DepWarden vs Snyk

Snyk is an excellent commercial SCA platform. But if you want to scan a dependency tree right now without creating an account, connecting a repo, or sending your project to a vendor cloud, DepWarden is a free, anonymous alternative. You paste a manifest, a lockfile or an SBOM — or point it at a public repo — and it runs in a private, session-isolated workspace, receiving only the dependency manifest text, never your source. Here is an honest comparison.

Exploitability-first prioritisation, not a CVE dump

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.

Supply-chain risk that CVE-only scanners miss

Remediation you can act on

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.

Compliance round-trip

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.

Repeat scans with no account

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.

Ecosystems

npm, PyPI, Maven, Gradle, Go, Cargo, Composer, RubyGems, NuGet, Dart (Pub) and Swift — as manifests, lockfiles or CycloneDX/SPDX SBOMs.

Where Snyk wins

To be fair: Snyk offers source-level reachability (is the vulnerable function actually called?) and automated fix pull requests via a GitHub app. Both require read — and for fix PRs, write — access to your source. DepWarden deliberately does neither; they are incompatible with the no-account, no-source-upload promise. If you need reachability or auto-fix PRs and are comfortable granting that access, a commercial tool is the right call.

Side by side

Try it

Paste a package-lock.json with an old lodash and a typo'd package name — you will see prioritised fixes, the typosquat flag and a one-command remediation in seconds. No sign-up. More: software composition analysis, free vulnerability scanner, free SBOM scanner, DepWarden vs Black Duck, DepWarden vs Mend.