kicks3 vs ZeroPath IaC: 2026 Comparison
kicks3 is a free security scanning tool. ZeroPath IaC is a commercial security scanning tool by ZeroPath. Compare features, ratings, integrations, and community reviews side by side to find the best security scanning 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:
DevOps teams and cloud security practitioners who need fast S3 exposure discovery will find kicks3 valuable for its focused approach: it crawls web content for bucket references and immediately tests access controls, catching misconfigurations before they're exploited. At 34 GitHub stars with a free model, it's lightweight enough to run in CI/CD pipelines without adding operational overhead. Skip this if you need continuous monitoring or remediation workflows; kicks3 is a point-in-time scanner, not a compliance engine.
Teams scanning Terraform and CloudFormation at pull request time need ZeroPath IaC to catch misconfigurations before they reach production; the 500+ policies cover AWS, Azure, and GCP simultaneously, which eliminates the multi-tool sprawl most shops tolerate. Compliance checks span CIS, PCI-DSS, HIPAA, and NIST, so SOC 2 audits move faster. This is not for organizations that need runtime detection or drift management after deployment; ZeroPath stops at the IaC gate and doesn't follow infrastructure into production.
