Government · head to head
Mark43 vs Syft

Syft
Cybersecurity
Generates a software bill of materials from images, filesystems and archives
- From
- Free
- Free plan
- Yes
The short version
- Only Syft has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
- Each has a real cost: Mark43 no published pricing on homepage; sales contact required for all cost details; 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: Mark43 covers Computer-Aided Dispatch, Syft covers Multi-format output.
- Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which Mark43 and Syft actually diverge.
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 Mark43
- Computer-Aided Dispatch
- Records Management
- Evidence Management
- Analytics
- Mobile
- FBI CJIS
- NCIC
- State Systems
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.
Mark43
- Citizen Servicesnot Syft
- Records Managementnot Syft
- Public Safetynot Syft
- Civic Engagementnot Syft
Syft
- Producing a bill of materials for a customer or regulator that requires onenot Mark43
- Feeding an inventory into a vulnerability scanner rather than scanning images directlynot Mark43
- Recording what shipped in a build so a future disclosure can be answered quicklynot Mark43
- Public sector work where an SBOM is a contractual deliverablenot Mark43
Where each one falls short
Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.
Mark43
- No published pricing on homepage; sales contact required for all cost details
- Only reference to pricing is 'early bird pricing' for 2027 conference registration
- No transparent pricing structure visible for public evaluation
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
Mark43
$2000/month- Public Safety Suite$2000/month
- CAD
- RMS
- Analytics
Syft
Free- SyftFree
- Apache-2.0
- No usage limits
- Community support
- Anchore Enterprise$undefined/year
- Policy enforcement and reporting
- Federal and commercial tiers
- Pricing not published, quoted on request
Which should you pick?
Choose Mark43 if
- You need computer-aided dispatch.
- You work on Web, Ios, Android.
- You also want records management.
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.
Questions people ask
- Is Mark43 or Syft better?
- Neither clearly leads. Mark43 starts at $2000/month and Syft at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
- Which is cheaper, Mark43 or Syft?
- Syft has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at $2000/month for Mark43 and Free for Syft.
- Does Mark43 or Syft run on more platforms?
- Mark43 runs on Web, Ios, Android. 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. Mark43 starts at $2000/month.
- What is Mark43 best used for?
- Mark43 is most often used for citizen services, records management, public safety, civic engagement. Of those, citizen services and records management are not what Syft is typically brought in for.
- What can Mark43 do that Syft cannot?
- Mark43 covers Computer-Aided Dispatch, Records Management, Evidence Management, Analytics. Syft covers Multi-format output, Broad ecosystem coverage, Binary classifiers, In-toto attestations.
Answered from the vendors’ own pages
Mark43: Does Mark43 publish pricing online?
No, Mark43 pricing is not published on the public website. The only pricing reference is early bird conference registration. Prospective customers must contact Mark43 through 'Book A Demo' or 'Let's Connect' for pricing consultation.
SourceSyft: 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.
Mark43: What payment methods or financing options does Mark43 offer?
No information about payment methods or financing options is disclosed on the public homepage. Pricing and payment details are handled through direct sales consultations.
SourceSyft: 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.
Mark43: Are there volume discounts or specialized pricing for different agency sizes?
Mark43 website does not disclose any volume pricing, per-user costs, or specialized rates for agencies of different sizes. All pricing inquiries require direct contact with sales team.
SourceSyft: 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.
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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- Syft vs Metasploit
- Syft vs Wireshark
- Syft vs Semgrep
- Syft vs Legit Security
- Syft vs OWASP ZAP
- Syft vs HashiCorp Vault
- Syft vs Bitwarden
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