git.stella-ops.org/docs/product/competitive-landscape.md

# Competitive Landscape

> **TL;DR:** Stella Ops Suite isn't a scanner or a deployment tool—it's a **release control plane** that gates releases using reachability-aware security and produces **attestable decisions that can be replayed**. Non-Kubernetes container estates finally get a central release authority.

Source: internal advisories "23-Nov-2025 - Stella Ops vs Competitors" and "09-Jan-2026 - Stella Ops Pivot", updated Jan 2026. This summary covers both release orchestration and security positioning.

---

## The New Category: Release Control Plane

**Stella Ops Suite** occupies a unique position by combining:
- Release orchestration (promotions, approvals, workflows)
- Security decisioning as a gate (not a blocker)
- Non-Kubernetes target specialization
- Evidence-linked decisions with deterministic replay

### Why Competitors Can't Easily Catch Up (Release Orchestration)

| Category | Representatives | What They Optimized For | Why They Can't Easily Catch Up |
|----------|----------------|------------------------|-------------------------------|
| **CI/CD Tools** | GitHub Actions, Jenkins, GitLab CI | Running pipelines, build automation | No central release authority; no audit-grade evidence; deployment is afterthought |
| **CD Orchestrators** | Octopus, Harness, Spinnaker | Deployment automation, Kubernetes | Security is bolt-on; non-K8s is second-class; pricing punishes automation |
| **Registries** | Harbor, JFrog Artifactory | Artifact storage, scanning | No release governance; no promotion workflows; no deployment execution |
| **Scanners/CNAPP** | Trivy, Snyk, Aqua | Vulnerability detection | No release orchestration; findings don't integrate with promotion gates |

### Stella Ops Suite Positioning

| vs. Category | Why Stella Wins |
|--------------|-----------------|
| **vs. CI/CD tools** | They run pipelines; we provide central release authority with audit-grade evidence |
| **vs. CD orchestrators** | They bolt on security; we integrate it as gates. They punish automation with per-project pricing; we don't |
| **vs. Registries** | They store and scan; we govern releases and orchestrate deployments |
| **vs. Scanners** | They output findings; we output release decisions with evidence packets |

### Unique Differentiators (Release Orchestration)

| Differentiator | What It Means |
|----------------|---------------|
| **Non-Kubernetes Specialization** | Docker hosts, Compose, ECS, Nomad are first-class—not afterthoughts |
| **Digest-First Release Identity** | Releases are immutable OCI digests, not mutable tags |
| **Security Gates in Promotion** | Scan on build, evaluate on release, re-evaluate on CVE updates |
| **Evidence Packets** | Every release decision is cryptographically signed and replayable |
| **Cost Model** | No per-seat, per-project, per-deployment tax. Environments + new digests/day |

---

## Direct Comparisons vs CD Tools

These comparisons focus on where release governance, evidence export, and audit replay are required in addition to pipeline automation.

### Stella Ops Suite vs GitLab CI/CD

**Where GitLab excels:** pipeline automation, source control integration, developer workflow.

**Where Stella Ops Suite differs:**
- **Release authority** is centralized and environment-aware; not just a pipeline stage.
- **Evidence export** (Decision Capsules) is built-in and replayable months later.
- **Non‑K8s estates** are first‑class (Compose, VM/SSH targets, air‑gapped deployments).

**Bottom line:** GitLab runs pipelines; Stella Ops governs promotions with proof.

### Stella Ops Suite vs GitHub Actions

**Where GitHub excels:** PR automation, CI visibility, marketplace actions.

**Where Stella Ops Suite differs:**
- **Promotion rules** and approvals are explicit, audited, and bound to artifact digests.
- **Deterministic replay** lets auditors re-verify release decisions.
- **Offline/sovereign** operation is supported without external SaaS dependencies.

