Compare 100+ free security tools — Snyk, Semgrep, CodeQL, GitGuardian, Trivy, Auth0, Clerk, and more. Exact free tier limits by security domain. Verified April to September 2026.

Best Free Security Tools for Developers

Security is no longer optional — even side projects get supply chain attacks, credential leaks, and dependency vulnerabilities. The good news: the security tool ecosystem has an unusually strong free tier landscape. Snyk offers free SAST scanning for up to 200 tests/month. Semgrep and CodeQL are free for open-source. Trivy and Grype are fully open-source container scanners.

This page compares every free security tool in our index — 102 tools across application security (SAST/DAST), secret scanning, dependency analysis, container security, identity/auth, error tracking, and SSL/compliance. Whether you need code scanning or user authentication, we have the comparison with exact free tier limits.

Recent Security Tool Pricing Changes

View all 554 pricing changes →

Looking for alternatives to a specific security tool? See our dedicated guide: Auth0 Alternatives

Application Security (SAST/DAST)

Static and dynamic analysis tools that find vulnerabilities in your code before they reach production. Ranges from cloud-hosted scanners like Snyk and SonarCloud to open-source engines like Semgrep and CodeQL.

Snyk Free stable

Developer security — 200 open-source SCA tests/month, 100 SAST (Snyk Code) tests/month, 100 container tests/month, 300 IaC tests/month. Unlimited contributing developers. Code and dependency scanning across all products.

FOSSA Free stable

Open source license compliance and software composition analysis (SCA). Free tier: 5 projects, 10 contributing developers, 1 release group, 5 dependency levels, container scanning, SBOM export, API access

Superseded: As of 2026-08-28, semgrep.dev/pricing reads: Free Edition: Cross-file analysis with Pro rules, AI-powered detection, triage, and remediation, 60 AI credits included, Fast CI/CD deploy via Semgrep infrastructure, Scan up to 10 repositories, Maximum 10 contributors, Authentication via GitHub/GitLab. We are not publishing our stored Semgrep terms beside it — our own pricing change record, discovered 2026-08-28, names them as the previous ones. Read what we recorded ↓

aikido.dev Free stable

All-in-one appsec platform covering SCA, SAST, CSPM, DAST, Secrets, IaC, Malware, Container scanning, EOL,... Free plan includes two users, scanning of 10 repos, 1 cloud, 2 containers & 1 domain.

Corgea Free stable

Free autonomous security platform that finds, validates and fixes insecure code and packages across +20 languages and frameworks. Free plan includes 10 repos, 10 PR scans/month, and 10 SAST auto fixes. Features: AI SAST, Logic/Auth Scanning, Dependency Scanning, Secrets Detection, Container Scanning, IaC Scanning.

Datree Free

Open Source CLI tool to prevent Kubernetes misconfigurations by ensuring that manifests and Helm charts follow best practices as well as your organization’s policies

Monitor Java, Javascript, .NET, Scala, Ruby, and NodeJS projects for security vulnerabilities in dependencies. Free for one private project, unlimited projects for open source.

qualys.com Free

Find web app vulnerabilities, audit for OWASP Risks

SOOS Free

Free, unlimited SCA scans for open-source projects. Detect and fix security threats before release. Protect your projects with a simple and effective solution.

Bearer Free

Helps implement privacy by design via audits and continuous workflows so that organizations comply with GDPR and other regulations. The free tier is limited to smaller teams and the SaaS version only.

Checkov Open Source

Open source (Apache 2.0) IaC static analysis. Scans Terraform, CloudFormation, Kubernetes, Helm, Dockerfile, and 10+ frameworks for misconfigurations. No usage limits.

OWASP ZAP Open Source

Open source (Apache 2.0) web application security scanner. Passive/active scanning, AJAX spider, fuzzing, manual interception, CI/CD integration. No usage limits.

Nuclei Open Source stable

Open source (MIT) vulnerability scanner with YAML-based template system. 9,000+ community templates for web apps, APIs, networks, DNS, SSL. No usage limits.

