Software transparency now matters more than ever, especially since SBOMs (Software Bill of Materials) became a legal requirement in the U.S This shift has made SBOM tools and SBOM generation tools essential for any team aiming to build secure software. More importantly, SBOM security plays a critical role in maintaining a strong security posture, as it ensures complete visibility into every component you ship. However, despite its importance, many organizations still struggle with critical vulnerabilities or compliance gaps simply because they rely on outdated or incomplete SBOM coverage.
What Is an SBOM?
A Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) is a structured list of all components, libraries, and dependencies in a software application. It works like an ingredient list for your code, helping you understand what’s inside your software, whether built in-house or pulled from third-party sources.
An SBOM includes key metadata such as:
- Component names and versions
- Licenses and copyrights
- Supplier information
- Known vulnerabilities (if linked to security feeds)
SBOMs are now mandatory in the USA for federal software suppliers under Executive Order 14028. But even outside of government requirements, they’ve become critical for modern software supply chain security — helping teams detect outdated packages, track vulnerabilities, and ensure license compliance.
🛡️ With the right SBOM tools, you can generate this data automatically, keep it updated across builds, and react faster when new threats emerge.
Essential Features in an SBOM Tool
- Comprehensive Component Discovery: First, the tool must find all dependencies: direct, transitive, and even undeclared ones.
- Multiple SBOM Formats: Also, it should generate standard formats like SPDX and CycloneDX so your SBOM integrates seamlessly across ecosystems.
- Dependency Visualization: Then, clear graphs help your team understand complex relationships, simplifying how you monitor and fix risks.
- Vulnerability-DB Integration: Furthermore, it should compare your inventory against public CVEs (e.g. NVD) automatically to spot known risks.
- Audit Trail & History: Moreover, track SBOM changes over time to aid investigations and compliance reporting.
- Automation & CI/CD Integration: Ideally, SBOMs generate at build time, fully automated, to ensure visibility without disrupting developers.
- Real-Time Alerts & Notifications: Additionally, you need instant alerts when a new issue appears in your components, so you can respond fast.
- Compliance Reporting: Lastly, feature-rich reports help you prove adherence to policies and customer or regulatory standards.
Types of SBOM Formats
When choosing SBOM tools, it’s important to understand the two main formats your tool should support. Both CycloneDX and SPDX are widely recognized, and each brings distinct advantages for different security and compliance use cases.
CycloneDX
CycloneDX is a lightweight and developer-friendly SBOM format maintained by OWASP. It’s designed for fast, automated environments—making it ideal for CI/CD pipelines. It supports multiple serialization formats including JSON, XML, and Protocol Buffers, which makes it easy to integrate into modern toolchains.
Best for:
- High-speed pipelines and automation
- Application security use cases
- Integrations with OWASP tools and other AppSec workflows
Why it matters: CycloneDX makes it easier to embed SBOM generation directly into your build process without slowing developers down.
SPDX
SPDX (Software Package Data Exchange) is a standardized SBOM format governed by the Linux Foundation and ISO (ISO/IEC 5962:2021). It provides a more detailed view of software components, including extensive metadata about licensing, copyrights, and security.
Best for:
- Legal compliance and audits
- Open-source license management
- Organizations requiring ISO standards adherence
Why it matters: SPDX offers deep traceability, especially useful for enterprises with strict regulatory or licensing requirements.
Best Best Application Security Tools
1. Xygeni: SBOM Generation Tools
Overview:
Xygeni provides a powerful native SBOM generation tool as part of its all-in-one Application Security Platform. To begin with, it enables one-click SBOM creation in both SPDX and CycloneDX formats, two of the most widely adopted standards for software transparency.
This makes it extremely easy for teams to meet U.S. federal requirements under Executive Order 14028, while also improving software supply chain visibility.
Key Features of Xygeni’s SBOM Tool:
- Automated SBOMs in Any Format: Xygeni supports both SPDX and CycloneDX, offering maximum compatibility across ecosystems and tooling.
- SBOMs Linked to Live Risk Data: Every SBOM is enriched with real-time vulnerability intelligence, including CVEs, EPSS scores, and reachability indicators.