**Bottom line:** Actions automate builds; Stella Ops enforces release decisions with audit-grade evidence.

### Stella Ops Suite vs Jenkins

**Where Jenkins excels:** flexible CI, on‑prem extensibility.

**Where Stella Ops Suite differs:**
- **Release orchestration** includes environment graphs, approvals, and rollback semantics.
- **Evidence-grade gating** ties reachability, VEX, and policy to each promotion.
- **Exportable proof** makes compliance verification deterministic.

**Bottom line:** Jenkins executes pipelines; Stella Ops provides release governance with proof.

### Stella Ops Suite vs Harness

**Where Harness excels:** deployment automation, feature flags, multi‑cloud rollout UX.

**Where Stella Ops Suite differs:**
- **Security evidence is a gate**, not an afterthought, and is bound to the artifact digest.
- **Decision Capsules** provide verifiable, portable audit packets.
- **Non‑K8s container estates** are a primary target, not a secondary path.

**Bottom line:** Harness automates delivery; Stella Ops governs releases and their evidence trail.

## Security Positioning (Original Analysis)

---

## Verification Metadata

| Field | Value |
|-------|-------|
| **Last Updated** | 2026-01-03 |
| **Last Verified** | 2025-12-14 |
| **Next Review** | 2026-03-14 |
| **Claims Index** | [`docs/product/claims-citation-index.md`](claims-citation-index.md) |
| **Verification Method** | Source code audit (OSS), documentation review, feature testing |

**Confidence Levels:**
- **High (80-100%)**: Verified against source code or authoritative documentation
- **Medium (50-80%)**: Based on documentation or limited testing; needs deeper verification
- **Low (<50%)**: Unverified or based on indirect evidence; requires validation

---

## Why Competitors Plateau (Structural Analysis)

The scanner market evolved from three distinct origins. Each origin created architectural assumptions that make Stella Ops' capabilities structurally difficult to retrofit.

| Origin | Representatives | What They Optimized For | Why They Can't Easily Catch Up |
|--------|----------------|------------------------|-------------------------------|
| **Package Scanners** | Trivy, Syft/Grype | Fast CLI, broad ecosystem coverage | No forensic reproducibility in architecture; VEX is boolean, not lattice; no DSSE for reachability graphs |
| **Developer UX** | Snyk | IDE integration, fix PRs, onboarding | SaaS-only (offline impossible); no attestation infrastructure; reachability limited to specific languages |
| **Policy/Compliance** | Prisma Cloud, Aqua | Runtime protection, CNAPP breadth | No deterministic replay; no cryptographic provenance for verdicts; no semantic diff |
| **SBOM Operations** | Anchore | SBOM storage, lifecycle | No lattice VEX reasoning; no signed reachability graphs; no regional crypto profiles |

### The Core Problem

**Scanners output findings. Stella Ops outputs decisions.**

A finding says "CVE-2024-1234 exists in this package." A decision says "CVE-2024-1234 is reachable via this call path, vendor VEX says not_affected but our runtime disagrees, creating a conflict that policy must resolve, and here's the signed proof chain."

This isn't a feature gap—it's a category difference. Retrofitting it requires:
- Rearchitecting the evidence model (content-addressed, not row-based)
- Adding lattice logic to VEX handling (not just filtering)
- Instrumenting reachability at three layers (static, binary, runtime)
- Building deterministic replay infrastructure (frozen feeds, manifests, seeds)
- Implementing regional crypto profiles (not just "signing")

---

## Stella Ops moats (why we win)

| Moat | Description | Claim IDs | Confidence |
|------|-------------|-----------|------------|
| **Deterministic replay** | Feed+rules snapshotting; graph/SBOM/VEX re-run bit-for-bit with manifest hashes | DET-001, DET-002, DET-003 | High |
| **Hybrid reachability attestations** | Graph-level DSSE always; optional edge-bundle DSSE for runtime/init/contested edges; Rekor-backed | REACH-001, REACH-002, ATT-001, ATT-002 | High |
| **Lattice-based VEX engine** | Merges advisories, runtime hits, reachability, waivers with explainable paths | VEX-001, VEX-002, VEX-003 | High |
| **Crypto sovereignty** | FIPS/eIDAS/GOST/SM/PQC profiles and offline mirrors as first-class knobs | ATT-004 | Medium |
| **Proof graph** | DSSE + transparency across SBOM, call-graph, VEX, replay manifests | ATT-001, ATT-002, ATT-003 | High |

