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Comparison · Infra & APIs
Clair vs Dependency-Track
A side-by-side editorial comparison of Clair and Dependency-Track — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Shared themes:sbom
Clair vs Dependency-Track: at a glance
What is Clair?
Clair 4.10 RC can read SBOMs to match Java vulnerabilities.
Clair cut its first 4.10.0 release candidate on November 13, eleven months after 4.9.0. Its Java indexers can now read CycloneDX SBOM files and treat them as the source of truth, and Red Hat's VEX data now covers Maven advisories, so Java packages in Red Hat images can be matched. It also reduces memory use when many packages share a source package.
What is Dependency-Track?
A v5 release candidate train carrying a database migrator that has to work on the first try.
Dependency-Track is deep in a 5.0.0 release candidate series, cutting rc.2 through rc.5 within a single week. A large share of every release is the v4-migrator: BIGINT casts during extract, ANALYZE on staging tables before transform, component dedup before joining repo metadata, cross-schema type dependencies, trigger deactivation, permission table bootstrap. Nearly every commit in the window is authored by a single maintainer.
Clair vs Dependency-Track: editorial side-by-side
Clair
2.5INFRA · APIS
Clair 4.10 RC can read SBOMs to match Java vulnerabilities.
◆ Current state
Clair cut its first 4.10.0 release candidate on November 13, eleven months after 4.9.0. Its Java indexers can now read CycloneDX SBOM files and treat them as the source of truth, and Red Hat's VEX data now covers Maven advisories, so Java packages in Red Hat images can be matched. It also reduces memory use when many packages share a source package.
◆ Where it's heading
Since 4.8 Clair has moved from Red Hat's older OVAL data to VEX, and each release follows Red Hat's security data more closely. 4.10 adds SBOMs as an input, so Clair can match what an image's own manifest declares, not only what it finds on disk.
◆ Prediction
More 4.10 release candidates and then a final are likely; the long gap between releases suggests that could take weeks.
Dependency-Track
0.0INFRA · APIS
A v5 release candidate train carrying a database migrator that has to work on the first try.
◆ Current state
Dependency-Track is deep in a 5.0.0 release candidate series, cutting rc.2 through rc.5 within a single week. A large share of every release is the v4-migrator: BIGINT casts during extract, ANALYZE on staging tables before transform, component dedup before joining repo metadata, cross-schema type dependencies, trigger deactivation, permission table bootstrap. Nearly every commit in the window is authored by a single maintainer.
◆ Where it's heading
This is a major version defined by what it removes and how safely it moves people across. rc.2 dropped the compatibility shim translating v4-era alpine.* and unprefixed property names to dt.* equivalents, and made the API server refuse to start on a legacy key rather than silently misconfigure. Around that migration work, the policy engine keeps gaining inputs — component hash mismatch conditions, latest version publish timestamps exposed to CEL — and latest-version detection is being tuned per ecosystem so Maven reports stable releases rather than prereleases.
◆ Prediction
Expect further release candidates focused on migrator robustness before 5.0.0 goes stable, since four of them in one week were still finding extract and transform bugs in the same code path.
Alternatives to Clair and Dependency-Track
Other Infra & APIs products tracked by Sparkpulse, ranked by recent ship velocity. Each card links to a full editorial trajectory and lets you pivot into a head-to-head comparison with either Clair or Dependency-Track.
Payload CMS
Payload's v4 beta.9 keeps every past image crop and raises the Node floor again.
Nautobot
Nautobot 3.3 alpha 2 adds test helpers and a cable location filter after 3.2.9's token-leak fix.
Shuffle
Shuffle tags builds almost daily, but the notes are empty.
KrakenD
KrakenD's community edition is shipping only dependency bumps.
Velociraptor
Velociraptor's recent releases are mostly about patching CVEs.
See all Clair alternatives → · See all Dependency-Track alternatives →
Recent activity from Clair and Dependency-Track
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 13h agoClairClair 4.10 RC reads CycloneDX SBOMs for Java matching
- 5mo agoDependency-TrackDependency-Track 5.0.0-rc.5 adds hash mismatch policy conditions
- 5mo agoDependency-TrackDependency-Track 5.0.0-rc.4 caps uncompressed repository responses
- 5mo agoDependency-TrackDependency-Track 5.0.0-rc.3 bumps CycloneDX proto to 1.7.1
- 5mo agoDependency-TrackDependency-Track 5.0.0-rc.2 drops the legacy alpine.* config shim
- 11mo agoClairClair 4.9 moves CVSS data to NVD's 2.0 feeds
- 2y agoClairClair 4.8 replaces Red Hat OVAL data with VEX
- 2y agoClairClair 4.7.4 changes the default layer download location
- 2y agoClairClair 4.7.3 requires TLS 1.2 or newer
- 3y agoClairClair 4.7.2 drops the retired CRDA source
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Clair and Dependency-Track?
Both compete on the same themes — sbom — within Infra & APIs. Clair is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 2.5 vs 0.0), with 0 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.
Is Clair better than Dependency-Track?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. Clair is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 2.5 vs 0.0), with 0 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other Infra & APIs products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to Clair?
Top Clair alternatives in Infra & APIs are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Clair alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/clair for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to Dependency-Track?
Top Dependency-Track alternatives in Infra & APIs are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Dependency-Track alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/dependency-track for the full list with editorial commentary on each.