In software and cybersecurity, knowing what’s inside your software is really important. That’s where SBOM, or Software Bill of Materials, comes in.
But here’s where it gets interesting: there are different ways to create these SBOMs, and two prominent formats often stand in the spotlight—SPDX vs CycloneDX. Both serve the same fundamental purpose of helping you understand your software’s inner workings, but they do so in their own unique ways. That’s where this comparison comes in. Read on to learn more about these two formats.
In this blog post, we’ll embark on a journey through the world of SBOMs, exploring the intricacies of SPDX vs CycloneDX. We’ll uncover what makes them tick, how they’re similar, and where they diverge.
What is SPDX?
SPDX is one of the major SBOM (software bill of materials) standards for specifying the software components in a product.
It provides a standard language for software developers, buyers, and sellers to communicate the components, copyrights, licenses, and security information associated with software components in multiple file formats and the products they are creating, using, and selling.
What is CycloneDX?
CycloneDX is a standard SBOM tool for managing software development projects. It helps you track your project’s dependencies, license information, and security vulnerabilities. It also makes finding and fixing security vulnerabilities in your code manageable.
SPDX vs CycloneDx
History
SPDX was created and developed in 2010 by the Linux Foundation.’ As per the Linux Foundation, SPDX provides a standard data exchange format. In addition, it focuses on providing open-source license compliance.
CycloneDX was created in 2017 by the ‘OWASP‘ community and developed as an open-source project. It focuses on vulnerabilities and security along with open-source.
It provides vulnerability identification, license compliance, and outdated component analysis for open-source components. OWASP, ServiceNow, and Sanatype team members are core working groups.
Supported formats of SPDX vs CycloneDX
SPDX
- You can use SPDX documents in several file formats like RDFa, .xlsx, and .spdx and expand into other formats such as .xml, .json, and .yaml.
CycloneDX
- You can represent the CycloneDX in different file formats, such as. XML, JSON, and protocol buffers and get source code on GitHub.
Features of CycloneDX vs SPDX
SPDX has a few more features than CycloneDX. For example,
- SPDX can track the software components in a product, while CycloneDX can only be used to track the software components in a project.
- SPDX can also be used to share information about the software components with other developers, buyers, and sellers.
What is it?
More about SPDX vs CycloneDX
| SPDX | CycloneDX |
| Information about document creation: It gives information about who, how, and when created the SPDX file and associates analysis results with a particular version of the SPDX file | BOM metadata: It provides information about the manufacturer, supplier, target components, license information, and tools used to create BOM. |
| Package information: Matters that are common properties of the whole package | Components: This field outlines the inventory of first-party and third-party components |
| File information: Matters that are particular to files that may be included in packages | Services: It outlines the external APIs such as authentication requirements, endpoint URIs, trust boundary traversals |
| Snippet information: Matters that are particular to only a part of the file | Dependencies: Outlines how components depend on each other through a dependency graph that shows direct and transitive relationships |
| Licensing information: A method to capture information about licenses and refer to other licenses that are not provided in the SPDX license list | Extensions: Provides extension points to help future use cases and functionality |
| Correlation between SPDX elements: Provides details about how documents, files, and packages related to each other | |
| Annotations: Details about who reviewed SPDX files and when reviewed |
FAQs
What are SBOM standards?
SBOM standards are guidelines that help ensure a consistent and accurate description of the components that make up a system. That can make it easier to identify and manage licenses for the various parts of a system and track down any potential issues with using specific components.
What is the main difference between SPDX and CycloneDX?
SPDX (Software Package Data Exchange) is a standard format for sharing information about software packages, while CycloneDX is a specification for creating SBOMs (Software Bill of Materials). Both aim to provide accurate and consistent information about the components that make up a system.
Which standard is better to use?
Answering this question is a little tricky. You can choose the standards depending on your specific needs. For example, if you need to share detailed information about the components in a system with humans, then SPDX is probably the better choice. However, if you need to generate SBOMs that machines can quickly process, CycloneDX will likely be a better fit.
Conclusion
In this article, we have explained SPDX vs CycloneDX. We found that both these tools are suitable for different purposes.
While SPDX is more prevalent among developers, CycloneDX is better suited for data scientists. However, both these tools are worth trying out. Thank you for your readership.