LucidShark vs Snyk
Last updated: March 2026
The short version
Snyk is a mature, enterprise-grade security platform with strong SCA and SAST capabilities. It is cloud-only, costs $25/developer/month on the Team plan, and your code is transmitted to Snyk's servers for analysis. LucidShark is free, runs entirely on your machine, and covers the same SAST and SCA use cases without the cloud dependency or per-seat billing.
Pricing: what Snyk actually costs
Snyk's free tier caps private-repo SAST at 100 tests/month and SCA at 400 tests/month - not enough for active development. Once you exceed those limits:
- Team plan: $25/developer/month ($3,000/year for a 10-person team)
- Enterprise plan: $67,000–$90,000/year for 100 developers (custom quote)
Billing is per contributing developer - anyone who committed to a private repo in the last 90 days. The "reachability" feature that reduces false positives in SCA is Enterprise-only. Without it, alert noise can be significant on the free and Team plans.
The cloud dependency
Snyk is cloud-only. When Snyk Code (SAST) runs, your code is sent to Snyk's servers for analysis. This is not a minor caveat - for teams working on proprietary codebases, regulated industries, or any project where code confidentiality is a requirement, it changes the threat model entirely. Snyk does have a data processing agreement and handles data responsibly, but the transmission happens regardless of plan.
LucidShark analysis runs on your machine. Nothing is transmitted.
Comparison
| Criterion | LucidShark | Snyk Free | Snyk Team ($25/dev/mo) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cost | Free (Apache 2.0) | Free (rate-limited) | $3,000+/year for 10 devs |
| Code leaves machine? | Never | Yes - sent to Snyk cloud | Yes - sent to Snyk cloud |
| SAST | Yes, unlimited, local | 100 tests/month (private) | Unlimited |
| SCA (dependency scanning) | Yes, unlimited, local | 400 tests/month (private) | Unlimited |
| Linting + formatting | Yes | No | No |
| IaC scanning | Yes | Yes (rate-limited) | Yes |
| Reachability analysis (SCA) | Yes | No | No (Enterprise only) |
| MCP / Claude Code integration | Native | No | No |
| Setup | One command install | Account + CLI install | Account + CLI install + billing |
| Target audience | Indie devs, small teams, AI coding workflows | Individual evaluation | Commercial dev teams |
When Snyk makes sense
Snyk is a strong platform for enterprise security teams that need centralized vulnerability management, deep SCA with a rich CVE database, container scanning, IaC analysis, and compliance reporting across dozens of repositories. If your company already has a security budget and needs audit trails, Jira integration, and support contracts - Snyk is worth evaluating. Snyk's transitive dependency patching is a genuinely differentiated capability that most tools lack.
When LucidShark makes sense
If you're an indie developer, solo founder, or part of a small team shipping code with AI assistance - the math on Snyk doesn't work. $3,000/year for SAST and SCA, with your code leaving your machine on every scan, is a hard sell when LucidShark is free, local, and covers the same core checks. LucidShark is not trying to replace Snyk's enterprise feature set. It's the right tool for developers who need solid security coverage without the cloud dependency or the invoice.
FAQ
Does Snyk store my source code?
Snyk transmits your code to its cloud servers for SAST analysis. It operates under a data processing agreement and has retention policies, but code does leave your machine on every scan. LucidShark never transmits code.
Is there a free Snyk alternative for local scanning?
Yes - LucidShark covers SAST and SCA locally with no rate limits, no cloud account, and no cost. Install with curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/toniantunovi/lucidshark/main/install.sh | bash and run as ./lucidshark
Can I use Snyk with Claude Code?
Snyk does not have native MCP or Claude Code integration. LucidShark's MCP integration lets Claude Code agents run quality checks and surface fixes directly in the AI coding workflow.