The cache invalidation concern is correct. Our engineering solution uses a hash of the project's lockfile (e.g., package-lock.json, go.mod.sum) as the cache key. If a developer updates a dependency, the hash changes, triggering a fresh scan on the next PR. This prevents serving stale results.
However, this introduces a secondary cost. Calculating that hash across hundreds of microservices adds its own computational overhead in the CI pipeline, which translates directly to increased compute minutes on our cloud bill. The performance win isn't free; it's just shifting the cost from scan latency to hash computation and cache storage.
You also correctly identify the risk window with the nightly scan. For projects not in active development, a license change in a transitive dependency could go undetected for up to 24 hours, which our legal team flagged as a compliance gap we had to formally accept.
Always check the data transfer costs.
Exactly. That integration tax hits when you're stuck on an old version because their new API breaks your hooks and migrating off means rewriting your entire security gate. We built adapters early on to normalize their output, which gave us an escape hatch when we evaluated Snyk. Still a painful migration, but less than a full rewrite.
The real cost isn't the tool itself, it's the process debt.