Softwr

Cybersecurity · head to head

Ory Kratos vs Syft

Ory Kratos logo

Ory Kratos

Cybersecurity

Headless identity and user management API

From
Free
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

  • Each has a real cost: Ory Kratos headless means you build every screen, which is significant work compared with a hosted login page; 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: Ory Kratos covers Headless API, Syft covers Multi-format output.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Ory Kratos and Syft actually diverge.

Attributes where Ory Kratos and Syft differ
AttributeOry KratosSyft
Pricing modelOpen-source self-hosted, with a paid managed networkOpen source, no licence fee
PlatformsLinux, Docker, Kubernetes, Self-hostedmacOS, Linux, Windows, Docker

Identical on both: starting price (Free), free tier (Yes), 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 Ory Kratos

  • Headless API
  • Self-service flows
  • Multi-factor authentication
  • Pluggable identity schemas

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.

Ory Kratos

  • Products needing complete control over the look and flow of authenticationnot Syft
  • Applications that must not hand user identity data to a third partynot Syft
  • Teams building identity as infrastructure across several servicesnot Syft

Syft

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

Where each one falls short

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

Ory Kratos

  • Headless means you build every screen, which is significant work compared with a hosted login page
  • More moving parts than a monolithic IAM: Kratos handles identity, and OAuth2 needs Ory Hydra alongside
  • Documentation assumes real familiarity with identity concepts and is not a gentle introduction
  • Self-hosting identity carries the security and availability burden that hosted providers absorb

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

Ory Kratos

Free
  • Self-hostedFree
    • Full identity server
    • All flows
    • Community support

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 Ory Kratos if

  • You need headless api.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Self-hosted.
  • You also want self-service flows.
Ory Kratos 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 Ory Kratos or Syft better?
Neither clearly leads. Ory Kratos starts at Free and Syft at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Ory Kratos or Syft?
Ory Kratos starts at Free and Syft at Free.
Does Ory Kratos or Syft run on more platforms?
Ory Kratos runs on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Self-hosted. Syft runs on macOS, Linux, Windows, Docker.
Can I use Ory Kratos for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is Ory Kratos best used for?
Ory Kratos is most often used for products needing complete control over the look and flow of authentication, applications that must not hand user identity data to a third party, teams building identity as infrastructure across several services. Of those, products needing complete control over the look and flow of authentication and applications that must not hand user identity data to a third party are not what Syft is typically brought in for.
What can Ory Kratos do that Syft cannot?
Ory Kratos covers Headless API, Self-service flows, Multi-factor authentication, Pluggable identity schemas. Syft covers Multi-format output, Broad ecosystem coverage, Binary classifiers, In-toto attestations.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Ory Kratos: Is Ory Kratos free?

Yes, open source and free to self-host. Ory Network is a paid managed service.

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.

Ory Kratos: What does headless mean here?

Kratos provides identity flows as APIs and no user interface. You build the login, registration and recovery screens yourself.

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.

Ory Kratos: Does Kratos do OAuth2?

No. Kratos handles user identity; OAuth2 and OpenID Connect provider functionality is Ory Hydra, a separate component.

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.

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.

Share

Related pages

More on Ory Kratos

More on Syft

Keep looking

Other head to heads