We use the product to scan our code for any vulnerable dependencies we might have. We depend on open source libraries and need to make sure they're secure. If not, we need to highlight the areas and replace them, update them quickly. A secondary, minor use case is to also look at licensing and make sure that we're not using open source licenses we should not be using. Those are our two use cases.
What is valuable about Snyk is its simplicity, and that's the main selling point. It's understandably also very cheap because you don't need as much account management resources to manage the relationship with the customer and that's a benefit. I also like that it's self-service, with extremely easy integration. You don't need to speak to anybody to get you off and running and they have loads of integrations with source control and cloud CI systems. They are a relatively new product so they might not have a bigger library than competitors, but it's a good product overall.
They do however have the option to install Snyk on-prem, but it is much more expensive.
The product could be improved by including other types of security scanning (e.g. SAST or DAST), which is important. It would also help to include the static analysis specifically to the open-source scanning so we could get an idea of whether a particular library is vulnerable and recognise if we're actually using the vulnerable part of it or not, they do have runtime analysis, but it is a hassle to set up.
It would be the same issue in terms of the inclusion of additional features. I think static analysis is really important. A second additional feature would be to add tags to projects, identifying an important project or assigning a project to a particular team. Custom tags would be helpful.
I've been using the product for less than a year. It's an SaaS solution, online, so we're always using the latest version.
It's a very stable product, they are clear when a specific feature is in beta.
We have hundreds of source code repositories, and Snyk scans them in minutes (it just looks at package management files to identify the dependency tree), Snyk uses the same infrastructure to scan for all customers on the cloud which gives it lots of scalability opportunities compared to some other vendors where the software is installed on-prem or on a dedicated instance which makes the software pricy and limited (this dedicated instance will be idle most of the time, and the customer needs to pay for it).
The technical support is very good.
Some of our products are deployed on the private cloud behind firewalls, Snyk has tools to carry out security scanning from our private repositories.
For anyone thinking of using the product, I would suggest using cloud and SaaS providers. Generally, they are easy to work with and there's no hassle of having to talk to salespeople and arrange demos, etc. Self-service SaaS products are a good way to go when it's appropriate.
I would rate this product a nine out of 10.
