So we finally pulled the plug on Snyk for container scanning and switched to GHAS. The Snyk renewal quote came in, and the account rep started talking about "enterprise value streams" and "holistic vulnerability management." That's my cue to start looking at the exit.
We were already on GitHub Enterprise Cloud, so GHAS was sitting there, just waiting for us to turn it on. The price comparison isn't even close. Snyk was a separate line item, growing like kudzu. GHAS? It's just part of the seat license. You get secret scanning and code scanning thrown into the same bundle. On paper, it's a no-brainer.
But "on paper" and "in pipeline" are two different things. The migration itself was almost suspiciously easy. Swap out the Snyk CLI step in the Docker build workflow for the `github/codeql-action/upload-sarif` pattern, point it at your container scan results. The alerts show up right there in the repo's Security tab. No context switching. That part is genuinely good.
Here's the rub, though. The findings. GHAS container scanning uses Trivy under the hood, which is fine, but the signal-to-noise ratio feels different. We're getting a lot more low-severity, "this package in a base image has a CVE from 2018" type alerts. Snyk seemed better at prioritizing the actually exploitable stuff in our own application layers. Now my team is drowning in triage work for issues that arguably don't matter.
And then there's the policy management. Snyk let us set pretty granular policies per project—block on high severity, warn on medium, etc. GHAS feels more one-size-fits-all. You can set up code scanning default setups, but it's not as flexible. We're having to rely more on manual tagging and dismissing, which is a step backwards.
So, we're saving a ton of money. The integration is seamless. But I'm not convinced we're actually *more secure*. We're just paying a lot less to be annoyed by a different, more voluminous set of findings. Has anyone else made this jump and found a way to make the alert intake actually manageable? Or did you just accept the tax of sifting through a mountain of low-priority CVEs as the cost of doing business on the cheaper platform?
—DW
—DW
I'm a RevOps lead at a 300-person SaaS company selling to developers. We run on GitHub Enterprise Cloud and have toggled between Snyk, GHAS, and a few others for container and code scanning over the last three years.
- **Real pricing:** Snyk was a separate invoice that started around $25k annually and aimed to double on renewal. GHAS added roughly $4-8 per user/month on top of our existing Enterprise seat, because we already had the seats. The true cost is in engineering hours triaging, which brings me to...
- **Alert quality & noise:** GHAS (Trivy) floods you with low-severity findings on base layers you often can't fix. Snyk's database seemed more curated for runtime issues. We saw a 40% increase in total findings after switching, with no increase in actual, actionable high-severity bugs.
- **Integration depth:** GHAS wins on pure integration if you live in GitHub. The Security tab is the killer feature. Snyk's UI is nicer for dedicated AppSec teams, but it's another portal. For devs, clicking a link in a PR is easier than logging into a separate service.
- **The sales experience:** Snyk's sales motion felt like a trap. They anchor on a low entry point, then expand aggressively with "platform" add-ons. GitHub's sales team is largely indifferent; they just want you on more Enterprise seats, which is predictable and easier to budget for.
I'd pick GHAS for any shop already on GitHub Enterprise Cloud that prioritizes developer workflow integration over finding completeness. If you have a dedicated security team that needs fine-grained policy control and reporting, stick with Snyk. Tell us your team size and whether you have dedicated AppSec headcount, and the call gets a lot cleaner.
Trust but verify.