- CI/CD Native:
SBOMs are automatically generated and updated across your DevOps pipeline. Whether using GitHub Actions, GitLab CI/CD, Jenkins, or Azure DevOps. - Instant VDR Creation: Alongside the SBOM, you can export a full Vulnerability Disclosure Report (VDR) to meet procurement or compliance requirements.
- All-in-One Visibility: Finally, Xygeni connects SBOMs with other core capabilities like SCA, secrets scanning, and malware detection, giving you end-to-end control of your software supply chain.
Because of this, Xygeni stands out not just as a SBOM generation tool, but as a complete solution for SBOM security. It allows you to track every component, identify risks quickly, and ensure compliance, without slowing down your development workflow.
2. Mend SBOM Tool
Overview
Mend.io offers an enterprise-grade solution focused on software composition analysis and SBOM generation. While the platform emphasizes compliance and visibility, its SBOM features are tightly coupled with its broader open source governance approach.
Key Features:
- Basic SBOM Generation: Mend enables automatic creation of SBOMs as part of its vulnerability scanning workflow, primarily aligned with license and risk governance.
- License and Policy Controls: Teams can enforce licensing policies and get notified when non-compliant packages appear in SBOM reports.
- Integration Across Development Tools: The tool integrates with popular CI/CD platforms and repositories, allowing SBOM creation during builds.
Cons:
- Format Support Is Limited: Mend focuses more on compliance than on tooling compatibility—support for multiple SBOM formats like CycloneDX and SPDX is not always front and center.
- Manual Steps May Be Needed: While SBOM generation is automated, customizing or exporting enriched SBOMs for audit or remediation workflows may involve manual intervention.
- Less Focus on Runtime Risk: SBOMs are tied to package-level metadata, but lack advanced features like exploitability analysis, reachability scoring, or instant VDR generation.
💲 Pricing:
- Starts at $1,000/year per contributing developer includes SCA, SAST, container scanning, and more.
- Extra charges apply for Mend AI Premium, DAST, API Security, and support services.
- No usage-based flexibility cost scales steeply with team size and feature adoption.
3. EndorLabs: SBOM Tool
Overview
Endor Labs delivers a central hub for importing, managing, and analyzing both first-party and third-party SBOMs. Unlike traditional tools, it automates SBOM ingestion, enriches reports with VEX (Vulnerability Exploitability Exchange) data, and continuously updates risk profiles as new vulnerabilities emerge.
Key Features:
- Unified SBOM Hub: First of all, Endor consolidates all SBOMs in one place, making it easier for teams to organize and audit software components.
- Automated SBOM Ingestion: Each time code is shipped, Endor automatically captures the SBOM, ensuring up-to-date inventory with minimal effort.
- One-Click SBOM + VEX Export: Additionally, the platform allows instant export of annotated SBOMs enriched with VEX data, making vulnerability impact assessments much faster.
- Continuous Risk Profiling: Rather than requiring manual updates, Endor continuously adjusts SBOM risk profiles as new data becomes available.
- CI/CD Pipeline Integration: Moreover, it connects easily with your DevOps pipelines, enabling real-time supply chain visibility across builds.
Cons:
- No Native SBOM Generation: However, it’s worth noting that Endor doesn’t generate SBOMs on its own—it depends on external tools.
- Limited Deep Analysis: While it excels at SBOM management, it lacks in-depth component metadata analysis or embedded threat intelligence.
- Requires Additional Tooling: Lastly, for a complete SBOM security workflow, Endor needs to be paired with other tools such as SCA platforms or native SBOM generators.
💲 Pricing:
- Add-On Model: SBOM Hub is offered as an add-on to their Core or Pro platform. This means SBOM features come at an additional cost rather than being included out of the box.
- Custom Quotes Only: There’s no public pricing. Instead, prospective users must contact sales, which can slow down evaluations for teams looking to get started quickly.
- Scaled by Usage: Pricing is adjusted based on active modules (e.g., VEX support, ingestion) and the number of developers.
