Grype vs Snyk

Quick Verdict

Grype is a free, open-source vulnerability scanner maintained by Anchore that matches packages against known CVEs and ranks them using a composite risk score (0-100) built from CVSS, EPSS, and KEV data. Snyk is a commercial developer security platform — named a Leader in the 2025 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Application Security Testing — that bundles SAST, SCA, container scanning, IaC security, and DAST under one dashboard with automated fix pull requests. Grype requires no account signup and runs as a single Go binary with zero cost. Snyk offers a free tier (200 Open Source tests/month) but requires paid plans for higher volumes and enterprise features. Choose Grype for a lightweight, zero-cost scanner in your CI/CD pipeline. Choose Snyk if you want an all-in-one platform with remediation automation, reachability analysis, and IDE integration.

Feature Comparison

Grype vs Snyk: Head-to-Head

What Is the Core Difference Between Grype and Snyk?

The fundamental difference is scope. Grype is a single-purpose vulnerability scanner — point it at a container image, filesystem, or SBOM file and it returns known CVEs sorted by risk. It requires no account, no server, and no dashboard. You install a single Go binary, run grype <target>, and get results in seconds. Grype supports over 20 language ecosystems including Go, Python, JavaScript, Java, Rust, Ruby, PHP, .NET, Dart, and Haskell.

Snyk is a developer security platform with six product lines: Snyk Code (SAST covering 16 languages), Snyk Open Source (SCA), Snyk Container, Snyk IaC (Terraform, CloudFormation, Kubernetes, Helm, ARM), Snyk API & Web (DAST), and Snyk Studio for AI-generated code. All connect through a unified dashboard with policy management, Jira integration, and team-based reporting. Grype gives you focused vulnerability scanning for free; Snyk gives you broader security coverage at a cost.

For teams that only need dependency and container vulnerability scanning, Grype covers that ground without paying for capabilities they won’t use. For organizations standardizing on a single security platform across code, dependencies, containers, and infrastructure, Snyk consolidates what would otherwise be multiple separate tools.

How Do Their Vulnerability Databases Compare?

Grype aggregates vulnerability data from eight public sources: NVD, GitHub Security Advisories, Alpine SecDB, Debian Security Tracker, Red Hat Security Data, Ubuntu, Amazon Linux, and Oracle Linux. The database updates daily via SQLite archives, processed through Vunnel, Anchore’s open-source vulnerability ETL tool. Because both the data sources and the processing pipeline are fully open-source, security teams can inspect exactly where each finding originates and verify the data independently.

Snyk maintains its own curated vulnerability database, adding over 24,000 new vulnerabilities in 2024 according to Snyk’s published security reports. Snyk’s dedicated security research team triages and enriches every vulnerability record with exploit maturity ratings, reachability data, and specific remediation guidance. This curation means some vulnerabilities appear in Snyk’s database before they reach the NVD.

Both databases cover common vulnerability queries well. Grype’s strength is transparency — every data source is public and auditable. Snyk’s strength is curation — its research team adds context that raw advisory feeds lack.

Which Tool Prioritizes Vulnerabilities Better?

Grype produces a composite risk score from 0 to 100 for each finding by combining three signals: CVSS severity, EPSS score (the 30-day exploitation probability with percentile ranking, sourced from FIRST.org), and KEV catalog status (from CISA’s Known Exploited Vulnerabilities list). Default sorting puts the most actionable findings first. A critical-severity CVE with a low EPSS score ranks below a high-severity CVE that appears in the KEV catalog — because KEV inclusion means the vulnerability is confirmed exploited in the wild. The math is transparent and the defaults work well out of the box.

Snyk takes a different approach. Its priority score evaluates over a dozen factors including reachability analysis — whether your code actually calls the vulnerable function in a dependency. A critical vulnerability in a library you import but never invoke gets deprioritized. Snyk also factors in exploit maturity, social trends, and EPSS/CVSS scores. Reachability analysis is Snyk’s strongest differentiator in prioritization because it reduces the false-positive noise that plagues severity-only triage.

Both approaches improve on raw CVSS scoring. Grype’s method is transparent and reproducible — you can verify every input. Snyk’s reachability analysis requires code-level understanding that a standalone scanner cannot provide.

How Does Each Tool Handle Remediation?

Remediation is where Snyk pulls ahead. When Snyk finds a vulnerable dependency, it can open an automated pull request upgrading the package to a safe version. DeepCode AI generates context-aware fix suggestions for SAST findings with reported 80% accuracy according to Snyk. The workflow is: scan, review the fix PR, merge. For teams measured on mean time to remediate, that automation cuts days off fix timelines.

Grype detects vulnerabilities but does not remediate them. It tells you what’s wrong and how severe it is, then your team figures out the fix. You can pair Grype with other tools for remediation — Dependabot or Renovate for dependency updates, for example — but that’s additional setup and integration work.

For CI/CD gating, both tools work well. Grype supports severity-based exit codes (--fail-on high) and SARIF output for GitHub code scanning. Snyk provides the same gating capabilities plus the fix automation layer on top.

When to Choose Grype vs Snyk

Choose Grype if…

• Budget is a constraint — Grype is completely free with no usage limits or feature restrictions
• You need a focused vulnerability scanner without the overhead of a full security platform
• Risk-based prioritization with EPSS and KEV data is important to your triage workflow
• An SBOM-first workflow with Syft fits your container scanning process
• You want a single binary with no account signup, no server, and no external dependencies
• Your team already handles remediation through Dependabot, Renovate, or manual processes
• Transparency in vulnerability data sourcing matters — all of Grype’s data sources are public

Choose Snyk if…

• You want SAST, SCA, container, IaC, and DAST scanning from a single platform
• Automated fix pull requests and AI-powered remediation suggestions would speed up your workflow
• Reachability analysis to filter out vulnerabilities in unused code paths is valuable to your team
• IDE integration (VS Code, IntelliJ, Eclipse) is part of your developer workflow
• A unified web dashboard for vulnerability management, reporting, and policy enforcement is needed
• Your organization requires a Gartner MQ Leader for vendor procurement (Snyk is a Leader in the 2025 Gartner MQ for AST)
• You’re replacing multiple point tools and want to consolidate under one platform

Both tools handle SCA vulnerability scanning well. Grype is the leaner option — free, fast, and focused. Snyk is the broader option — more capabilities, more automation, more cost. Many teams start with Grype in CI/CD for vulnerability detection and later evaluate Snyk when they need platform-level features like fix automation and reachability analysis.

For more options, browse AppSec Santa’s SCA tools category.

Frequently Asked Questions

Suphi Cankurt

Application Security @ Invicti

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10+ years in application security. Reviews and compares 170 AppSec tools across 11 categories to help teams pick the right solution. More about me →