Is Infracost or Trivy better?

Neither clearly leads. Infracost starts at Free and Trivy at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.

Which is cheaper, Infracost or Trivy?

Infracost starts at Free and Trivy at Free.

Does Infracost or Trivy run on more platforms?

Infracost runs on Web, macOS, Linux, Windows, Docker. Trivy runs on Linux, macOS, Windows, Docker, Kubernetes.

Can I use Infracost for free?

Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.

What is Infracost best used for?

Infracost is most often used for teams that want an expensive infrastructure change questioned at review rather than discovered on an invoice, platform groups enforcing tagging so cloud spend can be attributed to a team at all, organisations adopting finops practice without buying a full cloud management platform, engineers who want a cost figure in the editor while writing the terraform. Of those, teams that want an expensive infrastructure change questioned at review rather than discovered on an invoice and platform groups enforcing tagging so cloud spend can be attributed to a team at all are not what Trivy is typically brought in for.

What can Infracost do that Trivy cannot?

Infracost covers Pull request cost diffs, Multi-format parsing, Apache-2.0 CLI, FinOps policies. Trivy covers Multi-target scanning, Vulnerability detection, Misconfiguration checks, Secret detection.

Cloud · head to head

Infracost vs Trivy

$Infracost logo$

Infracost

Cloud

Cloud cost estimates in pull requests, with governance in the paid tier

From: Free
Rated: -

Full review Website

Trivy

Cybersecurity

Open-source vulnerability and misconfiguration scanner

From: Free
Rated: -

Full review Website

The short version

Each has a real cost: Infracost usage-based resources such as object storage, serverless functions and data transfer have no cost without monthly usage figures supplied by hand, and the documentation warns plainly that engineers otherwise read them as free.; Trivy reports what public advisory databases know, so coverage varies by ecosystem and unfixed CVEs create noise
They diverge on capability: Infracost covers Pull request cost diffs, Trivy covers Multi-target scanning.
Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Infracost and Trivy actually diverge.

Attributes where Infracost and Trivy differ
Attribute	Infracost	Trivy
Pricing model	Free open source tool, then per month by run volume	Open source, no licence fee
Platforms	Web, macOS, Linux, Windows, Docker	Linux, macOS, Windows, Docker, Kubernetes
Category	Cloud	Cybersecurity

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 Infracost

Pull request cost diffs
Multi-format parsing
Apache-2.0 CLI
FinOps policies
Automated remediation
IDE integration

Only in Trivy

Multi-target scanning
Vulnerability detection
Misconfiguration checks
Secret detection

What people use each for

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

Infracost

Teams that want an expensive infrastructure change questioned at review rather than discovered on an invoicenot Trivy
Platform groups enforcing tagging so cloud spend can be attributed to a team at allnot Trivy
Organisations adopting FinOps practice without buying a full cloud management platformnot Trivy
Engineers who want a cost figure in the editor while writing the Terraformnot Trivy

Trivy

Failing a pull request when a container image introduces a known CVEnot Infracost
Scanning Terraform and Kubernetes manifests for misconfiguration before applynot Infracost
Catching committed secrets as part of an existing CI stepnot Infracost

Where each one falls short

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

Infracost

Usage-based resources such as object storage, serverless functions and data transfer have no cost without monthly usage figures supplied by hand, and the documentation warns plainly that engineers otherwise read them as free.
Splitting production from non-production usage assumptions is not supported in the free usage file, which the docs attribute to a missing project filter, so that separation requires the paid product.
The step from 250 to 1,000 dollars a month is large and the Cloud tier includes only ten admin seats, with developer seats charged at a figure that is not published, so the cost for a large organisation cannot be computed from the pricing page.
Estimates are list price. Negotiated agreements, committed use discounts and reserved instance economics require SKU-level overrides available only on Enterprise, so the number in the pull request is not the number on the bill.
The share of the product covered by the Apache-2.0 licence is shrinking. Checks, automated fixes, policies and agent integrations are all hosted-only, so the permissive licence increasingly protects the estimation engine rather than the product.

