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Chainguard is a commercial container security tool by Chainguard. Chainguard VMs is a commercial container security tool by Chainguard. Compare features, ratings, integrations, and community reviews side by side to find the best container security fit for your security stack.
CST VerdictBased on our analysis of NIST CSF 2.0 coverage, core features, integrations, company size fit, here is our conclusion:
Mid-market and enterprise security teams managing significant container footprints should evaluate Chainguard if CVE reduction is your actual priority, not a nice-to-have. Its 1,800+ daily-rebuilt minimal images deliver 97.6% fewer CVEs than open source alternatives, backed by 7-day SLA remediation for critical issues and 400+ FIPS-validated images with STIG hardening for regulated environments. This tool is not for teams building custom applications inside containers; Chainguard's strength is supply chain hardening for organizations running standard software stacks where image provenance and attestation matter more than flexibility.
Teams running containerized workloads across AWS, GCE, or Azure will benefit most from Chainguard VMs if your priority is eliminating OS-level CVE risk before it enters your supply chain. The zero-CVE guarantee backed by a 7-day critical remediation SLA and continuous automated rebuilds means you're not patching; you're replacing. Skip this if you need application-layer runtime protection or behavioral threat detection, since Chainguard VMs optimize for asset hygiene (NIST ID.AM and PR.PS) but don't detect or respond to actual attacks in motion.
Secure container images with minimal CVEs, FIPS validation, and STIG hardening
Minimal, zero-CVE virtual machine images for container hosts and applications
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Common questions about comparing Chainguard vs Chainguard VMs for your container security needs.
Chainguard: Secure container images with minimal CVEs, FIPS validation, and STIG hardening. built by Chainguard. headquartered in United States. Core capabilities include 1,800+ minimal container images rebuilt from source daily, 97.6% CVE reduction compared to open source equivalents, 7-day SLA for critical CVE remediation, 14-day for high/medium/low..
Chainguard VMs: Minimal, zero-CVE virtual machine images for container hosts and applications. built by Chainguard. headquartered in United States. Core capabilities include Zero-CVE virtual machine images with continuous rebuilds, CVE remediation SLA: 7 days critical, 14 days high/medium/low, Container Host VMs for ECS, EKS, EC2, GCE, and Azure..
Both serve the Container Security market but differ in approach, feature depth, and target audience.
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