CodeQL Free

GitHub semantic code analysis engine. Free for all public repositories with no scan limits. Supports JS/TS, Python, Java, C#, C/C++, Go, Ruby. Integrated into GitHub Actions.

Probely Free stable

Free plan with 5 scan hours/month for web application and API vulnerability scanning, up to 3 users, full API access. No credit card required.

Secret Scanning & Management

Prevent credential leaks and manage secrets securely. GitGuardian catches secrets in commits, while Vault, Doppler, and Infisical provide runtime secret management with rotation and access controls.

Doppler Free stable

Secrets management — up to 3 users, 10 projects, 4 environments per project. CLI, SDKs, and integrations included

Infisical Free stable

5 identities, 3 projects, 3 environments, 10 integrations. Includes CLI, SDKs, K8s operator, webhooks, 2FA, secret scanning and sharing

HashiCorp Vault Community / HCP Free

Self-hosted free (BSL 1.1 license). HCP Vault Secrets cloud free tier: 25 apps, 25 static secrets, 5 versions, 5 syncs

GitGuardian Free stable

Secrets detection for up to 25 developers — 420+ secret types, unlimited real-time scanning, 500 historical scan detections, CLI (ggshield) for pre-commit hooks, VSCode extension, 10K API calls/month

Cloud-first, developer-friendly security platform prevents data breaches in .NET and Java applications

Dotenv Free

Sync your .env files, quickly & securely. Stop sharing your .env files over insecure channels like Slack and email, and never lose an important .env file again. Free for up to 3 teammates.

Secure Enterprise-grade platform for managing environment variables and secrets. Free tier includes up to 3 applications and 150 secrets per project.

Gitleaks Open Source

Open source (MIT) secret scanner for git repositories, files, and directories. CLI tool is free with no limits. GitHub Action free for personal repos and 1 org repo.

TruffleHog Open Source

Open source (Apache 2.0) secret scanner for git repos, Docker images, S3, Slack, and 20+ sources. Detects 800+ credential types with active API verification.

Google Secret Manager Always Free stable

Always Free: 6 active secret versions, 10K access operations/month, 3 rotation notifications/month. Centralized secrets storage with IAM-based access control

Dependency & Supply Chain Security

Automated dependency scanning, vulnerability alerts, and update management. These tools catch known CVEs in your dependency tree and can auto-create PRs to fix them.

Superseded: As of 2026-09-07, socket.dev/pricing reads: Free: $0 per month, per developer. Unlimited developers & repos. 1,000 scans per month. 500 API quota per hour. 3 members, 1 repository label. We are not publishing our stored Socket.dev terms beside it — our own pricing change record, discovered 2026-09-07, names them as the previous ones. Read what we recorded ↓

Grype Open Source

Open source (Apache 2.0) vulnerability scanner for container images and filesystems. Covers 20+ language ecosystems with daily-updated CVE database.

Dependabot Free

Free automated dependency updates and vulnerability alerts for all GitHub repos. Generates pull requests for updates across 30+ ecosystems (npm, pip, Maven, Go, Docker, etc.).

Renovate Open Source stable

Open source (AGPL-3.0) automated dependency update bot. Supports 90+ package managers. Available as self-hosted CLI or free hosted GitHub/GitLab App by Mend.

Container & Infrastructure Security

Scan container images for vulnerabilities, enforce Kubernetes policies, and secure network access. Most are open-source with no usage limits when self-hosted.

Twingate Free stable

Zero trust network access — Starter plan free forever: 5 users, 10 remote networks. Replace traditional VPNs with identity-based access to internal resources

Tailscale Personal stable

Mesh VPN with WireGuard — 6 users, unlimited devices, MagicDNS, exit nodes, subnet routing. Free Personal plan.

High confidence Indicator of Compromise(IOC) targeting public cloud infrastructure, A portion is available on github (https://github.com/unknownhad/AWSAttacks). Full list is available via API

Trivy Open Source

Open source (Apache 2.0) multi-target vulnerability scanner for container images, filesystems, git repos, IaC, Kubernetes, SBOMs, and cloud resources.

Falco Open Source stable

CNCF Graduated (Apache 2.0) runtime security tool. Monitors Linux syscalls and Kubernetes events to detect threats in containers, hosts, and cloud environments in real time.

