All comparisons
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Kendo Shield vs DIY open-source scanners
Open-source cloud and Kubernetes scanners are excellent and free to start. Turning them into a program, with correlation, prioritization, remediation and audit evidence, is the part that costs time.
The short answer
Open source is a great way to run point checks. Kendo Shield is for when you need those checks connected, prioritized, fixed and reported continuously, without maintaining the glue yourself.
The questions that matter
Question
Kendo ShieldDIY open source
How much rule coverage is there out of the box?
Stronger1,900+ built-in rules across 95+ cloud services, maintained for you.Good baseline checks; extending and maintaining rules is up to you.
Are compliance frameworks mapped?
Stronger35+ frameworks, including SOC 2, ISO 27001, NIST 800-53, PCI DSS, HIPAA and FedRAMP.Some benchmarks are included; wider mappings usually need custom work.
Are findings correlated and prioritized?
StrongerYes, in a security graph that produces ranked attack paths.Findings are usually per tool and per check.
What happens when something suspicious runs?
StrongerAI turns runtime and cloud events into threat stories, one MITRE-mapped incident per attack with fewer false positives, and the eBPF sensor blocks the malicious process in the kernel.Open-source runtime tools emit raw, rule-by-rule alerts; tuning, correlation and response are up to your team.
Who fixes things?
StrongerGuided and one-click least-privilege remediation, with approvals.Your team, from the scanner’s output.
What is the license cost?Free plan for one environment, then priced by resources.
Stronger hereFree software; the cost is engineering time.
We mark the rows where the alternative is stronger. A comparison that never concedes anything isn’t worth reading.
When the alternative is the better fit
- You need a one-off assessment or a single check in a pipeline.
- You have engineers dedicated to building and maintaining your own security tooling.
Questions to ask any vendor
- Who maintains the rules when cloud services change?
- How do findings from different scanners get correlated and deduplicated?
- How will we produce audit evidence for each framework?
- What does it cost in engineering time each month?
See Kendo Shield on your own environment
Bring your own questions. We will answer them live, on your data, and you can judge for yourself.