## Top takeaways (sales-ready)

### The Five One-Liners

| # | One-Liner | What It Means | Claim IDs |
|---|-----------|---------------|-----------|
| 1 | "We don't output findings; we output attestable decisions that can be replayed." | Given identical inputs, Stella produces identical outputs. Any verdict from 6 months ago can be re-verified today with `stella replay srm.yaml`. | DET-001, DET-003 |
| 2 | "We treat VEX as a logical claim system, not a suppression file." | K4 lattice logic aggregates multiple VEX sources, detects conflicts, and produces explainable dispositions with proof links. | VEX-001, VEX-002 |
| 3 | "We provide proof of exploitability in *this* artifact, not just a badge." | Three-layer reachability (static graph + binary + runtime) with DSSE-signed call paths. Not "potentially reachable" but "here's the exact path." | REACH-001, REACH-002 |
| 4 | "We explain what changed in exploitable surface area, not what changed in CVE count." | Smart-Diff outputs "This release reduces exploitability by 41% despite +2 CVEs" — semantic risk deltas, not raw numbers. | — |
| 5 | "We quantify uncertainty and gate on it." | Unknowns are first-class state with bands (HOT/WARM/COLD), decay algorithms, and policy budgets. Uncertainty is risk; we surface and score it. | UNKNOWNS-001, UNKNOWNS-002 |

### Verified Gaps (High Confidence)

| # | Gap | Evidence | Claim IDs |
|---|-----|----------|-----------|
| 1 | No competitor offers deterministic replay with frozen feeds | Source audit: Trivy v0.55, Grype v0.80, Snyk CLI v1.1292 | DET-003 |
| 2 | None sign reachability graphs; we sign graphs and (optionally) edge bundles | Feature matrix analysis | REACH-002 |
| 3 | Sovereign crypto profiles (FIPS/eIDAS/GOST/SM/PQC) are unique to Stella Ops | Architecture review | ATT-004 |
| 4 | Lattice VEX with conflict detection is unmatched; others ship boolean VEX or none | Trivy pkg/vex source; Grype VEX implementation | VEX-001, COMP-TRIVY-001, COMP-GRYPE-002 |
| 5 | Offline/air-gap with mirrored transparency is rare; we ship it by default | Documentation and feature testing | OFF-001, OFF-004 |

## Where others fall short (detailed)

### Capability Gap Matrix

| Capability | Trivy | Grype | Snyk | Prisma | Aqua | Anchore | Stella Ops |
|-----------|-------|-------|------|--------|------|---------|------------|
| **Deterministic replay** | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| **VEX lattice (K4 logic)** | Boolean only | Boolean only | None | None | Limited | Limited | Full K4 |
| **Signed reachability graphs** | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes (DSSE) |
| **Binary-level backport detection** | No | No | No | No | No | No | Tier 1-4 |
| **Semantic risk diff** | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| **Unknowns as state** | Hidden | Hidden | Hidden | Hidden | Hidden | Hidden | First-class |
| **Regional crypto (GOST/SM)** | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes |
| **Offline parity** | Medium | Medium | No | Strong | Medium | Good | Full |

