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ERP · head to head

Omnea vs Steampipe

Omnea logo

Omnea

ERP

Procurement orchestration and third-party risk management from intake through renewal

From
On request
Rated
-
Steampipe logo

Steampipe

Developer Tools

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

From
Free
Rated
-

The short version

  • Only Steampipe has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: Omnea it covers intake through contract only, so invoicing, payment and spend analysis remain with other systems and the promised end-to-end view is partial.; 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: Omnea covers Intelligent intake, 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 Omnea and Steampipe actually diverge.

Attributes where Omnea and Steampipe differ
AttributeOmneaSteampipe
Starting priceOn requestFree
Pricing modelquoteOpen source, with paid hosting through Turbot Pipes
Free tierNoYes
PlatformsWebmacOS, Linux, Windows, Docker, Web
CategoryERPDeveloper 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 Omnea

  • Intelligent intake
  • No-code workflow builder
  • Supplier portal
  • Third-party risk management
  • Contract and renewal management
  • AI assistance
  • Spend and cycle reporting
  • Price intelligence

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.

Omnea

  • A regulated European business that must evidence supplier due diligence for every third party it engagesnot Steampipe
  • A company where security review is the slowest step in every software purchase and nobody can see where a request is stucknot Steampipe
  • An organisation renewing dozens of supplier contracts a year with no owner assigned to any renewal datenot Steampipe
  • A procurement team wanting to configure approval rules themselves rather than raising a ticket with engineeringnot Steampipe

Steampipe

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

Where each one falls short

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

Omnea

  • It covers intake through contract only, so invoicing, payment and spend analysis remain with other systems and the promised end-to-end view is partial.
  • As a younger vendor its integration library is narrower than the established suites, and connections into older on-premise ERP systems may require custom work.
  • Pricing is entirely quoted with no published tiers, and the vendor is small enough that comparable public reference points are scarce.
  • Third-party risk depth is good for questionnaire-driven assessment but lighter than a dedicated GRC platform on continuous monitoring and control mapping, so heavily regulated firms may still need both.
  • Its value is concentrated in organisations with a formal procurement policy and a compliance obligation; a company without either gets an approval workflow tool at enterprise pricing.

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

Omnea

On request
  • Omnea$undefined/year
    • Intake, approval orchestration and supplier portal
    • Third-party risk management module
    • No-code workflow configuration

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 Omnea if

  • You need intelligent intake.
  • You also want no-code workflow builder.

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 Omnea or Steampipe better?
Neither clearly leads. Omnea 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, Omnea or Steampipe?
Steampipe has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at On request for Omnea and Free for Steampipe.
Does Omnea or Steampipe run on more platforms?
Omnea 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. Omnea starts at On request.
What is Omnea best used for?
Omnea is most often used for a regulated european business that must evidence supplier due diligence for every third party it engages, a company where security review is the slowest step in every software purchase and nobody can see where a request is stuck, an organisation renewing dozens of supplier contracts a year with no owner assigned to any renewal date, a procurement team wanting to configure approval rules themselves rather than raising a ticket with engineering. Of those, a regulated european business that must evidence supplier due diligence for every third party it engages and a company where security review is the slowest step in every software purchase and nobody can see where a request is stuck are not what Steampipe is typically brought in for.
What can Omnea do that Steampipe cannot?
Omnea covers Intelligent intake, No-code workflow builder, Supplier portal, Third-party risk management. Steampipe covers SQL over live APIs, Wide plugin set, Embedded Postgres, Compliance benchmarks.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Omnea: How does it differ from Zip?

Both do intake and approval orchestration. Omnea puts third-party risk assessment inside the same workflow and has a European base and compliance orientation, which matters under GDPR and DORA.

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.

Omnea: Does it replace our ERP?

No. It handles the request through contract stage and hands off to the finance system for purchase orders, invoicing and payment.

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.

Omnea: What does it cost?

Not published. It is an annual subscription quoted by company size and modules.

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.

Omnea: Do we still need a GRC tool?

Possibly. Omnea handles supplier due diligence well; continuous control monitoring and framework mapping remain a dedicated GRC job.

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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