No. 8 of 28 ·Container Image Scanning Tools

Clair

Linux · Self-hosted · API

Freedom report

Two barsScore 6.4

Free tierA free tier is on its own pricing page
Open codeNo open-source code on record
Runs widely1 of 6 device platforms
DocumentedPlans, terms and facts published

Clair is ranked #8 of 28 in container image scanning tools on Freedom251. It runs on API, Linux, Self-hosted. There is a free plan.

Clair plans and pricing

All plans

Clair Free Open source · self-hosted container vulnerability analysis github.com · 4 Oct 2026

Compared on container image scanning tools

Free plan: Yes
Deployment model: self_hosted
Registry scanning: Yes
SBOM generation: Yes

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The record

Purpose: Clair is an open source project for static analysis of vulnerabilities in application containers, including OCI and Docker images.
Analysis mode: Clair parses image contents and reports vulnerabilities using static analysis rather than runtime analysis.
Workflow: Clients submit container image manifests to the Clair API for indexing and vulnerability matching.
Indexing: Clair fetches image layers, scans their contents, and returns a persisted IndexReport.
Deduplication: Clair uses content-addressed OCI manifests and layers to reduce duplicated indexing work.
Current vulnerability data: Clair continually ingests security data, and matcher requests provide up-to-date vulnerability analysis for an IndexReport.
Notifications: The notifier checks whether newly discovered vulnerabilities affect indexed manifests and acts according to its configuration.
Supported image contents: The documented support matrix lists Ubuntu, Debian, RHEL, SUSE, Oracle, Alpine, AWS Linux, VMware Photon, and Python base containers.
Engine: Clair v4 uses the ClairCore library as its engine for examining image contents and reporting vulnerabilities.
Security data update: The v4.9.0 release notes state that ClairCore switched to NVD 2.0 JSON feeds for CVSS enrichment data.
Output format: The v4.9.0 release notes state that ClairCore can encode index reports as SPDX 2.3 documents.
License: The project is licensed under Apache 2.0.
Support: The project README lists a mailing list, an IRC channel, and GitHub issues as community contact options.
Stable builds: The README warns that the main branch may be unstable or broken and directs users to releases for stable binaries.
Price from: Free

Where it ranks on Freedom251

Best Container Image Scanning Tools in 2026#8 of 28

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Sources

github.com/quay/clair· checked 4 Oct 2026
quay.github.io/clair/· checked 4 Oct 2026
github.com/quay/clair/releases· checked 4 Oct 2026