Identity & Authentication

User authentication, authorization, and identity management — from managed services like Auth0 and Clerk to self-hosted options like Keycloak and SuperTokens. Free tiers typically measured by monthly active users.

Clerk Hobby stable

Drop-in auth with 50K monthly retained users free, unlimited apps

Auth0 Free stable

Identity platform — 25K MAU (B2C), unlimited logins, social + database connections, Universal Login, 1 Enterprise Connection, 5 Organizations, 1 Custom Domain. No credit card required

Kinde Free stable

10,500 MAU, OAuth 2.0/OIDC/SAML, MFA (email/SMS/app), passwordless, multi-tenancy (5 organizations), feature flags (10 max). No credit card required

WorkOS Free stable

AuthKit with up to 1M MAU free for user management — email/password, social login, MFA. Enterprise SSO/SCIM priced separately

Superseded: As of 2026-08-28, permit.io/pricing reads: Community: Free Forever, 1000 MAU, 20 Tenants, No Limit Authorization Queries, 25 Roles, 50 Resource Types, 5 Role Assignments, 2,000 Groups, 2,000 Resource Instances, 2,000 Relationship Tuples. Free for OSS Projects - Contact Us. We are not publishing our stored Permit.io terms beside it — our own pricing change record, discovered 2026-08-28, names them as the previous ones. Read what we recorded ↓

Stytch Free stable

Authentication and fraud prevention — 10,000 MAU, passwordless login, OAuth, MFA, session management, device fingerprinting, 5 SSO/SCIM connections, 1,000 M2M tokens, password breach detection

Descope Free Forever stable

Authentication and user management. Free Forever plan: 7,500 MAU, 10 tenants, 3 SSO connections. All core auth methods: passwords, magic links, OTP, passkeys, social login, MFA

Hanko Free stable

Passkey-first authentication. Cloud free tier: 10,000 MAU, 2 production projects. Also open source (AGPL v3) for unlimited self-hosted use. WebAuthn, OAuth, email/password

Keycloak Free OSS

Free OSS (Apache 2.0). Red Hat-backed identity and access management. SSO, OIDC, SAML, LDAP, social login, MFA, fine-grained authorization. Self-hosted with no user limits

Superseded: As of 2026-09-01, fusionauth.io/pricing reads: Community: 1,000 MAUs Self-hosted: Free Download FusionAuth Community is free and unlimited. It has the core authentication features. Core authentication standards & features most apps need Community support (forums, Slack, Github) Self-host FusionAuth on your own infrastructure for free. We are not publishing our stored FusionAuth terms beside it — our own pricing change record, discovered 2026-09-01, names them as the previous ones. Read what we recorded ↓

SuperTokens Free stable

Open source authentication — cloud: 5K MAUs free. Self-hosted: unlimited. Email/password, social login, passwordless, RBAC, user management dashboard

360username Free stable

A free tool to search a username across 150+ social platforms to find matching profiles.

Aserto Free

Fine-grained authorization as a service for applications and APIs. Free up to 1000 MAUs and 100 authorizer instances.

asgardeo.io Free stable

Seamless Integration of SSO, MFA, passwordless auth and more. Includes SDKs for frontend and backend apps. Free tier: 7,500 Consumer MAUs (B2C), 250 B2B MAUs, 2 social login providers.

Authgear Free

Bring Passwordless, OTPs, 2FA, SSO to your apps in minutes. All Front-end included. Free tier: unlimited MAUs, up to 2 applications, 100 SMS/month.

Superseded: As of 2026-09-10, authress.io reads: First 1000 billable calls are free. 0.0012 USD per call, billed monthly. We are not publishing our stored Authress terms beside it — our own pricing change record, discovered 2026-09-10, names them as the previous ones. Read what we recorded ↓

Authy Free

Two-factor authentication (2FA) on multiple devices, with backups. Drop-in replacement for Google Authenticator. Free for up to 100 successful authentications.

Cerbos Hub Free

A complete authorization management system for authoring, testing, and deploying access policies. Fine-grained authorization and access control, free up to 100 monthly active principals.

