Side by side

Checkov vs Cloud Custodian

Both stand on infrastructure policy as code tools. Which one you can start free with, which one lets you read the code, and what each costs once you pay.

Checkov

Free plan LinuxMac

Checkov offers broad infrastructure-as-code scanning, policy customization, and CI and IDE integrations at no cost. Alpine users should note the project’s stated testing and Python requirements.

Visit Checkov

Cloud Custodian offers policy-driven resource management across three major cloud providers, with preview and reporting options. Note the beta and alpha status of some integrations and the AWS constraint on event-triggered runs.

Visit Cloud Custodian

The facts

	Checkov	Cloud Custodian
Free plan	Yes	Yes
Open source	Not published	Not published
Runs on	Linux, Mac	Linux, Mac, Self-hosted, Windows
Lowest paid plan	Free or on request	Free or on request
Plans published	1	1
Maker	Not published	Not published
Website	checkov.io	cloudcustodian.io
On infrastructure policy as code tools	#8 of 25	#4 of 25

Checkov: what it does well

Scans seven documented IaC formats.
Includes more than 750 predefined policies.
Supports custom policies in Python or YAML.
Integrates with four documented CI systems.
Apache-2.0 licensed open-source CLI.

What to know first

Alpine requires Python 3.11 or later.
Alpine is not officially tested or supported.
Runtime scanning is an extension of Prisma Cloud.

Cloud Custodian: what it does well

Free and open source under Apache 2.0.
Dry-run previews show matching resources before actions.
Supports security, compliance, tagging, cleanup, and cost policies.
Policies can run on events or cron schedules.

What to know first

Kubernetes, Tencent Cloud, and OpenStack support is beta.
Terraform integration is in alpha.
AWS event-triggered policies are limited to the same region and account.

Alternatives to Checkov Alternatives to Cloud Custodian The whole list