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Cybersecurity · head to head

Quantexa vs Steampipe

Quantexa logo

Quantexa

Cybersecurity

Entity resolution and network analytics for financial crime investigation

From
On request
Free plan
No
Full reviewWebsite
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
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Steampipe has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: Quantexa pricing is never published and lands in the seven figure range annually for a tier one deployment, so it is out of reach for mid-sized institutions no matter how well the analytics would fit.; 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: Quantexa covers Entity resolution, Steampipe covers SQL over live APIs.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Quantexa and Steampipe actually diverge.

Attributes where Quantexa and Steampipe differ
AttributeQuantexaSteampipe
Starting priceOn requestFree
Pricing modelquoteOpen source, with paid hosting through Turbot Pipes
Free tierNoYes
PlatformsWeb, LinuxmacOS, 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 Quantexa

  • Entity resolution
  • Network generation
  • Contextual monitoring
  • Investigation workspace
  • Data fusion
  • Deployment on customer cloud

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.

Quantexa

  • A bank whose AML alert backlog is dominated by false positives and wants network context to close them fasternot Steampipe
  • Sanctions investigation where the sanctioned party is not the account holder but a connected director or shareholdernot Steampipe
  • Merging customer records across retail, commercial and wealth divisions after an acquisition to see total exposurenot Steampipe
  • A tax or benefits agency looking for organised fraud rings rather than individual claimantsnot Steampipe

Steampipe

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

Where each one falls short

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

Quantexa

  • Pricing is never published and lands in the seven figure range annually for a tier one deployment, so it is out of reach for mid-sized institutions no matter how well the analytics would fit.
  • Output quality is bounded by input data quality, and organisations without governed customer data spend the first phase of the programme fixing feeds rather than catching criminals.
  • Implementation typically requires a systems integrator and runs into quarters rather than weeks, so the business case has to survive a long period with no operational benefit.
  • The platform augments rather than replaces existing transaction monitoring, so you keep paying for the incumbent system alongside it and total compliance technology spend rises before it falls.
  • Skills are scarce; the platform needs people who understand both Spark scale data engineering and financial crime typologies, and those people are hard to recruit and easy to lose.

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

Quantexa

On request
  • Quantexa Platform$undefined/year
    • Entity resolution and network generation
    • Deployed in customer cloud tenancy
    • Priced by data volume and use case count

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 Quantexa if

  • You need entity resolution.
  • You work on Web, Linux.
  • You also want network generation.
Quantexa review

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.
Steampipe review

Questions people ask

Is Quantexa or Steampipe better?
Neither clearly leads. Quantexa 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, Quantexa or Steampipe?
Steampipe has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at On request for Quantexa and Free for Steampipe.
Does Quantexa or Steampipe run on more platforms?
Quantexa runs on Web, Linux. 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. Quantexa starts at On request.
What is Quantexa best used for?
Quantexa is most often used for a bank whose aml alert backlog is dominated by false positives and wants network context to close them faster, sanctions investigation where the sanctioned party is not the account holder but a connected director or shareholder, merging customer records across retail, commercial and wealth divisions after an acquisition to see total exposure, a tax or benefits agency looking for organised fraud rings rather than individual claimants. Of those, a bank whose aml alert backlog is dominated by false positives and wants network context to close them faster and sanctions investigation where the sanctioned party is not the account holder but a connected director or shareholder are not what Steampipe is typically brought in for.
What can Quantexa do that Steampipe cannot?
Quantexa covers Entity resolution, Network generation, Contextual monitoring, Investigation workspace. Steampipe covers SQL over live APIs, Wide plugin set, Embedded Postgres, Compliance benchmarks.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Quantexa: Does Quantexa replace our transaction monitoring system?

No. It usually sits alongside it, adding network context to the alerts that system generates and to investigations.

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.

Quantexa: Where does our data go?

Into your own cloud tenancy in the normal deployment model. Quantexa does not require you to send customer data to a shared multi-tenant service.

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.

Quantexa: How is it priced?

Not publicly. Expect an annual subscription scaled by data volume and number of use cases, plus separate implementation cost.

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.

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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