CISO Tribune

Vendor comparison · 2 companies

Anchore vs Chainguard

Anchore sells an SBOM-powered solution that enables continuous scanning of applications from cloud-native deployments to legacy on-prem installations for security and compliance issues. Chainguard sells hardened open source artifacts that replace vulnerable or malicious versions found publicly. CISO Tribune files both under Software supply chain security. This page sets the two records side by side: what each sells, where it is based, who owns and funds it, the customers it names and its recent news, each fact numbered to its source.

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  • Anchore
  • Chainguard
Anchore vs Chainguard: Products, Customers and Funding Compared
AnchoreAnchore sells an SBOM-powered solution that enables continuous scanning of applications from cloud-native deployments to legacy on-prem installations for security and compliance issues.anchore.comChainguardChainguard sells hardened open source artifacts that replace vulnerable or malicious versions found publicly.chainguard.dev
What it sells
  • Anchore Enterprise[1][3][4][7][8][10]Anchore sells an SBOM-powered solution that enables continuous scanning of applications from cloud-native deployments to legacy on-prem installations for security and compliance issues.
  • Anchore SBOM[8]Anchore SBOM covers software components in both internally developed and third-party supplied software.
  • Anchore Enforce[8]Compliance checks run as part of the Anchore Enforce module.
  • Syft[7]Syft is an open source command line tool produced by Anchore that generates an SBOM from a filesystem such as a Git repo or a container image.
  • Grype[7]Grype is an open source command line tool produced by Anchore that takes a single SBOM and generates a list of vulnerabilities.
  • Container Image[7][12]A set of container images that can be installed via Helm on Kubernetes compatible platforms.
  • Chainguard Containers[7][10][14]Container images for over 3,000 projects, rebuilt continuously.
  • Chainguard Libraries[12]A malware-free catalog of open source dependencies.
  • Chainguard VMs[13]Minimal Linux virtual machine images based on Chainguard OS.
  • Chainguard OS Packages[14]30,000+ zero-CVE packages for building custom images.
  • Chainguard Actions[15]A catalog of 1,000+ hardened third-party actions.
  • Chainguard Guardener[10]A migration tool that rebuilds Dockerfiles layer by layer.
  • Chainguard Workspaces[19]Chainguard-hardened microVMs that isolate untrusted code.
Categories
Headquarters
Not stated on its pagesNot stated on its pages
Founded
Not stated on its pagesNot stated on its pages
Ownership and funding
Privately held[3]Privately held[2][3][5][9]
Named customers
Not stated on its pagesNot stated on its pages
Recent news
Not stated on its pages
  • November 3, 2026Chainguard introduced Chainguard Harness, an offering for hunting exploitable vulnerabilities in a running application, and opened its beta waitlist.[21]
  • August 17, 2026Chainguard announced that its Chainguard Containers reached SLSA Build Level 3.[7]
  • July 21, 2026Booz Allen Hamilton signed an enterprise license agreement with Chainguard.[8]
  • June 15, 2026Chainguard and partner organizations announced Athena, an industry coalition for the orchestrated defense of open source software.[22]
G2 and Gartner Peer Insights
  • G2: Not stated on its pages
  • Gartner Peer Insights: Not stated on its pages
  • G2: listed, seen November 3, 2026[9]
  • Gartner Peer Insights: Not stated on its pages
Who it fits
From its own pages, Anchore addresses organisations that release software products or host them as SaaS. Its home page copy also covers cloud-native and legacy applications across the development lifecycle. The site has a Public Sector section that lists Anchore Federal and DoD Software Factory. Its documentation includes a quickstart named Achieve Federal ATO. The site also lists EU CRA Compliance.From its own pages, Chainguard sells mainly to engineering and security teams whose developers and AI agents pull open source software. Chainguard says its FIPS-validated container variants and OS-level STIG hardening are available for regulated environments. Chainguard addresses vendors handling cardholder data that face PCI DSS vulnerability management requirements. Chainguard says its VMs run across cloud and on-premise environments. Chainguard names compliance frameworks such as FedRAMP and CMMC among those its zero-CVE images help with.
Last verified
October 16, 2026September 27, 2026

Where they overlap

  • Software supply chain security is the primary category of both Anchore and Chainguard.
  • Both are privately held.

