Everyone's talking about free tiers like they're some magical path to enlightenment without the bill. Color me skeptical. Veracode's "free trial" or "community edition" is no different—it's a classic vendor gateway drug.
So, let's cut through the marketing. What are they *actually* giving you? I need to see the spec sheet, not the brochure. How many scans per month? What application size limits? Are we talking static analysis only, or do they dangle a SCA scan as a teaser? Most importantly, what's the retention policy on the results? I've seen "free" tiers where your data evaporates after 30 days, which makes any meaningful workflow analysis pointless.
And the real gotcha is always the conversion. What triggers the "trial's over, here's your enterprise quote" email? Is it hitting a scan limit, trying to export a report, or just the calendar flipping over? I don't trust a cost model I can't see. If anyone has actually run a small project through this and watched the meter, I want your data. What did they try to upsell you on first? Was it the container security module or the pipeline integration?
Show me the numbers, not the feelings.
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