Cybersecurity · head to head
Resolver vs Steampipe
Resolver
Cybersecurity
Risk, incident and investigations platform for corporate security and operational risk teams, owned by Kroll
- From
- On request
- Free plan
- No
Steampipe
Developer Tools
Query cloud APIs, SaaS tools and code with SQL, with no extract or load step
- From
- Free
- Free plan
- Yes
The short version
- Only Steampipe has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
- Each has a real cost: Resolver kroll ownership since 2022 means the product is sold alongside risk consulting services, so buyers who want software with no services attach should expect that conversation and should price the licence separately in negotiation.; 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: Resolver covers Incident management, 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 Resolver and Steampipe 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 Resolver
- Incident management
- Investigations
- Enterprise risk management
- Internal audit
- Compliance and obligations
- Business continuity
- Risk Event Management
- Configurable dashboards
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.
Resolver
- A national retailer consolidating store incident reporting, loss prevention cases and investigations into one system with defensible evidence handlingnot Steampipe
- A bank that needs operational risk events captured against a risk and control register rather than in spreadsheets and emailnot Steampipe
- A university security operations centre running dispatch, case management and clery-style reporting from a single recordnot Steampipe
- An organisation that already retains Kroll for investigations and wants case intake and vendor handoff in the same platformnot Steampipe
Steampipe
- Security teams answering posture questions against live cloud accounts rather than a nightly exportnot Resolver
- Compliance evidence gathering where the answer must reflect the account at the moment it is askednot Resolver
- Inventory and drift questions spanning several cloud providers in one querynot Resolver
- Engineers who would rather write SQL than learn each provider command line toolnot Resolver
Where each one falls short
Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.
Resolver
- Kroll ownership since 2022 means the product is sold alongside risk consulting services, so buyers who want software with no services attach should expect that conversation and should price the licence separately in negotiation.
- Configuration flexibility comes at the cost of implementation time, with deployments commonly running several months and typically requiring vendor or partner services, so the first-year cost is well above the annual licence.
- Module-based pricing means the platform gets expensive quickly once you add audit, compliance and continuity to a security-led purchase, and modules bought later rarely carry the discount of the original deal.
- The IT and cyber compliance side is thinner than dedicated tools, so organisations chasing SOC 2 or ISO 27001 evidence automation will find it does not replace a Drata or Vanta.
- Reporting is capable but the drag and drop builder has a real learning curve, and organisations that do not train an internal administrator end up raising support tickets for changes that should be self-service.
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
Resolver
On request- Resolver Core$undefined/year
- Priced by modules selected and number of users
- Annual or multi-year enterprise agreement
- Implementation and configuration quoted separately
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 Resolver if
- You need incident management.
- You work on Web, iOS, Android.
- You also want investigations.
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 Resolver or Steampipe better?
- Neither clearly leads. Resolver 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, Resolver or Steampipe?
- Steampipe has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at On request for Resolver and Free for Steampipe.
- Does Resolver or Steampipe run on more platforms?
- Resolver runs on Web, iOS, Android. 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. Resolver starts at On request.
- What is Resolver best used for?
- Resolver is most often used for a national retailer consolidating store incident reporting, loss prevention cases and investigations into one system with defensible evidence handling, a bank that needs operational risk events captured against a risk and control register rather than in spreadsheets and email, a university security operations centre running dispatch, case management and clery-style reporting from a single record, an organisation that already retains kroll for investigations and wants case intake and vendor handoff in the same platform. Of those, a national retailer consolidating store incident reporting, loss prevention cases and investigations into one system with defensible evidence handling and a bank that needs operational risk events captured against a risk and control register rather than in spreadsheets and email are not what Steampipe is typically brought in for.
- What can Resolver do that Steampipe cannot?
- Resolver covers Incident management, Investigations, Enterprise risk management, Internal audit. Steampipe covers SQL over live APIs, Wide plugin set, Embedded Postgres, Compliance benchmarks.
Answered from the vendors’ own pages
Resolver: Who owns Resolver?
Kroll, which acquired it in 2022. It is marketed as a Kroll business and sold alongside Kroll risk and investigations services.
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.
Resolver: What does Resolver cost?
Pricing is not published. It is quoted by module and user count on an annual or multi-year enterprise agreement, with implementation charged separately.
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.
Resolver: Is Resolver a SOC 2 compliance tool?
No. It is a risk, incident and investigations platform. Automated evidence collection for security certifications is not its strength.
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.
Resolver: How long does implementation take?
Months rather than weeks for a multi-module deployment, and most customers use vendor or partner services to configure it.
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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