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Cybersecurity · head to head

Sigstore vs Workday Government

Sigstore logo

Sigstore

Cybersecurity

Free public signing and transparency infrastructure for open source artifacts

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Workday Government logo

Workday Government

Government

Enterprise HCM and Finance for Government

From
$5000/month
Free plan
No

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.; Workday Government workday Government Cloud, Workday's public sector offering, publishes no self-serve pricing; every path on its own government page leads to Contact Us or Contact Sales
  • They diverge on capability: Sigstore covers Fulcio, Workday Government covers Human Capital Management.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Sigstore and Workday Government actually diverge.

Attributes where Sigstore and Workday Government differ
AttributeSigstoreWorkday Government
Starting priceFree$5000/month
Pricing modelOpen source, public instance free to usesubscription
Free tierYesNo
PlatformsWeb, Linux, macOS, Windows, Self-hostedWeb, Ios, Android
CategoryCybersecurityGovernment
FoundedUnknown2005

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 Sigstore

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

Only in Workday Government

  • Human Capital Management
  • Payroll
  • Benefits Administration
  • Financial Management
  • Analytics
  • SAP
  • Oracle
  • Third-party HR

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

Workday Government

  • Citizen Servicesnot Sigstore
  • Records Managementnot Sigstore
  • Public Safetynot Sigstore
  • Civic Engagementnot 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.

Workday Government

  • Workday Government Cloud, Workday's public sector offering, publishes no self-serve pricing; every path on its own government page leads to Contact Us or Contact Sales

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

Workday Government

$5000/month
  • Government Cloud$5000/month
    • HCM
    • Payroll
    • Financial Management

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.

Choose Workday Government if

  • You need human capital management.
  • You work on Web, Ios, Android.
  • You also want payroll.

Questions people ask

Is Sigstore or Workday Government better?
Neither clearly leads. Sigstore starts at Free and Workday Government at $5000/month, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Sigstore or Workday Government?
Sigstore has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Sigstore and $5000/month for Workday Government.
Does Sigstore or Workday Government run on more platforms?
Sigstore runs on Web, Linux, macOS, Windows, Self-hosted. Workday Government runs on Web, Ios, Android.
Can I use Sigstore for free?
Yes. Sigstore has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Workday Government starts at $5000/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 Workday Government is typically brought in for.
What can Sigstore do that Workday Government cannot?
Sigstore covers Fulcio, Rekor, Keyless signing, Multi-language clients. Workday Government covers Human Capital Management, Payroll, Benefits Administration, Financial Management.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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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