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Cybersecurity · head to head

Sigstore vs Teleport

Sigstore logo

Sigstore

Cybersecurity

Free public signing and transparency infrastructure for open source artifacts

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Teleport logo

Teleport

Cybersecurity

Certificate-based access to servers, Kubernetes, databases and apps, replacing shared credentials and VPNs

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Sigstore has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: Sigstore the security model depends on somebody watching the log. The documentation states that compromise of an identity provider or of Fulcio itself is detectable only if third parties monitor the transparency log, the monitoring tool is a community-tier rather than core project, and almost no consumer runs one.; Teleport pricing is not published and is described as active users plus protected resources, so an autoscaling estate cannot forecast the bill and finance teams discover the true cost only after the first true-up.
  • They diverge on capability: Sigstore covers Fulcio, Teleport covers Short-lived certificates.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Sigstore and Teleport actually diverge.

Attributes where Sigstore and Teleport differ
AttributeSigstoreTeleport
Starting priceFreeOn request
Pricing modelOpen source, public instance free to usequote
Free tierYesNo
PlatformsWeb, Linux, macOS, Windows, Self-hostedLinux, macOS, Windows, Kubernetes, Cloud

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 Sigstore

  • Fulcio
  • Rekor
  • Keyless signing
  • Multi-language clients
  • Timestamp authority
  • Neutral governance

Only in Teleport

  • Short-lived certificates
  • Protocol coverage
  • Session recording and replay
  • Access Requests
  • Device Trust
  • Identity provider integration
  • Machine identity
  • FIPS and FedRAMP builds

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Sigstore

  • Open source projects signing releases without running a certificate authoritynot Teleport
  • Organisations meeting a signed-artifact requirement without buying a signing productnot Teleport
  • Publishing provenance that a consumer can verify independently of younot Teleport
  • Self-hosting the same components where a public log is unacceptablenot Teleport

Teleport

  • Removing long-lived SSH keys and shared database passwords so that offboarding an engineer takes one action in the identity providernot Sigstore
  • Producing session recordings and per-user database audit trails as direct evidence for SOC 2 or FedRAMPnot Sigstore
  • Giving contractors or on-call engineers time-boxed, approved access to production instead of standing admin rightsnot Sigstore
  • Replacing a flat VPN with per-resource authorisation across servers, Kubernetes and internal web appsnot Sigstore

Where each one falls short

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

Sigstore

  • The security model depends on somebody watching the log. The documentation states that compromise of an identity provider or of Fulcio itself is detectable only if third parties monitor the transparency log, the monitoring tool is a community-tier rather than core project, and almost no consumer runs one.
  • It is a 99.5 percent objective with no service level agreement, which permits several hours of downtime a month and offers no remedy. A pipeline that signs on every build has taken a hard dependency on a free service with no contract behind it.
  • Log scale is a live engineering problem rather than a theoretical one. The active shard holds billions of entries, the log has already been sharded twice, and sharding version 1 requires stopping traffic, which is why a replacement was built.
  • Ten-minute certificates make trust depend on log availability. Verifying an older signature relies on the log entry proving it was made inside that window, so a lost or unreachable entry can render a valid artifact unverifiable.
  • Migration debt is substantial and ongoing. Version 2 of the log is generally available but not the public default, the signing client has an announced breaking release ahead, some official clients lag the new log format, and a post-quantum migration is named as the next break after that.

Teleport

  • Pricing is not published and is described as active users plus protected resources, so an autoscaling estate cannot forecast the bill and finance teams discover the true cost only after the first true-up.
  • The proxy is a hard dependency on reaching production, so it needs its own high availability deployment and a tested break-glass path or an outage in Teleport becomes an outage in your ability to respond to outages.
  • The open source Community Edition omits Access Requests, Device Trust and the FIPS builds, which are exactly the controls an auditor asks about, so the free tier rarely survives a compliance review.
  • Self-hosting means running and upgrading a certificate authority and its backing store, and Teleport releases frequently enough that upgrade work becomes a standing operational commitment.
  • Coverage across protocols is uneven in depth, so teams with legacy systems, unusual databases or bespoke network appliances find gaps that still require the old VPN to remain in place alongside it.

