Grype
Grype is a vulnerability scanner for container images and filesystems developed by Anchore. It easily finds vulnerabilities for major operating system packages and language-specific packages.
Key Features
- Scans container images, filesystems, and SBOMs for known vulnerabilities
- Supports major Linux distributions (Alpine, Ubuntu, Debian, RHEL, CentOS, etc.)
- Language support for Java, JavaScript, Python, Go, Ruby, Rust, .NET, PHP, and more
- Works with Docker, OCI, and Singularity image formats
- Integrates with Syft for SBOM generation
- Supports VEX (Vulnerability Exploitability Exchange) for filtering results
- Risk scoring with EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) and CVSS metrics
Architecture
- Written in Go
- Uses SQLite for vulnerability database storage
- Modular matcher system for different package types and ecosystems
- Automatic database updates from multiple vulnerability sources
- CLI-first design with multiple output formats (table, JSON, SARIF, CycloneDX)
Main Components
- cmd/grype/ - CLI application entry point
- grype/ - Core library with matchers, database, and scanning logic
- grype/matcher/ - Package-specific vulnerability matchers
- grype/db/ - Database management and vulnerability storage
- grype/pkg/ - Package identification and metadata
- grype/presenter/ - Output formatting (JSON, table, SARIF, etc.)
Usage
Basic vulnerability scan:
grype <image>Scan with SBOM:
grype sbom:./sbom.jsonThe tool automatically manages its vulnerability database and provides configurable output formats and filtering options.