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Cybersecurity · head to head

LogicManager vs Steampipe

LogicManager logo

LogicManager

Cybersecurity

Enterprise risk management priced as a flat fee with unlimited users

From
On request
Free plan
No
Steampipe logo

Steampipe

Developer Tools

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

From
Free
Free plan
Yes

The short version

  • Only Steampipe has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: LogicManager the flat fee is quoted per organisation and not published, so the pricing model that makes LogicManager attractive still cannot be compared without a sales process.; 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: LogicManager covers Risk taxonomy, 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 LogicManager and Steampipe actually diverge.

Attributes where LogicManager and Steampipe differ
AttributeLogicManagerSteampipe
Starting priceOn requestFree
Pricing modelquoteOpen source, with paid hosting through Turbot Pipes
Free tierNoYes
PlatformsWebmacOS, Linux, Windows, Docker, Web
CategoryCybersecurityDeveloper Tools

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 LogicManager

  • Risk taxonomy
  • Unlimited users
  • Risk assessments
  • Third-party risk
  • Internal audit
  • Policy management
  • Incident management
  • Advisory support

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.

LogicManager

  • A mid-sized bank or credit union that needs every department head contributing to risk assessment without paying for a seat eachnot Steampipe
  • A risk team replacing a spreadsheet register that cannot show which controls a given vendor failure would affectnot Steampipe
  • An organisation preparing for a regulatory examination that must evidence a linked risk, control and issue trailnot Steampipe
  • A company consolidating separate vendor risk, policy and audit tools onto one taxonomy so findings are not duplicatednot Steampipe

Steampipe

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

Where each one falls short

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

LogicManager

  • The flat fee is quoted per organisation and not published, so the pricing model that makes LogicManager attractive still cannot be compared without a sales process.
  • Configuration depth means the taxonomy has to be designed properly before rollout, and organisations that skip that step end up with a structure that cannot answer the linkage questions the tool exists to answer.
  • Reporting and dashboarding are functional rather than flexible, and teams wanting bespoke board reporting commonly export to Power BI, which reintroduces the manual step they were removing.
  • Quantitative risk modelling is limited compared with specialist tools, so organisations needing Monte Carlo style loss simulation will need something else alongside it.
  • The user interface is dated relative to newer compliance automation tools, and infrequent business users often need repeat training, which erodes the participation benefit that unlimited licensing is supposed to deliver.

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

LogicManager

On request
  • LogicManager Platform$undefined/year
    • Fixed annual fee, unlimited users
    • Risk, audit, vendor, policy and incident modules
    • Advisory analyst support included

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 LogicManager if

  • You need risk taxonomy.
  • You also want unlimited users.

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.

Questions people ask

Is LogicManager or Steampipe better?
Neither clearly leads. LogicManager starts at On request and Steampipe at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, LogicManager or Steampipe?
Steampipe has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at On request for LogicManager and Free for Steampipe.
Does LogicManager or Steampipe run on more platforms?
LogicManager runs on Web. Steampipe runs on macOS, Linux, Windows, Docker, Web.
Can I use Steampipe for free?
Yes. Steampipe has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. LogicManager starts at On request.
What is LogicManager best used for?
LogicManager is most often used for a mid-sized bank or credit union that needs every department head contributing to risk assessment without paying for a seat each, a risk team replacing a spreadsheet register that cannot show which controls a given vendor failure would affect, an organisation preparing for a regulatory examination that must evidence a linked risk, control and issue trail, a company consolidating separate vendor risk, policy and audit tools onto one taxonomy so findings are not duplicated. Of those, a mid-sized bank or credit union that needs every department head contributing to risk assessment without paying for a seat each and a risk team replacing a spreadsheet register that cannot show which controls a given vendor failure would affect are not what Steampipe is typically brought in for.
What can LogicManager do that Steampipe cannot?
LogicManager covers Risk taxonomy, Unlimited users, Risk assessments, Third-party risk. Steampipe covers SQL over live APIs, Wide plugin set, Embedded Postgres, Compliance benchmarks.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

LogicManager: Is LogicManager really unlimited users?

Yes. It licences on a fixed annual fee covering the organisation rather than per seat, which is the main reason mid-market buyers pick it.

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.

LogicManager: What does it cost?

Not published. Mid-market ERM platforms of this class typically sit in the low tens of thousands of dollars a year, quoted by scope.

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.

LogicManager: Is it a compliance automation tool like Drata?

No. It is enterprise risk management with audit and vendor risk, not continuous control monitoring for SOC 2 evidence collection.

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.

LogicManager: How long does implementation take?

Weeks to a few months, far shorter than the enterprise GRC suites, provided the risk taxonomy is agreed up front.

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.

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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