Container vulnerability scanners: build / registry / runtime
Container image scanners across build, registry, and runtime stages. Per-developer, per-image, and quote-only pricing models.
What is a container vulnerability scanner?
Per-asset SaaS replacement for Nessus at scale, plus WAS/EASM/CTEM modules.
Cloud-native VMDR with TruRisk scoring; quote-only at enterprise scale.
Agentless CNAPP. Graph-based risk, big in cloud-native shops. Anchors on workloads not assets.
SideScanning agentless CNAPP. Often discounted aggressively against Wiz in head-to-heads.
Per-developer SCA + SAST + Container + IaC. Free tier is genuinely usable.
De-facto open-source container / IaC / SBOM scanner. CI/CD minutes are the real cost.
Build vs registry vs runtime
Build-time scans (Trivy in CI) gate bad images at the door. Registry scans (Snyk, Wiz, Aqua) catch images that bypassed CI. Runtime scans (Wiz Runtime Sensor) detect drift in deployed containers. Mature shops run all three layers.
FAQ
- Is Trivy enough?For build-time CI gating, yes. For runtime drift detection in production Kubernetes, no; pair with Wiz or Snyk.
- What does Snyk Container add over Trivy?Application-layer dependency analysis with fix-PR generation, centralised policy, and reachability analysis for prioritisation.
- Does Wiz cover containers?Yes, both via image scanning and runtime sensor. It is part of the CNAPP bundle, not a separate SKU at list.
- How do you detect malicious packages?Snyk and Aqua both ship malicious-package detection; Trivy detects known-bad packages from vulnerability databases but does not run heuristic malware analysis.
- What about admission control?Kubernetes admission control (gating bad images at deploy) needs policy enforcement. Trivy Operator + OPA / Kyverno is the OSS path; Wiz / Snyk / Aqua ship integrated admission controllers.