Comparison
Lockhound and Socket
Socket is built around catching malicious and risky packages before they are installed, and it does that better than Lockhound. Lockhound focuses on the vulnerabilities and known malicious versions already in your repositories, which to fix first, and pull request checks.
Every claim about Socket links to its own documentation, checked on 30 October 2026.
| Capability | Lockhound | Socket |
|---|---|---|
| Malicious package detection | Known malicious versions, once reported to the OpenSSF database (usually hours to days after publication). | Analyses package code itself (static analysis and AI, confirmed by its threat research team), on every plan.source |
| Blocks malicious packages at install time | No. Lockhound reports on what is in your repositories. | Socket Firewall; the free version covers npm, Yarn, pnpm, pip, uv and Cargo.source |
| Known vulnerabilities | OSV, which includes the GitHub Advisory Database. | Ingests the GitHub Advisory Database.source |
| Exploited in the wild (CISA KEV) | Shown with the listing date, ranked first, alerted when newly listed. | KEV data is shown in the dashboard’s alert details.source |
| Reachability analysis | Not offered. | Dependency-level on every plan; precomputed on Team; full application (function-level) on Enterprise.source |
| Composer (PHP) | Generally available: composer.lock with production and dev scopes, and fix commands. | In beta; autofix for Composer is planned.source |
| Pricing model | Flat price per plan with unlimited members; free for 5 private repositories and every public one. | Free for one developer seat with unlimited repositories and 1,000 scans a month; Team $25 and Business $50 per developer seat a month.source |
| Pull request checks | Fail only on what the pull request adds, on every plan. | Block or warn on pull requests, on every plan.source |
| Fixes | The exact upgrade command, checked against every advisory; no automatic pull requests. | Autofix on every plan; automatic patch pull requests on Enterprise.source |
| Malware committed into the repository itself | Checks the files such attacks hide in, on the default branch and in pull requests. | Its GitHub App reads only manifests and lockfiles; code and secret scanning are part of an Enterprise offering.source |
| GitHub access | Read-only repository contents; optional checks and issues. | Asks for read and write access to contents (it documents that it never reads source code), plus pull requests and checks.source |
| License compliance and SBOM | SBOM export (CycloneDX, SPDX) on Business; no license policies. | License compliance on every plan; SBOM generation on Business and Enterprise.source |
“Partly” means the feature exists with limits, such as a paid plan, a preview or a beta. Products change often; if something here is out of date, tell us and we'll fix it.
When Socket is the better choice
If your main worry is the next compromised npm or PyPI package, and you want new packages analysed and blocked before they run on a laptop or CI runner, Socket is built for that and Lockhound is not.
When Lockhound fits better
- Prioritising known vulnerabilities across many repositories and organizations, with the reason and source for every priority.
- PHP and Laravel projects, where Composer support is generally available.
- Flat team pricing instead of per developer seat.
- Committed malware in build files and editor tasks.
Many teams would reasonably run both: a firewall at install time, and Lockhound watching what is already in every repository.
What about detection rates?
We don't publish “finds X% more” claims. We will only publish detection numbers from a reproducible benchmark (fixed commits, the same time window, the method and raw results published with it). Until then, try both on your own lockfile.