Where they differ, field by field

  • Anchore is also filed under Software composition analysis, Compliance automation and Vulnerability management.
  • Anchore lists Anchore Enterprise, Anchore SBOM, Anchore Enforce, Syft, Grype and 1 more. Chainguard lists Chainguard Containers, Chainguard Libraries, Chainguard VMs, Chainguard OS Packages, Chainguard Actions and 2 more.

How they differ

CISO Tribune files Anchore under Software supply chain security, Software composition analysis, Compliance automation and Vulnerability management, with Software supply chain security as its primary category. CISO Tribune files Chainguard under Software supply chain security alone. Both companies are privately held. Anchore is headquartered in Santa Barbara, California, and its team works from across the United States and Europe.

Anchore sells Anchore Enterprise, an SBOM-powered solution for continuous scanning of applications, and it includes policy packs covering FedRAMP v5, NIST 800-53, 800-190, DISA, and Docker CIS. Anchore also produces the open source tools Syft, which generates an SBOM, and Grype, which generates a list of vulnerabilities from an SBOM. Chainguard sells hardened open source artifacts, including Chainguard Containers, which are images for over 3,000 projects rebuilt continuously. Chainguard also sells Chainguard Libraries, a malware-free catalog of open source dependencies, and Chainguard VMs, which are minimal Linux virtual machine images. The overlap is in SBOMs: Anchore generates and analyzes them, while every Chainguard image ships with a signed SBOM.

Anchore states that its experts support DevSecOps initiatives at the Department of Defense, U.S. Air Force, U.S. Space Force, U.S. Navy, DISA, and GSA. Chainguard says the Army Software Factory freed up 40% of developer time, and it names Shift5 and Canva among customers. On July 21, 2026, Booz Allen Hamilton signed an enterprise license agreement with Chainguard. On November 3, 2026, Chainguard introduced Chainguard Harness and opened its beta waitlist. On August 17, 2026, Chainguard announced that its Chainguard Containers reached SLSA Build Level 3.

What it sells: Anchore

What Anchore Enterprise does[1][3][4][7][8][10]
Anchore Enterprise generates SBOMs for containers as part of CI/CD, registry, or runtime scanning. Anchore SBOM is included in all Anchore Enterprise subscriptions. Anchore Enterprise provides NIST compliance tools to automate various standards and controls, including NIST 800-171, NIST 800-53, NIST 800-190, and NIST 800-218 Secure Software Development Framework.
What Anchore SBOM does[8]
Anchore allows users to upload SBOMs generated by non-Anchore tools, representing codebases under their control as well as third-party SBOMs provided by partners, contractors, and upstream suppliers. The Anchore Score is a computed composite security index that provides a numeric value for each vulnerability in the system.
What Anchore Enforce does[8]
Anchore Enterprise includes policy packs covering FedRAMP v5, NIST 800-53, 800-190, DISA, and Docker CIS. An Anchore Enterprise deployment allows users to comply with the NIST 800-218 attestation requirements. All Anchore policy rules are stored in a simple JSON format that can be edited by a human or managed programmatically via Git.

What it sells: Chainguard

What Chainguard Containers does[7][10][14]
Chainguard offers container images for over 3,000 projects, and hundreds of Helm charts, rebuilt continuously in a SLSA Level 3 environment. Custom Assembly configures Chainguard Factory to build images to a customer's specifications. Chainguard offers over 1,200 FIPS-validated container variants and OS-level STIG hardening for regulated environments. Every Chainguard image ships with Sigstore signatures, a signed SBOM and SLSA L2 provenance.
What Chainguard Libraries does[12]
Chainguard Libraries is a malware-free catalog of open source dependencies. Chainguard offers a catalog of Python, Java, JavaScript, Go and .NET packages. Chainguard Libraries works with existing artifact managers and workflows.
What Chainguard VMs does[13]
Chainguard VMs are minimal Linux images based on Chainguard OS and come in three types. Chainguard VMs support AWS, Azure, Google Cloud and on-premise hypervisors including VMware, Nutanix and OpenStack. Chainguard VMs carry a CVE remediation SLA of 7 days for critical and 14 days for high, medium, and low through automated rebuilds.
What Chainguard OS Packages does[14]
Chainguard offers 30,000+ zero-CVE packages, including every package powering Chainguard Containers. Chainguard OS Packages has a FIPS variant built with the latest versions of Chainguard's FIPS-validated cryptographic modules.
What Chainguard Actions does[15]
Chainguard Actions are drop-in replacements for upstream GitHub Actions. Every Chainguard Action ships with a full hardening report.
What Chainguard Guardener does[10]
Chainguard Guardener analyzes and rebuilds Dockerfiles layer by layer, maps packages and tests incrementally. Guardener opens a migration pull request for all actions with a drop-in Chainguard equivalent.
What Chainguard Workspaces does[19]
Chainguard Workspaces isolates untrusted code inside Chainguard-hardened microVMs. Chainguard Workspaces is currently in beta and is a Technology Preview.

