purchase, if the later modules are ever funded.

Syft

  • Lockfile parsing can drop packages silently. An open issue filed in August 2026 reports the yarn v1 cataloguer returning 118 of 745 packages with no error raised, which means a complete bill of materials and an 84 percent incomplete one look identical to the caller.
  • Fidelity varies sharply by ecosystem. Conan for C and C++, Haskell and Terraform get cataloguer support with no licence data, no dependency relationships and no file ownership, so a C and C++ shop gets the least from it.
  • Binary classification yields no licence or dependency metadata, and vendored or statically linked code is exactly where supply chain risk hides, so the blind spot and the risk overlap.
  • Incorrect CPE values and CPE collisions are recorded as open issues, and since Grype matches on CPE and PURL, an inventory error becomes a false negative in the security report downstream.
  • An inventory is not a risk assessment. Even a perfect bill of materials says a vulnerable version is present, never that the vulnerable function is called, and the triage burden lands entirely on the reader.

Pricing, plan by plan

Diligent

On request
  • Diligent One Platform$undefined/year
    • Quoted by module and user count
    • Board portal seats priced separately from GRC modules
    • Annual subscription, commonly multi-year

Syft

Free
  • SyftFree
    • Apache-2.0
    • No usage limits
    • Community support
  • Anchore Enterprise$undefined/year
    • Policy enforcement and reporting
    • Federal and commercial tiers
    • Pricing not published, quoted on request

Which should you pick?

Choose Diligent if

  • You need diligent boards.
  • You work on Web, iOS, Android, Windows.
  • You also want entity management.
Diligent review

Choose Syft if

  • You need multi-format output.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on macOS, Linux, Windows, Docker.
  • You also want broad ecosystem coverage.
Syft review

Questions people ask

Is Diligent or Syft better?
Neither clearly leads. Diligent starts at On request and Syft at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Diligent or Syft?
Syft has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at On request for Diligent and Free for Syft.
Does Diligent or Syft run on more platforms?
Diligent runs on Web, iOS, Android, Windows. Syft runs on macOS, Linux, Windows, Docker.
Can I use Syft for free?
Yes. Syft has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Diligent starts at On request.
What is Diligent best used for?
Diligent is most often used for a listed company that wants board papers, entity records and the audit committee reporting pack produced from one governance system, an internal audit function moving from sampling to full-population transaction testing using the acl heritage analytics engine, a regulated firm consolidating a whistleblower hotline, third-party due diligence and policy attestation after an enforcement finding, a group needing sustainability disclosure data collected with the same audit trail and controls as financial reporting. Of those, a listed company that wants board papers, entity records and the audit committee reporting pack produced from one governance system and an internal audit function moving from sampling to full-population transaction testing using the acl heritage analytics engine are not what Syft is typically brought in for.
What can Diligent do that Syft cannot?
Diligent covers Diligent Boards, Entity management, Audit and analytics, Risk management. Syft covers Multi-format output, Broad ecosystem coverage, Binary classifiers, In-toto attestations.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Diligent: Is Diligent One the same product as Galvanize?

It contains it. Diligent bought Galvanize, the ACL and Rsam merger, for around one billion dollars in April 2021, and its audit analytics and risk modules are that heritage rebranded into Diligent One.

Syft: Does Syft find vulnerabilities?

No. It produces an inventory. Grype, from the same company, matches that inventory against vulnerability feeds. They are separate tools and the distinction is frequently lost.

Diligent: What does Diligent cost?

Not published. It is quoted by module and user, and board portal seats are priced differently from GRC seats. Expect an annual or multi-year enterprise agreement.

Syft: Does anything in the Anchore stack do reachability analysis?

No. Neither Syft, Grype nor the commercial Anchore platform performs call graph or reachability analysis, so none of them tells you whether a vulnerable code path is actually invoked.

Diligent: Can you buy just the board portal?

Yes, Diligent Boards is sold on its own and is the most common entry point. The GRC modules are separate purchases.

Syft: Is it a CNCF or OpenSSF project?

No. It is single-vendor open source owned by Anchore, with no foundation governance. That is a different licence risk profile from Sigstore.

Diligent: Does it replace a SOC 2 automation tool?

No. Diligent is aimed at enterprise audit, risk and governance, not at automated evidence collection for security certifications.

Syft: What does Anchore Enterprise cost?

Not published. The pricing page is contact-sales only, with named but unpriced commercial and federal tiers.

Syft: How do I know my SBOM is complete?

You largely cannot, which is the honest answer. Silent partial parsing is a known open defect, so a bill of materials used for compliance should be spot-checked against a known dependency list.

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