Keep your existing AppSec stack — it's still doing its job. Thuban adds the layer none of them were built for: watching what an AI agent actually does, live, before any of that code reaches a repo. No rip-and-replace. No workflow disruption. Try it free for 30 days alongside what you already run.
If you're evaluating this for a team, a security review, or a board deck, here's what actually matters — not feature checkboxes, but the things procurement, security, and DevOps ask about before signing anything.
Every rule Thuban ships is signed and independently verified — adversarially tested by Crucible, dry-run checked by Shield, regression-tested by Scanner and Cost Guard — before it reaches a single machine. The Time to Defence dashboard shows this happening in public: real incidents, real timestamps, real shipped rules. That's the kind of evidence an audit team can actually check, not a claim on a sales page.
Every tool on this page — SonarQube, ESLint, Snyk, CodeScene, DeepSource — scans code that already exists. They review, they report, they recommend. Not one of them sits between an AI coding agent and your machine while it's working.
Static scanning (what everyone else does, and what Thuban also does) is still necessary — but it's not sufficient anymore. AI agents don't just write bad code, they execute things: delete files, read credentials, run up API bills, install packages. That needs something watching in real time. That's the gap this whole category hasn't caught up to yet.
| Feature | Thuban | SonarQube | ESLint | Snyk | CodeScene | DeepSource |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Real-Time Runtime EnforcementAI-specific | Blocks live agent actions, auto-rollback | |||||
| AI Spend / Cost GuardAI-specific | Unbounded loop + missing token-limit detection | |||||
| Adversarial Self-TestingAI-specific | Crucible, 515+ attack seeds | |||||
| Autonomous Threat-to-Defence PipelineAI-specific | Forge, hours not months | Rule updates via releases | Vuln DB updates | |||
| AI Hallucination DetectionAI-specific | ||||||
| Phantom Import DetectionAI-specific | 10 languages | JS/TS only via plugin | Python only | |||
| Ghost Code / Dead Code DetectionCode Quality | Exports, functions, classes | Basic unused code | Unused vars only | Hotspot analysis | ||
| Hardcoded Secret ScanningSecurity | 69 patterns | Community rules | ||||
| Tech Debt Cost CalculatorBusiness | GBP/USD output | Time-based only | Risk-based | |||
| AI Slop Index / AI Quality ScoreAI-specific | 0-100 score | |||||
| Mother Code DNADocumentation | Auto-validated metadata | |||||
| Copy-Paste DetectionCode Quality | ||||||
| Dependency Vulnerability ScanningSecurity | Manifest analysis | Industry leader | ||||
| SQL Injection DetectionSecurity | JS, Python, Go, Rust, PHP | |||||
| Codebase Health PassportBusiness | Single-page report | Risk heatmap | ||||
| CI/CD IntegrationDevOps | GitHub Actions, SARIF | |||||
| MCP Server (AI Agent Integration)AI-specific | ||||||
| Runs 100% LocallyPrivacy | No code leaves your machine | Self-host or cloud | Cloud-only scanning | Cloud analysis | Cloud analysis | |
| Zero DependenciesArchitecture | Pure Node.js | Java + DB required | Plugin ecosystem | Cloud service | Cloud service | Cloud service |
| Languages SupportedCoverage | 10 | 30+ | 1 JS/TS only | 10+ | 15+ | 12 |
What you actually pay for a team of 10 developers per month
SonarQube is the industry standard for static analysis. It's been around since 2007 and supports 30+ languages. But it was built for a world where humans wrote all the code.
Choose SonarQube if you need 30+ language coverage and have DevOps capacity to maintain the infrastructure. Choose Thuban if your codebase uses AI-generated code, you want AI-specific detection, or you want the same depth without the infrastructure overhead and per-seat pricing.
ESLint is a linter, not a scanner. It checks your code matches a style guide and catches basic errors. Thuban and ESLint solve fundamentally different problems — and work best together.
Don't choose between them — use both. ESLint handles style and syntax in real-time. Thuban catches the deeper problems ESLint was never designed for: AI hallucinations, phantom imports, hardcoded secrets, and tech debt that linters can't see. Run ESLint on save, run Thuban before every merge.
Snyk is the market leader in dependency vulnerability scanning. It's excellent at what it does — finding known CVEs in your supply chain. Thuban focuses on what's inside your code, not your dependencies.
Snyk wins on dependency/container scanning — it's the best in the world at that. Thuban wins on first-party code quality, AI hallucinations, and privacy (nothing leaves your machine). If your threat model includes supply chain attacks, use Snyk. If it includes AI-generated code quality, use Thuban. Best answer: use both.
CodeScene uses behavioural code analysis — looking at how code evolves over time via git history. Thuban analyses what's in the code right now.
CodeScene excels at understanding how your team works with code over time. Thuban excels at understanding what's wrong with the code right now — especially AI-generated issues. They're complementary tools: CodeScene for process, Thuban for content.
DeepSource offers automated code review with strong autofix capabilities. It's cloud-based, well-priced, and catches many common issues. But it wasn't built for the AI generation era.
DeepSource is a solid, affordable code review tool. Thuban goes deeper on AI-specific issues and keeps everything local. If autofix is your priority, DeepSource has an edge. If AI code quality and privacy are your priority, Thuban wins.
Three 30-second breakdowns of what "runtime enforcement" actually looks like, and what it costs.
The cost math, visualised
They report it. Thuban stops it.
Weeks vs. 21 minutes
Thuban isn't trying to replace every tool on this list. ESLint is free and fast — keep it. Snyk is the best at dependency scanning — keep it. But none of these tools were built for a world where AI agents don't just write code, they run it: deleting files, reading credentials, calling APIs in unbounded loops. That's the gap Thuban fills — live, at the moment the agent acts, not in a report afterwards. And at $9/month for Individual or $49 for a team of 10, the question isn't whether you can afford Thuban. It's whether you can afford to let an AI agent run unsupervised without it.
Read more: What AI Code Scanners Catch That Linters Can't · Why Thuban is Priced to Win
One command. Full report. No code leaves your machine.
npx thuban scan .