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Cybersecurity · head to head

Sigstore vs Very Good Security

Sigstore logo

Sigstore

Cybersecurity

Free public signing and transparency infrastructure for open source artifacts

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Very Good Security logo

Very Good Security

Cybersecurity

Tokenisation proxy that keeps card and personal data out of your own systems and out of PCI scope

From
$1000/month
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.; Very Good Security vGS sits in the live path of every request carrying sensitive data, so its latency and availability become yours, and an outage in the proxy is a payment outage no matter how healthy your own systems are.
  • They diverge on capability: Sigstore covers Fulcio, Very Good Security covers Aliasing proxy.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Sigstore and Very Good Security actually diverge.

Attributes where Sigstore and Very Good Security differ
AttributeSigstoreVery Good Security
Starting priceFree$1000/month
Pricing modelOpen source, public instance free to usePer month
Free tierYesNo
PlatformsWeb, Linux, macOS, Windows, Self-hostedWeb, API

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 Very Good Security

  • Aliasing proxy
  • PCI scope reduction
  • Network tokenisation
  • Processor optionality
  • Card issuing data
  • Vault and access controls
  • Data residency options
  • Compliance artefacts

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 Very Good Security
  • Organisations meeting a signed-artifact requirement without buying a signing productnot Very Good Security
  • Publishing provenance that a consumer can verify independently of younot Very Good Security
  • Self-hosting the same components where a public log is unacceptablenot Very Good Security

Very Good Security

  • A marketplace facing its first PCI DSS Level 1 assessment that wants to keep card data off its own estate rather than harden a dozen servicesnot Sigstore
  • A merchant negotiating with a second acquirer that needs card credentials portable so the negotiation is real rather than theoreticalnot Sigstore
  • A fintech collecting bank account and identity documents that wants sensitive fields absent from logs, backups and analytics warehouses by constructionnot Sigstore
  • A card issuer that must display a full PAN in its own mobile app without the app or its backend touching cardholder datanot 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.

Very Good Security

  • VGS sits in the live path of every request carrying sensitive data, so its latency and availability become yours, and an outage in the proxy is a payment outage no matter how healthy your own systems are.
  • Token portability is the whole selling point yet leaving VGS means migrating tokens back out, a project the vendor has no incentive to streamline, so the lock-in you removed from your acquirer partly moves to VGS.
  • Entry pricing at around one thousand US dollars a month is real money for a pre-revenue fintech, and it buys volume-limited throughput, so cost scales with exactly the growth that made you buy it.
  • Scope reduction is not scope elimination: your QSA still assesses how you integrate, and teams regularly discover that a support tool or an internal admin screen pulled plaintext back in and dragged systems into scope again.
  • Proxy-based interception constrains how you design request flows, and non-standard payloads, streaming uploads or binary formats often need custom routing rules that make debugging production issues noticeably harder.

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

Very Good Security

$1000/month
  • Starter$1000/month
    • Aliasing proxy
    • Vault storage
    • PCI scope reduction
  • Growth$undefined/month
    • Network tokenisation
    • Multiple processors
    • Data residency options
  • Enterprise$undefined/year
    • Custom vault architecture
    • Dedicated support and SLA
    • Contractual compliance coverage

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 Very Good Security if

  • You need aliasing proxy.
  • You work on Web, API.
  • You also want pci scope reduction.
Very Good Security review

Questions people ask

Is Sigstore or Very Good Security better?
Neither clearly leads. Sigstore starts at Free and Very Good Security at $1000/month, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Sigstore or Very Good Security?
Sigstore has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Sigstore and $1000/month for Very Good Security.
Does Sigstore or Very Good Security run on more platforms?
Sigstore runs on Web, Linux, macOS, Windows, Self-hosted. Very Good Security runs on Web, API.
Can I use Sigstore for free?
Yes. Sigstore has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Very Good Security starts at $1000/month.
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 Very Good Security is typically brought in for.
What can Sigstore do that Very Good Security cannot?
Sigstore covers Fulcio, Rekor, Keyless signing, Multi-language clients. Very Good Security covers Aliasing proxy, PCI scope reduction, Network tokenisation, Processor optionality.

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.

Very Good Security: Does VGS make me PCI compliant?

No. It removes cardholder data from your systems so your assessment covers a far smaller boundary, but you still complete an assessment and your integration is part of it.

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.

Very Good Security: Can I move to another processor without re-collecting cards?

Yes, that is a core reason people buy it. The vault reveals stored credentials to whichever processor you route to.

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.

Very Good Security: What does it cost?

Published entry pricing is about one thousand US dollars per month; growth and enterprise tiers are quoted.

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.

Very Good Security: Is it only for card data?

No. The proxy handles any sensitive field, including bank details, national identifiers and documents, though payments is where the product is now focused.

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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