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Government · head to head

Palantir Gotham vs Syft

Palantir Gotham logo

Palantir Gotham

Government

Data Integration for Defense & Intelligence

From
$10000/month
Free plan
No
Full reviewWebsite
Syft logo

Syft

Cybersecurity

Generates a software bill of materials from images, filesystems and archives

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Syft has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: Palantir Gotham no pricing information published; enterprise product requiring direct sales engagement; 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: Palantir Gotham covers Data Integration, Syft covers Multi-format output.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Palantir Gotham and Syft actually diverge.

Attributes where Palantir Gotham and Syft differ
AttributePalantir GothamSyft
Starting price$10000/monthFree
Pricing modelquoteOpen source, no licence fee
Free tierNoYes
PlatformsDesktop, WebmacOS, Linux, Windows, Docker
CategoryGovernmentCybersecurity
Founded2003Unknown

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 Palantir Gotham

  • Data Integration
  • Pattern Analysis
  • Link Analysis
  • Geospatial Analysis
  • Collaboration
  • Intelligence Databases
  • Classified Systems
  • GIS

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.

Palantir Gotham

  • 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 Palantir Gotham
  • Feeding an inventory into a vulnerability scanner rather than scanning images directlynot Palantir Gotham
  • Recording what shipped in a build so a future disclosure can be answered quicklynot Palantir Gotham
  • Public sector work where an SBOM is a contractual deliverablenot Palantir Gotham

Where each one falls short

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

Palantir Gotham

  • No pricing information published; enterprise product requiring direct sales engagement

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

Palantir Gotham

$10000/month
  • Enterprise$10000/month
    • Data Integration
    • Analysis Tools
    • Collaboration

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 Palantir Gotham if

  • You need data integration.
  • You work on Desktop, Web.
  • You also want pattern analysis.
Palantir Gotham 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 Palantir Gotham or Syft better?
Neither clearly leads. Palantir Gotham starts at $10000/month and Syft at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Palantir Gotham or Syft?
Syft has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at $10000/month for Palantir Gotham and Free for Syft.
Does Palantir Gotham or Syft run on more platforms?
Palantir Gotham runs on Desktop, Web. 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. Palantir Gotham starts at $10000/month.
What is Palantir Gotham best used for?
Palantir Gotham 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 Palantir Gotham do that Syft cannot?
Palantir Gotham covers Data Integration, Pattern Analysis, Link Analysis, Geospatial Analysis. Syft covers Multi-format output, Broad ecosystem coverage, Binary classifiers, In-toto attestations.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Palantir Gotham: How much does Palantir Gotham cost?

Palantir Gotham does not publish pricing information on its website. As an enterprise analytics platform, costs are determined through direct sales consultation tailored to organizational scope and requirements.

Source
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.

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.

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.

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