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Steampipe vs Varonis Data Security Platform

Steampipe logo

Steampipe

Developer Tools

Query cloud APIs, SaaS tools and code with SQL, with no extract or load step

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Full reviewWebsite
Varonis Data Security Platform logo

Varonis Data Security Platform

Cybersecurity

Data security platform that maps effective permissions, content classification and access activity across file shares, Microsoft 365 and SaaS.

From
$100/year
Free plan
No
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Steampipe has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: Steampipe aGPL-3.0 across all four engines is a procurement blocker at organisations that ban the licence outright, and the network clause reaches any internal portal or service that puts a web interface in front of it.; Varonis Data Security Platform deployment is a project rather than an installation: collectors, service accounts, the initial crawl of a large file estate and behavioural baselining typically run for weeks to months before the first genuinely useful report, so value arrives well after the invoice does.
  • They diverge on capability: Steampipe covers SQL over live APIs, Varonis Data Security Platform covers Effective permissions modelling.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Steampipe and Varonis Data Security Platform actually diverge.

Attributes where Steampipe and Varonis Data Security Platform differ
AttributeSteampipeVaronis Data Security Platform
Starting priceFree$100/year
Pricing modelOpen source, with paid hosting through Turbot Pipessubscription
Free tierYesNo
PlatformsmacOS, Linux, Windows, Docker, WebWeb, Desktop
CategoryDeveloper ToolsCybersecurity
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 Steampipe

  • SQL over live APIs
  • Wide plugin set
  • Embedded Postgres
  • Compliance benchmarks
  • Joins across providers
  • Hosted option

Only in Varonis Data Security Platform

  • Effective permissions modelling
  • Content classification
  • Access activity auditing
  • Behavioural alerting
  • Blast radius view
  • Automated remediation
  • Stale data identification
  • Ransomware detection

What people use each for

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

Steampipe

  • Security teams answering posture questions against live cloud accounts rather than a nightly exportnot Varonis Data Security Platform
  • Compliance evidence gathering where the answer must reflect the account at the moment it is askednot Varonis Data Security Platform
  • Inventory and drift questions spanning several cloud providers in one querynot Varonis Data Security Platform
  • Engineers who would rather write SQL than learn each provider command line toolnot Varonis Data Security Platform

Varonis Data Security Platform

  • Answering an auditor or a board asking exactly which sensitive files are reachable by every employee and who has opened themnot Steampipe
  • Cleaning up Microsoft 365 sprawl where Teams, SharePoint sites and shared links accumulated faster than governancenot Steampipe
  • Investigating an insider incident where you need a defensible record of what a departing employee accessed and whennot Steampipe
  • Reducing the blast radius of a compromised account before an incident by removing global access groups and broken inheritancenot Steampipe

Where each one falls short

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

Steampipe

  • AGPL-3.0 across all four engines is a procurement blocker at organisations that ban the licence outright, and the network clause reaches any internal portal or service that puts a web interface in front of it.
  • Dashboards, benchmarks and mods were removed from Steampipe entirely at version 1.0 in October 2024 and now live in a separate product, so pre-2024 documentation and tutorials describe commands that no longer exist.
  • Live querying is bound by cloud provider API rate limits and keeps no persistent store by default, which is why a separate DuckDB-backed product exists for log volumes and why large accounts return slowly.
  • The company is fifteen people and bootstrapped, maintaining four command line tools plus a hosted service plus two further products, and the newer tools have thin community traction relative to that surface area.
  • Hosted tiers include only three users regardless of tier, with additional Enterprise users charged separately, so a team of thirty costs an order of magnitude more than the headline figure before compute and storage are counted.

Varonis Data Security Platform

  • Deployment is a project rather than an installation: collectors, service accounts, the initial crawl of a large file estate and behavioural baselining typically run for weeks to months before the first genuinely useful report, so value arrives well after the invoice does.
  • The collection model requires granting the platform broad read access across the data you are trying to protect, which needs its own approval and creates a high-value target, and some change boards spend longer approving that access than approving the purchase.
  • Findings are produced far faster than remediation capacity: an initial scan routinely surfaces hundreds of thousands of overexposed objects, and fixing them means altering permissions owned by business units, so without an executive mandate it becomes a dashboard nobody acts on.
  • Licensing is driven by identity counts and connected data sources, so a directory full of stale accounts and service principals inflates the bill and every additional platform you connect adds cost, which quietly pushes organisations to leave their least-governed systems uncovered.
  • Coverage is deepest in the Microsoft estate and thinner elsewhere: connectors exist for other SaaS and database platforms but they do not all support the same classification, alerting and automated remediation, so a heterogeneous estate receives uneven protection at a uniform price.