Cloud-IAM Free stable

Keycloak Identity and Access Management as a Service. Free up to 100 users and one realm.

duo.com Free stable

Two-factor authentication (2FA) for website or app. Free for ten users, all authentication methods, unlimited, integrations, hardware tokens.

Two-factor authentication (2FA) by push notifications, free for 3 users, VPN, Websites, and SSH

Superseded: As of 2026-09-02, logto.io/pricing reads: Free tier is $0/month for up to 50,000 MAU and 50K tokens. Includes user authentication, machine-to-machine apps, account APIs, audit logs, and user management. Additional features like RBAC, MFA, and Organizations are paid add-ons. We are not publishing our stored Logto terms beside it — our own pricing change record, discovered 2026-09-02, names them as the previous ones. Read what we recorded ↓

MojoAuth Free stable

MojoAuth makes it easy to implement Passwordless authentication on your web, mobile, or any application in minutes.

Okta Free stable

Developer authentication via Auth0 platform — 25,000 MAU free, social login, passwordless, MFA, SSO. Note: developer.okta.com/signup now routes to Auth0.

Ory Free stable

Open-source identity infrastructure — Kratos (identity), Hydra (OAuth2/OIDC), Oathkeeper (API gateway), Keto (permissions). Cloud: 25K MAU free. Self-hosted: unlimited, Apache 2.0

Keycloak Open Source Identity and Access Management. Free Starter realm up to 100 users. SSO connections require paid Premium tier ($749/month). Leveraging Phase Two's enhanced Keycloak container with Organization extension.

PropelAuth Free

Authentication for B2B SaaS — free up to 10,000 MAUs and 10K Transactional Emails (with a watermark branding: "Powered by PropelAuth").

Stack Auth Free

Now Hexclave — stack-auth.com redirects to hexclave.com, and the GitHub org stack-auth/stack-auth redirects to hexclave/hexclave (same repository). Open-source user infrastructure: auth, teams, RBAC, API keys, emails. Free tier is $0 forever: up to 10,000 auth users, 1 dashboard admin, 1,000 emails per month, email/OAuth/magic links, community support. Also self-hostable for free.

A turnkey user and access management that works for you and supports multi-tenant (B2B) use cases. Free for up to 100 Daily Active Users, with all security features (no paywall for OTP, Passwordless, Policies, and so on).

authentik Free OSS stable

Self-hosted identity provider covering SSO, SAML, OAuth2/OIDC and LDAP. The open-source edition is free and aimed at homelab users and simple use cases. Enterprise is $5/user/month billed annually with external users at $0.02/user/month and no charge for service accounts; Enterprise Plus starts at $20k annually.

Error Tracking & Runtime Security

Catch runtime errors, crashes, and exceptions in production. These tools help you detect and fix security-relevant bugs before users report them.

Bugsnag Free stable

Error monitoring — 7,500 events/month and 1M spans/month on free plan, 1 user, unlimited projects, 7-day data retention. 14-day free trial of paid features available. Rebranded as SmartBear Insight Hub

Rollbar Free stable

Error tracking with 5,000 occurrences/month, 30-day data retention, 1,000 session replays. Processing stops at limit (no surprise charges)

GlitchTip Free stable

Open-source error tracking — 1,000 events/month, unlimited projects and team members, Sentry SDK-compatible. Also includes uptime monitoring. Self-hostable for unlimited

Superseded: As of 2026-08-28, logrocket.com/pricing reads: Pricing starts at $76 / mo for 1K sessions. A free trial is available. We are not publishing our stored LogRocket terms beside it — our own pricing change record, discovered 2026-08-28, names them as the previous ones. Read what we recorded ↓

Real-time error, feature, and log reporting. Free plan: 3,000 events/month, 1 project, 1 user, 3-day retention. Also fully open source (Apache 2.0) for self-hosted unlimited use

Bugsink Free stable

Error-tracking with Sentry-SDK compatability. Free for up to 5,000 errors/month, or unlimited use when self-hosted.

