A small team can compare dependency scanners in about four hours: pick two repositories, run each candidate, verify a sample of findings, plant one known vulnerable package, time the setup and read the output as a developer would. It will not replace a full trial, but it will rule out poor fits quickly.
Before you start (30 minutes)
Choose two repositories. One should be your main application, the other something older or odd, such as a different language or a monorepo. Pick two to three candidates. Write the criteria you care about on a page: coverage of your languages, quality of results, setup effort, pipeline fit and the evidence you can export. For a longer process, see the 30 day proof of concept plan.
Create a scratch branch of each repository and add one old package with a known public vulnerability. This is your planted check.
Hour one: setup and first scan
For each candidate, record:
- Minutes from signup or install to first result.
- Steps that needed documentation or help.
- Whether it connected to your source control without elevated permissions you are uncomfortable with.
A tool that takes three hours to produce a first scan is telling you something about day to day use.
Hour two: result quality
Check these items on the same repository:
- Did it find the planted vulnerability, and does it show the path and fixed version?
- Is the component count plausible against your lockfile?
- Pick ten findings at random. For each, is the package really installed at an affected version?
- How many findings are in dev or test dependencies, and can that be filtered?
Note results in a table by candidate.
Hour three: the developer view
Open a finding as a developer would. Is the next action obvious: which version to move to, which file to change? Does the pull request or portal give enough context without a meeting? Ask someone who did not set up the test to try one finding and tell you what they would do.
Hour four: the questions that cost nothing
Ask each vendor, by message or on the page:
- Where is our data stored and for how long?
- How can we export findings and an SBOM?
- What happens at the end of a contract?
- Which parts of this are generally available, and which are early or planned?
Write the answers beside your table. Evasive answers count.
Score and decide
Give each candidate a simple rating per criterion, using the weighting you wrote at the start. Resist adding new criteria after seeing the results, which tends to justify a favourite. If two are close, schedule a longer trial of both. If one fails the planted check or cannot read your main ecosystem, drop it.
Limits of a short test
You will not learn long term support quality, behaviour at scale, or how data freshness holds over weeks. Say so in the decision note, and plan checks on those during the first quarter.
Where Safeguard fits: the free scan takes a public repository link and can be one of your candidates for the afternoon, with no setup beyond pasting the link.
Try it yourself
Click through it at your own pace, or open it full screen.
Open one component and ask whether the next action would be obvious to a developer who has never seen the tool.
Quick check
Is one afternoon enough to choose a tool?
It is enough to eliminate poor fits and shortlist, not to settle on a multi-year commitment. Follow with a longer trial of the finalists.
Last reviewed: 19 October 2026.
