Aikido Infrastructure as Code (IaC) vs KICS: Side-by-Side Comparison (2026)
Features, pricing, ratings, and pros & cons — compared head-to-head.
Aikido Infrastructure as Code (IaC) is a commercial static application security testing tool by Aikido Security. KICS is a free static application security testing tool. Compare features, ratings, integrations, and community reviews side by side to find the best static application security testing fit for your security stack.
CST VerdictBased on our analysis of NIST CSF 2.0 coverage, core features, company size fit, deployment model, here is our conclusion:
Aikido Infrastructure as Code (IaC)
Teams deploying Terraform, CloudFormation, or Helm at scale will find real value in Aikido Infrastructure as Code's AI-powered autofix that actually closes misconfigurations before they hit production, not just flags them. The platform catches IMDSv1 SSRF vulnerabilities and pre-deployment configuration drift across CI/CD pipelines, directly strengthening PR.PS and PR.IR controls where most organizations leak risk. Skip this if you need post-deployment runtime detection or multi-cloud CSPM breadth; Aikido is deliberately shift-left focused, which makes it sharp for preventing infrastructure mistakes but shallow for runtime anomalies.
Infrastructure teams managing Terraform, CloudFormation, or Kubernetes manifests should pick KICS because it catches misconfigurations at commit time before they reach production, and the price is right: free and open-source with 2,588 GitHub stars means a live community catching new IaC attack patterns. The tool integrates directly into CI/CD pipelines, so you're shifting left without adding licensing headaches. Skip KICS if you need runtime detection of container or cloud workload behavior; it's purely a static scanner that audits your infrastructure code, not what's executing.