### Specific Gaps by Competitor

| Gap | What This Means | Related Claims | Verified |
|-----|-----------------|----------------|----------|
| **No deterministic replay** | A scan from last month cannot be re-run to produce identical results. Feed drift, analyzer changes, and non-deterministic ordering break reproducibility. Auditors cannot verify past decisions. | DET-003, COMP-TRIVY-002, COMP-GRYPE-001, COMP-SNYK-001 | 2025-12-14 |
| **No lattice/VEX merge** | VEX is either absent or treated as a suppression filter. When vendor says "not_affected" but runtime shows the function was called, these tools can't represent the conflict—they pick one or the other. | COMP-TRIVY-001, COMP-GRYPE-002 | 2025-12-14 |
| **No signed reachability** | Reachability claims are assertions, not proofs. There's no cryptographic binding between "this CVE is reachable" and the call path that proves it. | COMP-GRYPE-001, REACH-002 | 2025-12-14 |
| **No semantic diff** | Tools report "+3 CVEs" without context. They can't say "exploitable surface decreased despite new CVEs" because they don't track reachability deltas. | — | 2025-12-14 |
| **Offline/sovereign gaps** | Snyk is SaaS-only. Others have partial offline support but no regional crypto (GOST, SM2, eIDAS) and no sealed knowledge snapshots for air-gapped reproducibility. | COMP-SNYK-003, ATT-004 | 2025-12-14 |

## Snapshot table (condensed)

| Vendor | SBOM Gen | SBOM Ingest | Attest (DSSE) | Rekor | Offline | Primary gaps vs Stella | Related Claims |
|--------|----------|-------------|---------------|-------|---------|------------------------|----------------|
| Trivy | Yes | Yes | Cosign | Query | Strong | No replay, no lattice | COMP-TRIVY-001, COMP-TRIVY-002, COMP-TRIVY-003 |
| Syft/Grype | Yes | Yes | Cosign-only | Indir | Medium | No replay, no lattice | COMP-GRYPE-001, COMP-GRYPE-002, COMP-GRYPE-003 |
| Snyk | Yes | Limited | No | No | Weak | No attest/VEX/replay | COMP-SNYK-001, COMP-SNYK-002, COMP-SNYK-003 |
| Prisma | Yes | Limited | No | No | Strong | No attest/replay | — |
| AWS (Inspector/Signer) | Partial | Partial | Notary v2 | No | Weak | Closed, no replay | — |
| Google | Yes | Yes | Yes | Opt | Weak | No offline/lattice | — |
| GitHub | Yes | Partial | Yes | Yes | No | No replay/crypto opts | — |
| GitLab | Yes | Limited | Partial | No | Medium | No replay/lattice | — |
| Microsoft Defender | Partial | Partial | No | No | Weak | No attest/reachability | — |
| Anchore Enterprise | Yes | Yes | Some | No | Good | No sovereign crypto | — |
| JFrog Xray | Yes | Yes | No | No | Medium | No attest/lattice | — |
| Tenable | Partial | Limited | No | No | Weak | Not SBOM/VEX-focused | — |
| Qualys | Limited | Limited | No | No | Medium | No attest/lattice | — |
| Rezilion | Yes | Yes | No | No | Medium | Runtime-only; no DSSE | — |
| Chainguard | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Medium | No replay/lattice | — |

## How to use this doc
- Sales/PMM: pull talking points and the gap list when building battlecards.
- Product: map gaps to roadmap; keep replay/lattice/sovereign as primary differentiators.
- Engineering: ensure new features keep determinism + sovereign crypto front-and-center; link reachability attestations into proof graph.

## Cross-links
- Vision: `docs/VISION.md` (Moats section)
- Architecture: `docs/ARCHITECTURE_REFERENCE.md`
- Reachability moat details: `docs/modules/reach-graph/guides/lead.md`
- Source advisory: `docs/product/advisories/23-Nov-2025 - Stella Ops vs Competitors.md`
- **Claims Citation Index**: [`docs/product/claims-citation-index.md`](claims-citation-index.md)

---

## Battlecard Appendix (snippet-ready)

### Elevator Pitches (by Audience)

| Audience | Pitch |
|----------|-------|
| **CISO/Security Leader** | "Stella Ops turns vulnerability noise into auditable decisions. Every verdict is signed, replayable, and proves *why* something is or isn't exploitable." |
| **Compliance/Audit** | "Unlike scanners that output findings, we output decisions with proof chains. Six months from now, you can replay any verdict bit-for-bit to prove what you knew and when." |
| **DevSecOps Engineer** | "Tired of triaging the same CVE across 50 images? Stella deduplicates by root cause, shows reachability proofs, and explains exactly what to fix and why." |
| **Air-gap/Regulated** | "Full offline parity with regional crypto (FIPS/GOST/SM/eIDAS). Sealed knowledge snapshots ensure your air-gapped environment produces identical results to connected." |