4. Snyk: SBOM Tool
Overview:
Meanwhile, Snyk provides a developer-centric SBOM generation tool as part of its CLI suite. It supports both SPDX and CycloneDX formats, and even offers SBOM testing, making it a solid SBOM generation tool that fits neatly into DevOps pipelines.
Key Features
- Zero-Day Malware Detection in Registries: Aikido scans new packages published to major registries like npm and PyPI. It evaluates code patterns in real time, catching unknown malware threats early, often before any CVE is assigned.
- Developer Workflow Integration: Through IDE plugins and pull request checks, Aikido prevents suspicious packages from being introduced into the codebase. This way, it becomes part of the development process without adding friction.
- Container and IaC Layer Scanning: Besides code packages, Aikido inspects container images and infrastructure-as-code files. It looks for embedded malware such as crypto miners or hardcoded secrets that could compromise deployments.
- Live Malware Intelligence Feed: Aikido maintains a live feed of newly discovered malicious packages. Consequently, teams stay informed about emerging threats and can react before they escalate.
Cons
- Narrow SDLC Coverage: Although effective at monitoring registries, Aikido does not scan your custom source code, CI/CD pipelines, or infrastructure activity for malware. Therefore, it misses important stages where threats can emerge.
- Lack of Prioritization Funnel: Aikido surfaces alerts and red flags but does not provide a prioritization funnel to help teams decide what to fix first. Without this filtering, developers may need to manually assess which findings require immediate attention, which slows down the response process.
- Language Ecosystem Limitations: Support for ecosystems beyond JavaScript and Python is still maturing. Teams working with Java, Ruby, or .NET may find gaps in registry coverage or detection depth.
- Setup and Configuration Complexity
As an all-in-one platform, Aikido may require tuning to avoid alert noise, especially when enabling features like SAST or IaC scanning alongside malware detection tools. - Premium Features Require Subscription
While basic detection is available, many advanced features including policy automation and team-wide controls are gated behind paid plans.
💲 Pricing
- Starts with 200 tests/month under the Team plan. SCA must be purchased separately and cannot be used on its own without a plan.
- Products sold individually . Snyk’s pricing model requires separate purchases for SCA, Container, IaC, and other features.
- Plan pricing varies per product, each feature adds to the total cost, and all must be included in the same billing plan.
- Custom quote required. No clear pricing for full coverage; cost grows quickly with usage and team size.
Reviews:
5. Scribe: SBOM Tool
Overview:
Scribe Security offers a focused SBOM solution that delivers clear visibility into your software supply chain. Even so, it doesn’t generate SBOMs for you, it concentrates on ingesting, analyzing, and monitoring existing SBOM data to help with vulnerability tracking and compliance.
Key Features
- Detailed SBOM Analysis: Parses SBOM inputs to extract deep metadata on components and potential risks.
- Vulnerability Monitoring: Continuously checks SBOM contents against vulnerability feeds to flag issues as soon as they appear.
- Compliance Tracking: Supports multiple regulatory frameworks, enabling teams to maintain compliance effortlessly.
- CI/CD Pipeline Integration: Accepts SBOM files from your pipelines to provide real-time visibility into production builds.
Cons
- No Built-In SBOM Generation: You’ll need a separate tool to create SBOMs before importing them into Scribe.
- Limited Remediation Support: Scribe identifies issues, but doesn’t provide automated fixes or patches.
- Dependency on Producers: The accuracy of insights depends entirely on the completeness of input SBOMs.
💲 Pricing:
- Custom enterprise pricing starts in the five-figure range annually.
- Bundled services include SAST, DAST, SCA, policy enforcement, and limited malware detection.
- SCA and malware capabilities are not offered standalone, and there’s no public trial.
6. Anchore: SBOM Tool
Overview:
Anchore delivers purpose-built SBOM generation tools tailored for containerized applications. Moreover, it not only produces SBOMs but also enforces security and compliance checks, making it a solid choice for teams focused on container security.
Key Features
- Container-Focused SBOMs: Anchore automatically creates SBOMs for your container images, helping maintain consistency and transparency across deployments.
