Comparison
Driftlock vs Renovate: PR queue vs. self-hosted signed morning desk.
Renovate opens automated dependency-update pull requests across the monorepo at a schedule the team sets, and stops at the merge button. Driftlock reads the same signal surface — Renovate alerts, CI failure, CVE feed, on-call page — and turns each into one signed, audit-linked pull request on a protected branch, inside a hermetic sandbox that replays the original regression. The seven-column audit trail a Driftlock PR ships (alert id, sandbox run hash, SBOM hash, approver chain, signature, diff bytes, triage verdict) is the column set Renovate does not produce, and is the column set a SOC 2 reviewer, an internal auditor, or a regulated buyer's platform team will actually replay at the second call.
Audit trail
Compare the evidence a reviewer can replay, not just the pull requests a bot can open.
Signing boundary
The key, signature, SBOM hash, and approval chain stay tied to the PR artefact.
Repository boundary
Residency and retention follow the customer’s deployment and storage boundary.
The evaluator’s lens
A dependency queue is only one part of the control surface.
Renovate is effective at opening dependency-update pull requests on a schedule. The sharper question for a regulated platform team is what remains attached to each change after merge: who signed it, which SBOM changed, where the evidence lives, and how long the customer can retain and replay it.
Feature-by-feature
Four posture differences worth verifying.
Each row states the Renovate and Driftlock position on the dimensions already raised by enterprise evaluators: retention, signing, compliance artefacts, and residency.
| Dimension | Renovate | Driftlock |
|---|---|---|
Dimension audit-log retention | Renovate Records the PR table on the source-control side and Renovate's own scheduler logs; replay requires GitHub or the Renovate control plane and does not natively separate trigger, sandbox hash, SBOM hash, and signature into replayable columns. | Driftlock Records seven per-PR columns (alert id, sandbox run hash, SBOM hash, approver chain, signature, diff bytes, triage verdict) replayable on the customer's storage tier without a Driftlock-managed control plane, captured at /docs/compliance#merge-audit-trail. Retention stays on the customer’s storage tier. |
Dimension Ed25519 signing | Renovate Renovate can sign commits via a setup key the team holds, but the key lives in Renovate's signing surface and is not natively bound to a customer-held cosign key, KMS, or HSM rotation schedule. | Driftlock Signs every pull request (Renovate-driven or otherwise) with the customer's cosign key, kept in the customer's KMS or HSM on Enterprise, with key rotation on the customer's schedule. The signing controller and Rekor inclusion log are surfaced at /docs/compliance#cryptographic-signing. |
Dimension SOC 2 + SBOM readiness | Renovate No native SOC 2 controls baked in; the platform team carries the SOC 2 evidence story and stitches the Renovate PR table into an attestation each cycle. Renovate surfaces the dependency diff in the PR body — versions before and after, source registry, lockfile change — but does not emit a CycloneDX SBOM per PR or a per-PR SBOM hash recorded alongside the signature. | Driftlock Posts a SOC 2 Type I + Type II in window, anchored at /security#soc2-roadmap, with customer-managed keys, data-residency options, and air-gapped deployment tiers listed at /security#customer-managed-keys and /security#data-residency. Emits a per-PR CycloneDX SBOM delta with a sha256 hash recorded alongside the diff and the signature — the SBOM hash becomes one of the seven columns the audit trail replays, anchored at /docs/compliance#sbom-emission. |
Dimension repository data residency | Renovate Self-hosting can place Renovate near the repository, but the control-plane record and evidence boundary vary by deployment; there is no single customer-owned residency posture. | Driftlock Runs in the customer’s VPC with data-residency options and air-gapped deployment tiers; repository evidence and the audit trail remain on the customer’s storage tier. |
Keep evaluating
Take the comparison into the second meeting.
Use the FAQ for the short answers evaluators ask most often, then review the rate card and deployment options when the team is ready to model the switch.