Trivy

Reports what public advisory databases know, so coverage varies by ecosystem and unfixed CVEs create noise
No built-in triage or exception workflow, so suppressing accepted risk is managed in config files
Findings are point-in-time from CI, with no continuous runtime monitoring unless you add the commercial platform

Pricing, plan by plan

Infracost

Free

FreeFree
- 1,000 runs a month
- Terraform, CloudFormation and CDK estimates
- Community support
Starter$250/month
- 10,000 runs a month
- Email support
Cloud$1000/month
- Ten admin seats, developer seats charged separately
- FinOps policies and cost guardrails
- Dashboards and audit trails
Enterprise$undefined/year
- SKU-level price overrides for negotiated rates
- Business unit reporting
- SSO with SAML group mapping

Trivy

Free

TrivyFree
- Full scanner
- Unlimited scans
- Community support

Which should you pick?

Choose Infracost if

You need pull request cost diffs.
You want to start without paying.
You work on Web, macOS, Linux, Windows, Docker.
You also want multi-format parsing.

Infracost review

Choose Trivy if

You need multi-target scanning.
You want to start without paying.
You work on Linux, macOS, Windows, Docker, Kubernetes.
You also want vulnerability detection.

Trivy review

Questions people ask

Is Infracost or Trivy better?: Neither clearly leads. Infracost starts at Free and Trivy at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Infracost or Trivy?: Infracost starts at Free and Trivy at Free.
Does Infracost or Trivy run on more platforms?: Infracost runs on Web, macOS, Linux, Windows, Docker. Trivy runs on Linux, macOS, Windows, Docker, Kubernetes.
Can I use Infracost for free?: Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is Infracost best used for?: Infracost is most often used for teams that want an expensive infrastructure change questioned at review rather than discovered on an invoice, platform groups enforcing tagging so cloud spend can be attributed to a team at all, organisations adopting finops practice without buying a full cloud management platform, engineers who want a cost figure in the editor while writing the terraform. Of those, teams that want an expensive infrastructure change questioned at review rather than discovered on an invoice and platform groups enforcing tagging so cloud spend can be attributed to a team at all are not what Trivy is typically brought in for.
What can Infracost do that Trivy cannot?: Infracost covers Pull request cost diffs, Multi-format parsing, Apache-2.0 CLI, FinOps policies. Trivy covers Multi-target scanning, Vulnerability detection, Misconfiguration checks, Secret detection.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Infracost: Is the open source version genuinely useful on its own?

Yes, for estimation. It parses your definitions and produces breakdowns and diffs locally. What it does not do is comment on pull requests, enforce policy or report across an organisation, all of which are hosted-only.

Trivy: Is Trivy free?

Yes, open source from Aqua Security with no licence fee. Aqua sells a commercial platform around it.

Infracost: Will the estimate match my cloud bill?

No. It is list price. Committed use discounts, enterprise agreements and reserved instances need SKU-level overrides that sit in the Enterprise tier.

Trivy: What can Trivy scan?

Container images, filesystems, Git repositories, Kubernetes clusters and infrastructure-as-code, for vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, secrets and licences.

Infracost: Why do my S3 and Lambda resources show no cost?

Usage-based resources need monthly usage values supplied in a usage file or defined centrally. Without them they estimate at zero, which is the documented behaviour and the most common way the tool misleads.

Trivy: Does Trivy need a server?

No. It is a single binary, which is a large part of why it became a default in CI.

Infracost: Has the licence ever changed?

No. The command line tool has been Apache 2.0 throughout, with no Business Source or AGPL episode, which is unusual in this category.

Infracost: What is a run?

Not defined on the public pricing page, and the run allowance is what separates the free and Starter tiers, so establish the definition before choosing between them.

Infracost vs Trivy

Infracost

Trivy

The short version

Where they differ

What each one covers

Only in Infracost

Only in Trivy

What people use each for

Infracost

Trivy

Where each one falls short

Infracost

Trivy

Pricing, plan by plan

Infracost

Trivy

Which should you pick?

Choose Infracost if

Choose Trivy if

Questions people ask

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Related pages

More on Infracost

More on Trivy

Keep looking

Other head to heads