Pricing, plan by plan

Steampipe

Free
  • Steampipe CLIFree
    • AGPL-3.0
    • All plugins
    • No user or query limits
  • Pipes DeveloperFree
    • One user
    • 400 compute minutes
    • 3GB storage
  • Pipes Team$49/month
    • Three users
    • 2,000 compute minutes
    • 20GB storage
  • Pipes Enterprise$249/month
    • Three users
    • 10,000 compute minutes
    • 100GB storage

Varonis Data Security Platform

$100/year
  • Varonis Essentials$100/year
    • Data classification
    • Access visibility
    • Permission management
  • Varonis Professional$175/year
    • All Essentials features
    • Threat detection
    • User behavior analytics
  • Varonis Enterprise$300/year
    • All Professional features
    • Advanced analytics
    • Incident response

Which should you pick?

Choose Steampipe if

  • You need sql over live apis.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on macOS, Linux, Windows, Docker, Web.
  • You also want wide plugin set.
Steampipe review

Choose Varonis Data Security Platform if

  • You need effective permissions modelling.
  • You work on Web, Desktop.
  • You also want content classification.
Varonis Data Security Platform review

Questions people ask

Is Steampipe or Varonis Data Security Platform better?
Neither clearly leads. Steampipe starts at Free and Varonis Data Security Platform at $100/year, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Steampipe or Varonis Data Security Platform?
Steampipe has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for Steampipe and $100/year for Varonis Data Security Platform.
Does Steampipe or Varonis Data Security Platform run on more platforms?
Steampipe runs on macOS, Linux, Windows, Docker, Web. Varonis Data Security Platform runs on Web, Desktop.
Can I use Steampipe for free?
Yes. Steampipe has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Varonis Data Security Platform starts at $100/year.
What is Steampipe best used for?
Steampipe is most often used for security teams answering posture questions against live cloud accounts rather than a nightly export, compliance evidence gathering where the answer must reflect the account at the moment it is asked, inventory and drift questions spanning several cloud providers in one query, engineers who would rather write sql than learn each provider command line tool. Of those, security teams answering posture questions against live cloud accounts rather than a nightly export and compliance evidence gathering where the answer must reflect the account at the moment it is asked are not what Varonis Data Security Platform is typically brought in for.
What can Steampipe do that Varonis Data Security Platform cannot?
Steampipe covers SQL over live APIs, Wide plugin set, Embedded Postgres, Compliance benchmarks. Varonis Data Security Platform covers Effective permissions modelling, Content classification, Access activity auditing, Behavioural alerting.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Steampipe: When did Steampipe become AGPL?

May 2021, about four months after the project went public. It is a settled licence rather than a recent change, and predates the Business Source Licence wave it is often confused with.

Varonis Data Security Platform: Is this data loss prevention?

No, and it is a common confusion. DLP watches data in motion and tries to stop it leaving. Varonis works on data at rest: where it is, who can reach it, and who touched it. They address different halves of the same problem and organisations frequently run both.

Steampipe: Where did the dashboards and benchmarks go?

Into Powerpipe. They were deprecated in March 2024 and removed from Steampipe at version 1.0 in October 2024, so the check, dashboard, mod and variable commands are gone.

Varonis Data Security Platform: On-premises or SaaS?

It is now sold principally as SaaS, with edge collectors deployed on your network to reach on-premises file shares and directories. Older on-premises deployments with Windows collectors and SQL Server still exist in the field and are being migrated.

Steampipe: Is it fast on a large cloud estate?

Not always. Queries call provider APIs at request time, so rate limits rather than query planning set the pace, and there is no persistent store by default.

Varonis Data Security Platform: Does it need agents on every server?

Generally no. It collects through APIs and network protocols with service accounts, with collectors deployed near the data rather than agents on every host. That is one reason deployment is less invasive than the scale of the data suggests.

Steampipe: Does the AGPL affect internal use?

Running it internally for your own analysis is fine. Putting a web interface in front of it that other people use is where the network clause becomes a question for your legal team.

Varonis Data Security Platform: How long until it is useful?

Expect weeks to a few months depending on the size of the file estate and how quickly the service accounts and access are approved. The classification and behavioural baselining both need time before the alerts mean anything.

Steampipe: Is a bootstrapped vendor a risk?

It cuts both ways. There is no investor pressure toward a licence change or an exit, and there are also fifteen people supporting a large product surface.

Varonis Data Security Platform: Can it fix the problems it finds automatically?

Yes, it can remove global access groups, repair broken inheritance and quarantine exposed files under policy. Most organisations run this in simulation first, because automatically changing permissions on live business data goes wrong loudly.

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