Questions about Anchore and Chainguard

What do Anchore and Chainguard sell?
Anchore sells Anchore Enterprise, Anchore SBOM, Anchore Enforce, Syft, Grype and 1 more. Chainguard sells Chainguard Containers, Chainguard Libraries, Chainguard VMs, Chainguard OS Packages, Chainguard Actions and 2 more.
Are Anchore and Chainguard in the same category?
Yes. Software supply chain security is the primary category of both on CISO Tribune.
Who owns Anchore and Chainguard?
Anchore is privately held. Chainguard is privately held.
Who are Anchore and Chainguard sold to?
From its own pages, Anchore addresses organisations that release software products or host them as SaaS. From its own pages, Chainguard sells mainly to engineering and security teams whose developers and AI agents pull open source software.
What have Anchore and Chainguard announced recently?
November 3, 2026: Chainguard introduced Chainguard Harness, an offering for hunting exploitable vulnerabilities in a running application, and opened its beta waitlist.

About Anchore

Anchore sells an SBOM-powered solution that enables continuous scanning of applications from cloud-native deployments to legacy on-prem installations for security and compliance issues. Anchore is headquartered in Santa Barbara, California, and its team works from across the United States and Europe. Saïd Ziouani and Daniel Nurmi opened Anchore in 2016. Anchore Enterprise is a solution for organizations with DevSecOps or compliance programs for software delivered in containers.[1][4][5][7]

Anchore SBOM covers software components in both internally developed and third-party supplied software. Anchore SBOM is included in all Anchore Enterprise subscriptions. Anchore Enterprise generates SBOMs for containers as part of CI/CD, registry, or runtime scanning. Anchore allows users to upload SBOMs generated by non-Anchore tools, representing codebases under their control as well as third-party SBOMs provided by partners, contractors, and upstream suppliers.[8]

The Anchore Score is a computed composite security index that provides a numeric value for each vulnerability in the system. The Anchore Score is derived from a combination of the CVSS score, vulnerability severity, EPSS percentile, and KEV status.[8]

Anchore Enterprise scans container images, generates an SBOM, identifies vulnerabilities and other security problems, and enables users to prioritize and remediate issues. By storing the SBOMs generated from a pipeline, Anchore can send alerts when a new vulnerability is announced without needing to rescan the original software. Anchore integrates at every stage of the software development process from source code to build to runtime. Anchore automatically generates and analyzes software bills of materials at each step of the software development lifecycle.[7][8][9]

Syft is an open source command line tool produced by Anchore that generates an SBOM from a filesystem such as a Git repo or a container image. Anchore Enterprise embeds Syft into its integrations and backend so it can generate the SBOMs for all artifacts in CI pipelines, registries, or runtime images. Grype is an open source command line tool produced by Anchore that takes a single SBOM and generates a list of vulnerabilities.[7]

Anchore says companies that sell software to governments or regulated industries need software security programs. Anchore Enterprise provides NIST compliance tools to automate various standards and controls, including NIST 800-171, NIST 800-53, NIST 800-190, and NIST 800-218 Secure Software Development Framework. Anchore Enterprise includes policy packs covering FedRAMP v5, NIST 800-53, 800-190, DISA, and Docker CIS. Compliance checks run as part of the Anchore Enforce module. All Anchore policy rules are stored in a simple JSON format that can be edited by a human or managed programmatically via Git.[1][8][10]

Anchore experts help support DevSecOps initiatives at the Department of Defense, U.S. Air Force, U.S. Space Force, U.S. Navy, DISA, and GSA. Pre-built policy packs automate compliance checks for United States government standards, including DoD, DISA STIG, FedRAMP, NIST, and CIS Benchmarks. Email, Slack, Jira, and GitHub can be used to notify developers and security teams of policy violations, secrets, and malware.[11]

Anchore can be deployed in an air-gapped environment for use in classified or restricted access environments. Anchore can be deployed on-premise with no internet connection to run in DoD IL-6 environments. Anchore offers a set of container images that can be installed via Helm on Kubernetes compatible platforms. Every feature and operation in Anchore can be instrumented using an API call.[1][2][4][5][7][10][11][12]