Pricing, plan by plan

Sigstore

Free
  • Public good instanceFree
    • Free to everyone with no contract
    • 99.5 percent availability objective, not an agreement
    • 100KB cap per attestation upload
  • Self-hostedFree
    • Apache-2.0
    • Run your own Fulcio and Rekor
    • Rekor v2 available for self-hosters

Teleport

On request
  • Teleport Community Edition$undefined/year
    • Open source, self-hosted
    • SSH, Kubernetes, database and app access
    • Session recording
  • Teleport Enterprise$undefined/year
    • Cloud-hosted or self-hosted
    • Access Requests and approval workflow
    • Device Trust and hardware key enforcement

Which should you pick?

Choose Sigstore if

  • You need fulcio.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, Linux, macOS, Windows, Self-hosted.
  • You also want rekor.
Sigstore review

Choose Teleport if

  • You need short-lived certificates.
  • You work on Linux, macOS, Windows, Kubernetes, Cloud.
  • You also want protocol coverage.
Teleport review

Questions people ask

Is Sigstore or Teleport better?
Neither clearly leads. Sigstore starts at Free and Teleport at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Sigstore or Teleport?
Sigstore has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Sigstore and On request for Teleport.
Does Sigstore or Teleport run on more platforms?
Sigstore runs on Web, Linux, macOS, Windows, Self-hosted. Teleport runs on Linux, macOS, Windows, Kubernetes, Cloud.
Can I use Sigstore for free?
Yes. Sigstore has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Teleport starts at On request.
What is Sigstore best used for?
Sigstore is most often used for open source projects signing releases without running a certificate authority, organisations meeting a signed-artifact requirement without buying a signing product, publishing provenance that a consumer can verify independently of you, self-hosting the same components where a public log is unacceptable. Of those, open source projects signing releases without running a certificate authority and organisations meeting a signed-artifact requirement without buying a signing product are not what Teleport is typically brought in for.
What can Sigstore do that Teleport cannot?
Sigstore covers Fulcio, Rekor, Keyless signing, Multi-language clients. Teleport covers Short-lived certificates, Protocol coverage, Session recording and replay, Access Requests.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Sigstore: Is the public instance really free?

Yes, with no contract and no paid tier. That is also the weakness: a 99.5 percent objective with no agreement, no remedy and support through Slack.

Teleport: Is the open source edition usable in production?

Yes, but it lacks Access Requests, Device Trust and FIPS builds, which most compliance programmes end up requiring.

Sigstore: Has the public log moved to Rekor v2?

No. Version 2 reached general availability in October 2025 and self-hosters can use it, but the public instance still defaults to version 1 and the project has said it will for the foreseeable future.

Teleport: How is it priced?

Not publicly. The vendor prices on active users and protected resources and provides a quote after a sales conversation.

Sigstore: Does Sigstore make my dependencies safe?

No, and this is a category error worth avoiding. It tells you who published something. It has no knowledge of what the artifact contains or whether it is vulnerable.

Teleport: What happens if Teleport goes down?

Nobody reaches the resources behind it, so you need a highly available deployment and a documented break-glass procedure.

Sigstore: What are the rate limits?

Not published. Only the 100KB cap per attestation upload is documented, so do not design a high-volume pipeline around assumed throughput.

Teleport: Does it replace our VPN?

For anything you put behind it, yes. Legacy systems and appliances it does not support will keep the VPN alive.

Sigstore: Should we self-host it?

If a public record of every signature is unacceptable, or if a free service with no agreement cannot sit in your build path, then yes. Otherwise the public instance is what most projects use.

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