- Automated Compliance & Security Checks: It verifies SBOM contents against vulnerability databases and custom policies to detect hidden risks.
- CI/CD Pipeline Integration: Anchore integrates seamlessly with build systems like Jenkins, GitLab CI, and GitHub Actions to bake SBOM generation and scanning into your workflows.
- Detailed Reporting & Enforcement: It generates compliance reports and can break builds or block deployments if policy checks fail.
Cons
- Limited to Containers: Anchore doesn’t generate SBOMs for non-container artifacts such as libraries or JVM packages, narrowing its scope.
- Requires Complementary Tools: For comprehensive SBOM security across diverse components, teams must integrate Anchore with other SCA or SBOM generators.
- Complex Setup & Tuning: Configuring policies and connecting to pipelines may involve a steep learning curve, which could delay adoption.
💲 Pricing:
- Anchore offers three enterprise tiers: Core, Enhanced, and Pro. Each includes varying levels of container scanning, policy enforcement, SBOM management, and support.
- Pricing depends on usage volume, such as node count and SBOM size. While the platform is open source at its core, advanced capabilities and enterprise support are available only through custom plans.
The Importance of SBOM Security
Software transparency now matters more than ever, especially since SBOMs (Software Bill of Materials) became a legal requirement in the U.S. This makes SBOM tools and SBOM generation tools essential for anyone building secure software. A strong security posture depends on knowing exactly what’s inside every component you ship. Yet, many teams still miss critical vulnerabilities or compliance risks because they rely on incomplete SBOM coverage.
While generating a list of components is useful, the real power of SBOM security lies in how you act on that list. Let’s say a new critical CVE is disclosed. If it affects a transitive dependency buried deep in your backend stack, you could spend hours chasing it down manually. On the other hand, with a smart SBOM security solution, you’d be alerted immediately, see exactly what’s impacted, and apply fixes without delay.
That is the difference between reacting too late and responding on time.
SBOM tools are no longer optional. In 2025, they are a cornerstone of modern AppSec, making it easier to:
- Detect vulnerable components across your software supply chain
- Stay aligned with compliance requirements like Executive Order 14028.
- Reduce the time to respond when new threats are discovered
- Build trust with customers and auditors through transparency
Because of this, investing in SBOM generation tools isn’t just about checking a box. It’s about giving your team the visibility and control they need to prevent breaches, maintain compliance, and keep releases moving.
Why Xygeni Leads the Pack
To summarize, a strong SBOM generation tool helps you:
- Build secure software without slowing down
- React quickly to emerging vulnerabilities
- Maintain compliance with confidence and ease
Although the tools reviewed in this guide bring valuable capabilities to the table, Xygeni stands out as the most complete solution for DevSecOps teams that need more than just basic SBOM generation.
Automated SBOMs in Any Format
First of all, Xygeni lets you generate SBOMs in both CycloneDX and SPDX formats with a single click. It also includes VDR export, so you’re always audit-ready and fully transparent.
Smart Supply Chain Insights
Secondly, Xygeni doesn’t stop at listing components. It links your SBOMs to live threat intelligence, reachability analysis, and AI-powered remediation workflows.
Integrated Dev Workflows
Additionally, Xygeni fits directly into your CI/CD pipelines including: GitHub, GitLab, Jenkins, and Bitbucket. So your team can stay secure without leaving their tools.
Compliance Made Simple
Furthermore, Xygeni’s SBOMs are built to meet U.S. federal mandates, ISO/IEC 5962, and other global standards. The platform provides audit-ready reports in just a few clicks.
AI AutoFix Support
Finally, Xygeni’s AI AutoFix instantly identifies and patches vulnerable components, helping you avoid regressions and reducing mean time to remediation.
In short, Xygeni turns your SBOMs into living, actionable assets. Instead of just knowing what’s in your software, you gain the power to secure it continuously.
Are you ready to turn SBOM compliance into a competitive advantage?
Explore Xygeni today and bring full-stack visibility, automation, and supply chain security to your DevOps workflow.