Superseded: As of 2026-09-01, catchjs.com reads: There is a free tier with limits of 1,000 logged errors per month, 1,000 log API calls per month, performance metrics for 100 URLs, time on page for 100 URLs, and pageviews for 10,000 URLs. It includes email notifications, screenshots, click trails, and support for one domain and its subdomains. We are not publishing our stored CatchJS.com terms beside it — our own pricing change record, discovered 2026-09-01, names them as the previous ones. Read what we recorded ↓

elmah.io Free

Error logging and uptime monitoring for web developers. Free Small Business subscription for open-source projects.

Embrace Free

Mobile app monitoring. Free for small teams with up to 1 million user sessions per year.

honeybadger.io Free stable

Exception, uptime, and cron monitoring. Developer plan (free): 5,000 errors/month, 1 user, 50 MB/day logging, 1 uptime monitor, 1 status page, 1 dashboard, unlimited projects, 15-day error data retention, 7-day log retention. Intended for low-traffic projects.

Jam Free

Developer friendly bug reports in one click. Free plan with unlimited jams.

Cloud device observability and debugging platform. 100 devices free for [Nordic](https://app.memfault.com/register-nordic), [NXP](https://app.memfault.com/register-nxp), and [Laird](https://app.memfault.com/register-laird) devices.

Semaphr Free stable

Free all-in-one kill switch for your mobile apps.

Superseded: As of 2026-09-01, whitespace.dev reads: The Personal plan is $0/month and includes unlimited recordings that are never deleted, time travel (60 second limit), public recordings, and basic privacy filters. It does not include team members or projects. We are not publishing our stored Whitespace terms beside it — our own pricing change record, discovered 2026-09-01, names them as the previous ones. Read what we recorded ↓

There is no startup program: instabug.com/startups no longer serves one. Checked 2026-09-02, the URL redirects to www.luciq.ai, the company's site after its rebrand to Luciq, whose navigation carries no startups or program page. The former offer was a discount on all Instabug plans for eligible startups.

SSL, TLS & Web Security

Free SSL certificates, TLS configuration testing, and web security scanners. Essential baseline security that every site needs.

CertKit Free

Manage SSL Certificate issuance, renewal, and monitoring. Search the Certificate Transparency Logs. Free for 3 certificates and 1 user after the beta.

DJ Checkup Free

Scan your Django site for security flaws with this free, automated checkup tool. Forked from the Pony Checkup site.

Test for modern Internet Standards like IPv6, DNSSEC, HTTPS, DMARC, STARTTLS and DANE

letsencrypt.org Free stable

Free SSL Certificate Authority with certs trusted by all major browsers

HTTP security header testing tool. Now integrated into MDN as HTTP Observatory.

Intense analysis of the configuration of any SSL web server

Free website security check and malware scanner

Test an SSL/TLS service for secure server configuration, certificates, chains, etc. Not limited to HTTPS.

Other Security Tools

Password managers, fraud detection, threat intelligence, privacy compliance, and other security utilities with free tiers for developers.

1Password OSS Teams

Free Teams account for open source projects — includes full platform access (Mac, Windows, iOS, Android, Linux, browser), SSH key management, Git commit signing, and secrets management. Non-expiring membership

URLscan.io Free stable

URL and website security scanner API — free tier: 50 private scans/day, 1,000 unlisted scans/day, 5,000 public scans/day, 1,000 search requests/day, 10,000 result requests/day

VirusTotal Community (Free)

Malware and URL analysis API (Google) — free community tier: 500 requests/day, 4 requests/minute. Scan files, URLs, domains, IPs against 70+ antivirus engines. Non-commercial use only

Screen an order transaction for credit card payment fraud. This REST API will detect all possible fraud traits based on the input parameters of an order. The Free Micro plan has 500 transactions per month.

LoginLlama Free

A login security API to detect fraudulent and suspicious logins and notify your customers. Free for 1,000 logins per month.

CyberChef Free

A simple, intuitive web app for analyzing and decoding/encoding data without dealing with complex tools or programming languages. Like a Swiss army knife of cryptography & encryption. All features are free to use, with no limit. Open source if you wish to self-host.

