Kubernetes vulnerability scanners compared

Two different doubts, answered honestly: why not the free tool you already know, and why not the closed platform your company already buys. For the full evidence behind the Trivy Operator claims, read the detailed comparison.

Already running Trivy Operator? Sometimes you should just keep it.

It is free, open source and built on one of the best scanners around. For a lot of teams it is the right answer.

Stay on Trivy Operator if

  • You run one or two clusters and only care about what is vulnerable right now.
  • You have a hard rule that no data may leave the cluster — not even dependency lists.
  • You also want it to check your configs, exposed secrets, and access rules in the same package.
  • Your team already lives in Grafana and its Prometheus integration is enough.

You can also run both. Some teams keep Trivy Operator for config checks inside each cluster and use StackRadar as the one place that tracks everything across all of them. The two scanners do not conflict.

Add StackRadar if

  • You want one answer that covers every cluster at once, not one cluster at a time.
  • You need to answer “when did this first appear?” and “what were we exposed to in March?”
  • You need a dated paper trail to show an auditor or an EU regulator (CRA, NIS2).
  • You want new security warnings checked against the dependency lists you already sent — no rescan.

The difference is in how they work, not a feature checklist. Trivy Operator stores scan results inside each cluster, and those results expire after a day. StackRadar stores the dependency list itself — so when a new security warning lands, it just checks the list instead of scanning everything again.

The long version, with the trade-offs spelled out

Security you can audit, not just trust.

Most tools are a closed agent, a private database and a number you accept. Every layer here is open enough to check.

StackRadar
Typical alternative
Scanner
Code is published — read it, check it, run it in your cluster
Closed-source agent
Can you trust the agent?
Every release is signed and pinned to an exact version, so you can prove what you installed
Unsigned; the version can change under you
Vulnerability data
Open OSV.dev database — every finding links to its public advisory
Private vendor database
What leaves your cluster
Only the dependency list (SBOM)
Full access to your images
Where your data lives
EU only
Varies, or US by default
Pricing
Published on this page
Per-node, ask sales

Head to head with the tools you are actually considering.

One page per product: what it does well, what it costs, and who should choose it over us.

The next CVE lands whether or not you are ready.

Since 11 September 2026 the EU Cyber Resilience Act gives manufacturers 24 hours to report an actively exploited vulnerability. Knowing which pod runs it is step one, and one Helm install keeps that answer current.