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Cybersecurity · head to head

Signicat vs Syft

Signicat logo

Signicat

Cybersecurity

European digital identity hub connecting national eID schemes

From
On request
Rated
-
Syft logo

Syft

Cybersecurity

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

From
Free
Rated
-

The short version

  • Only Syft has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: Signicat national eID scheme fees are passed through on top of Signicat's own charge, so a single-country business almost always pays less by integrating with the scheme directly.; 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: Signicat covers eID scheme brokering, Syft covers Multi-format output.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Signicat and Syft actually diverge.

Attributes where Signicat and Syft differ
AttributeSignicatSyft
Starting priceOn requestFree
Pricing modelquoteOpen source, no licence fee
Free tierNoYes
PlatformsWeb, iOS, AndroidmacOS, Linux, Windows, Docker

Identical on both: 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 Signicat

  • eID scheme brokering
  • Qualified electronic signatures
  • Document verification
  • AML screening
  • Authentication
  • Digital onboarding flows
  • eIDAS compliance

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.

Signicat

  • A lender expanding from Norway into Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands without four separate eID integrationsnot Syft
  • An insurer needing eIDAS qualified signatures on policy documents that will hold up in a European courtnot Syft
  • A bank that wants customers to onboard with their existing national bank ID rather than photographing a passportnot Syft
  • A public sector body needing cross-border recognition of notified eID schemes under eIDASnot Syft

Syft

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

Where each one falls short

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

Signicat

  • National eID scheme fees are passed through on top of Signicat's own charge, so a single-country business almost always pays less by integrating with the scheme directly.
  • Value is concentrated in Northern and Western Europe, and coverage in Southern and Eastern Europe is thinner, so a pan-European rollout still hits gaps requiring document fallback.
  • Pricing is per transaction and quoted, and because scheme rates vary by country the cost per onboarded customer differs materially between markets in ways that complicate unit economics.
  • Each eID scheme connection typically carries its own setup fee and approval process, so adding a country is a project with a lead time rather than a configuration change.
  • Availability is tied to the national schemes, meaning an outage at BankID or MitID stops your onboarding entirely and there is no vendor-side mitigation for it.

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

Signicat

On request
  • Signicat Platform$undefined/year
    • Priced per transaction with national scheme fees passed through
    • Signature and verification products licensed separately
    • Setup fee per eID scheme connected

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 Signicat if

  • You need eid scheme brokering.
  • You work on Web, iOS, Android.
  • You also want qualified electronic signatures.

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.

Questions people ask

Is Signicat or Syft better?
Neither clearly leads. Signicat starts at On request and Syft at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Signicat or Syft?
Syft has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at On request for Signicat and Free for Syft.
Does Signicat or Syft run on more platforms?
Signicat runs on Web, iOS, Android. 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. Signicat starts at On request.
What is Signicat best used for?
Signicat is most often used for a lender expanding from norway into sweden, denmark and the netherlands without four separate eid integrations, an insurer needing eidas qualified signatures on policy documents that will hold up in a european court, a bank that wants customers to onboard with their existing national bank id rather than photographing a passport, a public sector body needing cross-border recognition of notified eid schemes under eidas. Of those, a lender expanding from norway into sweden, denmark and the netherlands without four separate eid integrations and an insurer needing eidas qualified signatures on policy documents that will hold up in a european court are not what Syft is typically brought in for.
What can Signicat do that Syft cannot?
Signicat covers eID scheme brokering, Qualified electronic signatures, Document verification, AML screening. Syft covers Multi-format output, Broad ecosystem coverage, Binary classifiers, In-toto attestations.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Signicat: Is this an alternative to a document verification vendor?

Only where national eID exists. In markets with a mature bank ID scheme it is better; elsewhere you fall back to document checks, which Signicat also provides.

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.

Signicat: Do we still pay the eID schemes?

Yes. Scheme fees are passed through in addition to Signicat charges. Ask for the split when comparing to a direct integration.

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.

Signicat: Are signatures legally qualified?

Signicat supports eIDAS qualified electronic signatures, which carry the highest legal standing in the EU, as well as advanced signatures.

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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