Clinv vs aws-inventory: 2026 Comparison
Clinv is a free cyber asset attack surface management tool. aws-inventory is a free cyber asset attack surface management tool. Compare features, ratings, integrations, and community reviews side by side to find the best cyber asset attack surface management fit for your security stack.
CST VerdictBased on our analysis of available product data, here is our conclusion:
DevSecOps teams building infrastructure-as-code pipelines need Clinv because it tracks digital assets through CLI integration without requiring agents or dashboards. Free pricing and GitHub-native workflow mean you can wire it into CI/CD before your first budget cycle. Skip this if you need visual asset mapping, role-based access controls, or a web UI; Clinv is deliberately stripped down for engineers who live in terminals and version control.
Security teams and cloud architects auditing AWS accounts for the first time should start with aws-inventory; it maps your actual resource footprint without the sales pitch or subscription lock-in that comes with commercial CSPM tools. Running it once typically surfaces forgotten EC2 instances, orphaned storage, and untagged resources that balloon costs and expand your attack surface, which is why 169 GitHub stars cluster around teams doing manual cloud hygiene. Skip this if you need continuous compliance monitoring or real-time drift detection; aws-inventory is a one-time inventory sweep, not a managed control plane.
