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Cybersecurity · head to head

Speakeasy vs Syft

Speakeasy logo

Speakeasy

Cybersecurity

AI control plane for governing enterprise agents, MCP servers, and skills

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Syft logo

Syft

Cybersecurity

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

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Syft has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: Speakeasy no self-serve pricing is published; every plan requires a sales conversation.; 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: Speakeasy covers AI tool catalog, Syft covers Multi-format output.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Speakeasy and Syft actually diverge.

Attributes where Speakeasy and Syft differ
AttributeSpeakeasySyft
Starting priceOn requestFree
Pricing modelquoteOpen source, no licence fee
Free tierNoYes
Platformsweb, apimacOS, 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 Speakeasy

  • AI tool catalog
  • Per-agent identity
  • Role-based access control
  • Real-time policy enforcement
  • Audit logging
  • MDM and SSO integration

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.

Speakeasy

  • Governing AI agents at enterprise scalenot Syft
  • Preventing shadow AI tool sprawlnot Syft
  • Enforcing least-privilege access for agentsnot Syft
  • Auditing AI tool call activity for compliancenot Syft

Syft

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

Where each one falls short

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

Speakeasy

  • No self-serve pricing is published; every plan requires a sales conversation.
  • The product pivoted away from its original SDK-generation offering, so past documentation and customers built on that use case are no longer the focus.
  • Requires integration with an existing identity provider such as Okta or Entra ID to be useful, so it is not a standalone solution.
  • No published free tier or trial pricing was found.

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

Speakeasy

On request
  • Enterprise$undefined/mo
    • Custom pricing
    • AI tool catalog and visibility
    • Per-agent identity and access control

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 Speakeasy if

  • You need ai tool catalog.
  • You work on web, api.
  • You also want per-agent identity.
Speakeasy review

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.
Syft review

Questions people ask

Is Speakeasy or Syft better?
Neither clearly leads. Speakeasy 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, Speakeasy or Syft?
Syft has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at On request for Speakeasy and Free for Syft.
Does Speakeasy or Syft run on more platforms?
Speakeasy runs on web, api. 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. Speakeasy starts at On request.
What is Speakeasy best used for?
Speakeasy is most often used for governing ai agents at enterprise scale, preventing shadow ai tool sprawl, enforcing least-privilege access for agents, auditing ai tool call activity for compliance. Of those, governing ai agents at enterprise scale and preventing shadow ai tool sprawl are not what Syft is typically brought in for.
What can Speakeasy do that Syft cannot?
Speakeasy covers AI tool catalog, Per-agent identity, Role-based access control, Real-time policy enforcement. Syft covers Multi-format output, Broad ecosystem coverage, Binary classifiers, In-toto attestations.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Speakeasy: How much does Speakeasy cost?

Speakeasy offers an Enterprise tier with features including SaaS catalog integrations, custom server creation, code mode efficiency, and serverless hosting. No specific pricing is published; interested parties contact the company to discuss pricing.

Source
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.

Speakeasy: What is included in Speakeasy's Enterprise plan?

The Enterprise plan includes SaaS catalog integrations, custom server creation, code mode efficiency, and serverless hosting. Customers contact Speakeasy to discuss their specific pricing for these features.

Source
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.

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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