SCA Comparison
OtterSight vs Grype
OtterSight uses Grype under the hood — and builds on top of it. Grype is an excellent CLI tool. OtterSight turns it into a managed service with dashboard, schedules, EUVD, and alerts.
In short
Use Grype directly if…
- ✓You prefer working in the terminal with CLI tools
- ✓You trigger scans manually or in your own CI/CD pipeline
- ✓No scan results should leave your local system
- ✓You want to spend €0 and build everything yourself
Choose OtterSight if…
- →You want automatic scheduled scans without maintaining cron jobs
- →You need a dashboard for all repos, not JSON in the terminal
- →Alerts should automatically go to Slack, Discord, or Telegram
- →You want EUVD data in addition to Grype’s vulnerability DB
- →Version drift and trends should be tracked over time
Feature comparison
| Feature | OtterSight | Grype |
|---|---|---|
| CVE Scanning | ✓ Grype + EUVD | ✓ Grype DB |
| SBOM Generation | ✓ CycloneDX 1.6 via Syft | — Needs Syft separately |
| EU Vulnerability DB | ✓ EUVD integration | — |
| EPSS + KEV Scoring | ✓ Prioritization | — CVSS only |
| Dashboard | ✓ Web UI | — CLI / JSON output |
| Scheduled Scans | ✓ Daily, weekly, push | — Manual / own cron jobs |
| Notifications | 300+ channels | — None (own scripting) |
| Version Drift | ✓ Tracking + trends | — |
| Multi-Repo | ✓ All repos centrally | — One at a time |
| Scan History | ✓ Comparison over time | — Snapshot only |
| Team Features | ✓ Multi-tenant | — Single-user CLI |
| Data Sovereignty | Hetzner DE | ✓ Local (nothing leaves your system) |
| Open Source | — Proprietary | ✓ Apache 2.0 |
| Price | From €9/mo | Free |
Swipe for all columns →
How OtterSight and Grype relate
OtterSight isn’t a Grype competitor — it’s a managed service built on Grype.
Grype and Syft (both from Anchore) are excellent open-source tools for vulnerability scanning and SBOM generation. OtterSight uses them as the scanning engine and adds the layers a CLI doesn’t provide:
- Automatic scheduled scans (no cron, no CI setup)
- Web dashboard with all repos, scans, and trends at a glance
- EUVD enrichment — data Grype alone doesn’t have
- EPSS + KEV scoring for real prioritization instead of just CVSS
- Alerts via 300+ channels — instead of parsing JSON output yourself
- Scan history and version drift tracking over time
Comparable to the relationship between PostgreSQL and a managed database service: the engine is the same, but the service handles operations for you.
When Grype is the better choice
- Maximum data sovereignty — Grype runs locally. Not a single byte leaves your machine. If that’s a hard requirement, no cloud service can compete.
- CI/CD integration — Grype integrates directly into GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, or Jenkins. If you need scans as a build gate (build breaks on critical CVE), Grype in CI is the right choice.
- Free and open source — Apache 2.0. No vendor lock-in, no subscription. For devs who want to invest time instead of money.
- Container and filesystem scanning — Grype scans not just manifests but also container images and local filesystems directly. OtterSight focuses on repo-based scanning.
Grype power, without the ops overhead
3 repos free. Grype + Syft under the hood. Dashboard, EUVD, and 300+ alerts on top.
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