REST API for fetching information on data breaches. Free web search; API requires subscription for some endpoints.

Virgil Security Free stable

Tools and services for implementing end-to-end encryption, database protection, IoT security, and more in your digital solution. Free for applications with up to 250 users.

Iubenda Free stable

Privacy and cookie policies and consent management. The free tier offers limited privacy and cookie policy as well as cookie banners.

Ketch Free stable

Consent management and privacy framework tool. The free tier offers most features with a limited visitor count.

RandomKeygen Free stable

A free mobile-friendly tool that offers a variety of randomly generated keys and passwords you can use to secure any application, service, or device.

Pareto Security Free stable

Pareto Cloud is free for up to 5 devices, with no credit card required. The free tier includes the cloud dashboard, alerts to email, Slack and Teams, and the API. Paid Team and Business plans are priced per device per month. The macOS, Linux and Windows apps are open source.

Free Security Tools Comparison

Top free security tools compared by domain, free tier limits, and best use case.

Tool Domain Free Tier Open Source Best For
Snyk SAST + SCA 200 tests/mo, 5 projects All-in-one: code, deps, containers, IaC
Semgrep SAST ∞ scans (OSS rules) Custom rules, lightweight, fast scans
CodeQL SAST ∞ (public repos) Deep semantic analysis, GitHub-native
SonarCloud Code Quality + SAST ∞ (public repos) Code quality + security in one dashboard
GitGuardian Secret Scanning 25 developers, ∞ scans Real-time secret detection in commits
Trivy Container Security ∞ (self-hosted) Container images, IaC, SBOM generation
Grype SCA / Deps ∞ (self-hosted) Fast vulnerability scanner for containers and filesystems
Dependabot Dependency Updates ∞ (GitHub repos) Auto-PR for vulnerable deps, GitHub-native
Auth0 Identity / Auth 25K MAU Enterprise auth: SSO, MFA, social login
Clerk Identity / Auth 10K MAU Modern DX: React components, webhooks
Keycloak Identity / Auth ∞ (self-hosted) Self-hosted SSO, SAML, OIDC, LDAP
HashiCorp Vault Secrets Management Community (self-hosted) + HCP Free Dynamic secrets, encryption as a service

Snyk leads the all-in-one category with code, dependency, container, and IaC scanning in a single tool. For pure SAST, Semgrep and CodeQL are both excellent and free for open-source. GitGuardian is the standard for secret detection. Trivy dominates container scanning. Auth0 has the most generous free auth tier at 25K MAU. Verified April to September 2026.

Which Free Security Tool Should I Use?

Need all-in-one vulnerability scanning?
Snyk — covers code (SAST), dependencies (SCA), container images, and Infrastructure as Code in a single dashboard. Free for 200 tests/month on up to 5 projects.
Want open-source code scanning?
Semgrep for fast, customizable rule-based scanning. CodeQL for deep semantic analysis (free on public GitHub repos). Both support custom rules.
Worried about leaked secrets?
GitGuardian for real-time scanning of commits and PRs (free for 25 devs). Gitleaks and TruffleHog are open-source CLI alternatives for pre-commit hooks.
Scanning container images?
Trivy is the standard — scans containers, IaC, and generates SBOMs. Grype is a fast alternative from the Anchore team. Both are open-source with no limits.
Need user authentication for your app?
Auth0 (25K MAU free) for enterprise features like SSO and MFA. Clerk (10K MAU) for modern React-first DX. Keycloak for self-hosted with unlimited users. See our Auth0 Alternatives guide.
Managing secrets at runtime?
HashiCorp Vault for dynamic secrets and encryption (community edition self-hosted). Doppler (5 users free) or Infisical for cloud-hosted secret management with team sharing.
Keeping dependencies updated?
Dependabot is built into GitHub and auto-creates PRs for vulnerable deps. Renovate is the self-hostable alternative with more configuration options.
Catching runtime errors in production?
Sentry (see Error Tracking), Bugsnag, and GlitchTip (open-source Sentry alternative) all have free tiers for exception tracking.

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claude mcp add agentdeals -- npx -y agentdeals