### One-Liners with Proof Points

| One-Liner | Proof Point | Claims |
|-----------|-------------|--------|
| *Replay or it's noise* | `stella replay srm.yaml --assert-digest <sha>` reproduces any past scan bit-for-bit | DET-001, DET-003 |
| *Signed reachability, not guesses* | Graph-level DSSE always; edge-bundle DSSE for contested paths; Rekor-backed | REACH-001, REACH-002 |
| *Sovereign-first* | FIPS/eIDAS/GOST/SM/PQC profiles as config; multi-sig with regional roots | ATT-004 |
| *Trust algebra, not suppression files* | K4 lattice merges advisories, runtime, reachability, waivers; conflicts are explicit state | VEX-001, VEX-002 |
| *Semantic risk deltas* | "Exploitability dropped 41% despite +2 CVEs" — not just CVE counts | — |

### Objection Handlers

| Objection | Response | Supporting Claims |
|-----------|----------|-------------------|
| "We already sign SBOMs." | Great start. But do you sign call-graphs and VEX decisions? Can you replay a scan from 6 months ago and get identical results? We do both. | DET-001, REACH-002 |
| "Cosign/Rekor is enough." | Cosign signs artifacts. We sign *decisions*. Without deterministic manifests and reachability proofs, you can sign findings but can't audit *why* a vuln was reachable. | DET-003, REACH-002 |
| "Our runtime traces show reachability." | Runtime is one signal. We fuse it with static call graphs and VEX lattice into a signed, replayable verdict. You can quarantine or dispute individual edges, not just all-or-nothing. | REACH-001, VEX-002 |
| "Snyk does reachability." | Snyk's reachability is language-limited (Java, JavaScript), SaaS-only, and unsigned. We support 6+ languages, work offline, and sign every call path with DSSE. | COMP-SNYK-002, COMP-SNYK-003, REACH-002 |
| "We use Trivy and it's free." | Trivy is excellent for broad coverage. We're for organizations that need audit-grade reproducibility, VEX reasoning, and signed proofs. Different use cases. | COMP-TRIVY-001, COMP-TRIVY-002 |
| "Can't you just add this to Trivy?" | Trivy's architecture assumes findings, not decisions. Retrofitting deterministic replay, lattice VEX, and proof chains would require fundamental rearchitecture—not just features. | — |

### Demo Scenarios

| Scenario | What to Show | Command |
|----------|-------------|---------|
| **Determinism** | Run scan twice, show identical digests | `stella scan --image <img> --srm-out a.yaml && stella scan --image <img> --srm-out b.yaml && diff a.yaml b.yaml` |
| **Replay** | Replay a week-old scan, verify identical output | `stella replay srm.yaml --assert-digest <sha>` |
| **Reachability proof** | Show signed call path from entrypoint to vulnerable symbol | `stella graph show --cve CVE-XXXX-YYYY --artifact <digest>` |
| **VEX conflict** | Show lattice handling vendor vs runtime disagreement | Trust Algebra Studio UI or `stella vex evaluate --artifact <digest>` |
| **Offline parity** | Import sealed bundle, scan, compare to online result | `stella rootpack import bundle.tar.gz && stella scan --offline ...` |

### Leave-Behind Materials

- **Reachability deep-dive:** `docs/modules/reach-graph/guides/lead.md`
- **Competitive landscape:** This document
- **Proof architecture:** `docs/modules/platform/proof-driven-moats-architecture.md`
- **Key features:** `docs/key-features.md`

## Sources
- Full advisory: `docs/product/advisories/23-Nov-2025 - Stella Ops vs Competitors.md`
- Claims Citation Index: `docs/product/claims-citation-index.md`