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KICS review

Free#9 of 25 in Infrastructure Policy as Code ToolsInfrastructure Testing Tools

A free CLI for broad IaC scanning, customizable policies, secrets detection, and CI/CD reporting.

8.5/10Editor score
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KICS8.5 Visit KICS

Reviewed by iTechGuides Editors · Editorial team · Updated Oct 2026

KICS, or Keeping Infrastructure as Code Secure, is an open-source command-line tool from Checkmarx for teams that need static analysis across infrastructure and deployment files. It detects security vulnerabilities, compliance issues, misconfigurations, and secrets in technologies including Terraform, Kubernetes, Docker, AWS CloudFormation, Ansible, Helm, Pulumi, and others. Its cross-platform support covers Windows, macOS, and Linux, making it suitable for developers, platform teams, and security groups standardizing checks across varied infrastructure repositories.

KICS follows an open-source pricing model with a free plan rather than metered commercial SaaS tiers. The published capabilities include OPA Rego-based customizable queries, policy testing, CI/CD integration, policy reporting, and an automatic remediation command. Findings can be exported in JSON, SARIF, HTML, PDF, CSV, JUnit, and other formats. This gives teams flexibility in how they review results, feed findings into development systems, and retain reports for security or compliance processes.

Its ecosystem fit is a central strength. KICS integrates with Azure Pipelines, Bamboo, Bitbucket Pipelines, CircleCI, Codefresh, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Jenkins, TeamCity, Travis CI, pre-commit hooks, Terraform Cloud, Terraformer, AWS CodeBuild, and Visual Studio Code. The format coverage also extends to Google Deployment Manager, AWS SAM, Microsoft ARM, Azure Blueprints, OpenAPI, Crossplane, Knative, and Serverless Framework. Choose KICS when broad format support and customizable policy scanning matter more than a hosted commercial product experience. Teams seeking a metered SaaS platform or avoiding Rego-based policy work should consider an alternative.

KICS pros and cons

  • Where it wins
    • Scans Terraform, Kubernetes, Docker, CloudFormation, and many more formats
    • Customizable OPA Rego queries support tailored policy checks
    • CI/CD integrations, secrets scanning, reports, and automatic remediation
  • Where it doesn't
    • Command-line tool rather than a metered commercial SaaS product
    • Custom policy development requires familiarity with OPA Rego
    • Remediation is provided through a command rather than an end-to-end workflow

KICS fact sheet, pricing and score →

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