Anchore on the record

Sources

Anchore full record

  1. [1]anchore.comAnchore · anchore.com · undated page, accessed October 16, 2026 · Tier A
  2. [2]Anchore continues remarkable growth and business momentumAnchore · anchore.com · published January 14, 2021 · Tier A
  3. [3]SBOM-Powered Software Composition Analysis • AnchoreAnchore · undated page, accessed November 2, 2026 · Tier A
  4. [4]Compliance Management via Policy Enforcement | Anchore Enterprise Product DocumentationAnchore · undated page, accessed November 2, 2026 · Tier A
  5. [5]Software Supply Chain Management Platform | Anchore EnterpriseAnchore · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  6. [6]About AnchoreAnchore · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  7. [7]Anchore Secure: Container Security SolutionsAnchore · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  8. [8]Anchore SBOM: Enterprise SBOM Analysis & ComplianceAnchore · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  9. [9]Software Supply Chain Security Tools for Modern DevSecOpsAnchore · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  10. [10]Anchore Enforce: Compliance Automation & Continuous MonitoringAnchore · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  11. [11]Software supply chain security for the public sector | AnchoreAnchore · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A
  12. [12]Anchore Pricing for Enterprise and Public SectorAnchore · undated page, accessed November 10, 2026 · Tier A

Chainguard full record

  1. [1]chainguard.devChainguard · chainguard.dev · undated page, accessed September 27, 2026 · Tier A
  2. [2]Chainguard announces 280 million growth financing from general catalyst to usher in next era of trusted open source software 302592279Chainguard via PR Newswire · prnewswire.com · published October 23, 2025 · Tier A
  3. [3]Chainguard for the Public Sector | Secure OSSChainguard · undated page, accessed October 23, 2026 · Tier A
  4. [4]Chainguard for Financial Services | Prevent cyber attacksChainguard · undated page, accessed October 23, 2026 · Tier A
  5. [5]The trusted source for open source | ChainguardChainguard · undated page, accessed October 23, 2026 · Tier A
  6. [6]Chainguard for Startups | Scale fast and securelyChainguard · undated page, accessed October 23, 2026 · Tier A
  7. [7]Proven, not promised: Chainguard Containers achieves SLSA Build Level 3Chainguard · published August 17, 2026 · Tier A
  8. [8]Booz Allen Hamilton signs enterprise license agreement with ChainguardChainguard · published July 21, 2026 · Tier A
  9. [9]Chainguard Reviews 2026: Details, Pricing, & Features - G2G2 · undated page, accessed October 23, 2026 · Tier C
  10. [10]Chainguard Containers | 3,000+ hardened container imagesChainguard · undated page, accessed November 3, 2026 · Tier A
  11. [11]Simplify PCI-DSS Requirements with ChainguardChainguard · undated page, accessed November 3, 2026 · Tier A
  12. [12]Chainguard Libraries | Secure Open Source DependenciesChainguard · undated page, accessed November 3, 2026 · Tier A
  13. [13]Chainguard VMs | Secure your virtual machine imagesChainguard · undated page, accessed November 3, 2026 · Tier A
  14. [14]Chainguard OS Packages | 30,000+ secure packagesChainguard · undated page, accessed November 3, 2026 · Tier A
  15. [15]Chainguard Actions | Secure-by-default CI/CD workflowsChainguard · undated page, accessed November 3, 2026 · Tier A
  16. [16]Chainguard Guardener | Easy, AI-assisted migrationChainguard · undated page, accessed November 3, 2026 · Tier A
  17. [17]Chainguard Factory | ChainguardChainguard · undated page, accessed November 3, 2026 · Tier A
  18. [18]Chainguard Checks | Ship through trusted CIChainguard · undated page, accessed November 3, 2026 · Tier A
  19. [19]Chainguard Workspaces | Code safely with agentsChainguard · undated page, accessed November 3, 2026 · Tier A
  20. [20]Chainguard Harness | Eliminate CVE and malware exposureChainguard · undated page, accessed November 3, 2026 · Tier A
  21. [21]Everything we announced at Chainguard Assemble London 2026Chainguard · published November 3, 2026 · Tier A
  22. [22]Chainguard Launches Athena, the Industry Coalition to Fix Open Source Vulnerabilities Before Attackers Can Find ThemPR Newswire · published June 15, 2026 · Tier A

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