Black Duck (part of Synopsys) is built for large-scale enterprise governance — binary and code-snippet-level open-source detection, a deep license-compliance knowledgebase, and multi-team policy rollouts. Real value if you are standing up an org-wide SCA programme. But if you just want to check a project's dependencies right now, Black Duck means a sales call, an account and an onboarding process before you see a single finding.
DepWarden is a free, anonymous alternative for that faster path. Paste a manifest, a lockfile or an SBOM — or point it at a public repo — and get results in seconds, in a private, session-isolated workspace. No account, no sales call, and it never receives your source code or compiled binaries, only the dependency manifest text.
Every component is matched against the full OSV mirror, then enriched with CISA KEV (actively exploited in the wild) and FIRST EPSS (exploit probability). Instead of a wall of CVSS scores you get a short "fix these first" list that says *why* a finding is first — actively exploited, a fix exists, and it is a direct dependency. That prioritisation is the part commercial tools meter; here it is free.
Not just "a CVE exists" but a batch plan — upgrading 3 packages clears 7 findings — with a copy-paste fix command for your ecosystem, and a warning when the suggested version crosses a major boundary.
Ingest an existing CycloneDX or SPDX SBOM, then export a CycloneDX SBOM, an OpenVEX document and a NOTICE / license-obligations file. No add-on module, no gated tier.
Connect a GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket or Azure DevOps repo branch with a personal access token and attach a schedule — daily, weekly or monthly. It re-scans automatically and emails a report, and no token is retained beyond the scan.
npm, PyPI, Maven, Gradle, Go, Cargo, Composer, RubyGems, NuGet, Dart (Pub) and Swift — as manifests, lockfiles or CycloneDX/SPDX SBOMs.
To be fair: Black Duck can identify undeclared open source from binary artifacts and copy-pasted code snippets — real value that no manifest-based scanner, this one included, can match — plus a mature license-compliance knowledgebase and audit trails built for large, multi-team organisations. If that is the job in front of you, Black Duck is built for it.
Paste a pom.xml or package-lock.json and see prioritised findings in seconds — no sign-up. More: software composition analysis, free vulnerability scanner, DepWarden vs Snyk, DepWarden vs Mend.