sentinel-scan-cli vs Cisco mcp-scanner vs Snyk Agent Scan: comparing open-source MCP security scanners

Ventrova's sentinel-scan-cli, Cisco's mcp-scanner, and Snyk Agent Scan (formerly Invariant Labs' mcp-scan) are compared as open-source security scanners for MCP servers. The comparison highlights differences in licensing, installation, required credentials, scanning engines, and OWASP mapping. Notably, Snyk Agent Scan now requires a Snyk account and API token, while sentinel-scan-cli offers zero-dependency static scanning with OWASP LLM and MCP Top 10 mappings.

If you're wiring MCP servers into an agent and want to check them for prompt injection, tool poisoning, or supply-chain risk before you trust them, there are now a handful of open-source options. This is a factual, no-benchmarks comparison of the three I could actually find and read the docs for: our own sentinel-scan-cli https://github.com/Ventrova/sentinel-scan-cli , Cisco's mcp-scanner https://github.com/cisco-ai-defense/mcp-scanner , and what used to be Invariant Labs' mcp-scan . One thing worth flagging up front: Invariant Labs' mcp-scan repo github.com/invariantlabs-ai/mcp-scan now redirects to github.com/snyk/agent-scan. The project has been absorbed into Snyk and rebranded as "Agent Scan" package snyk-agent-scan . If you're comparing tools based on older blog posts that reference "Invariant Labs mcp-scan" as a standalone, no-account CLI, that's out of date — running it now requires a free Snyk account and an SNYK TOKEN API key export SNYK TOKEN=... before the CLI will scan anything. I'm comparing against the current Snyk Agent Scan README since that's what the repo actually ships today.All claims below are pulled directly from each project's public README as of 2026-08-24. No invented features, no synthetic benchmarks — this is a "what does the doc actually say" comparison, not a lab test. | sentinel-scan-cli | Cisco mcp-scanner | Snyk Agent Scan fka Invariant Labs mcp-scan | | |---|---|---|---| | License | MIT | Apache 2.0 | source-available on GitHub; requires Snyk account/token to run | | Install | zero dependencies, single Python file or pip install / npx github:... | uv tool install , Python 3.11+ | uvx snyk-agent-scan or standalone binary | | Signup / API key required to run at all | No --demo needs nothing; scanning your own endpoint needs only your own endpoint's key | No core YARA/static scanning works with zero keys; LLM/Cisco AI Defense/VirusTotal analyzers are opt-in extras | Yes — Snyk account + SNYK TOKEN required before any scan runs | | What it scans | Live LLM endpoint prompt-injection/jailbreak suite and static MCP tool manifests mcp.json | Live MCP servers remote + stdio : tools, prompts, resources, server instructions; plus PyPI/npm packages, source code, VirusTotal binary scans, CVE deps | Live MCP servers auto-discovered from IDE/agent configs and agent skills e.g. Claude Skills | | Scanning engines | Static heuristics regex/schema pattern matching only | Multiple: YARA rules, LLM-based semantic analysis, Cisco AI Defense API, VirusTotal hash lookups, pip-audit CVE scanning, Docker-sandboxed behavioral analysis | Local checks + Snyk's hosted analysis API component data is sent to Snyk's backend for scoring | | Executes/starts MCP servers to scan them | No — manifest scan is pure static text/JSON parsing, zero server execution | Yes, for live server scans stdio/remote ; also has a fully offline static subcommand for pre-generated JSON | Yes — starts stdio MCP servers to retrieve tool descriptions consent-gated by default, --dangerously-run-mcp-servers to skip | | OWASP LLM Top 10 mapping on findings | Yes, every finding tagged LLM01, LLM02, LLM05, LLM06, LLM07 as applicable | Not referenced in the README | Not referenced in the README | | OWASP MCP Top 10 beta mapping | Yes, on the mcp manifest heuristics | Not referenced in the README | Not referenced in the README | | Number of distinct detections | 15 prompt-injection/jailbreak techniques live-endpoint scan + 10 manifest heuristics | Broadest surface: findings vary per engine YARA rules + LLM findings + CVEs + malware hashes , not a fixed count | 15 distinct risk categories across MCP + skills per current docs | | CI integration | GitHub Action with SARIF upload to the Security tab, markdown/JSON output | REST API server mode mcp-scanner-api for pipeline integration; static /offline mode built for CI/air-gapped use | --ci flag exits non-zero on findings; no dedicated GitHub Action in the README | | Auto-discovers configs across IDEs/agents Cursor, Claude, VS Code, etc. | No — you point it at a specific manifest or endpoint | Yes — --scan-known-configs covers well-known client config locations | Yes — the most extensive of the three, with an explicit support matrix for Windsurf, Cursor, VS Code, Claude Desktop/Code, Gemini CLI, Amazon Q, Kiro, OpenCode, Antigravity, Codex, and more | | Skill scanning Claude Skills etc. | No | No | Yes — dedicated skill scanning for prompt injection, malware payloads, secret detection | | Malware/binary scanning | No | Yes, via VirusTotal hash lookups on bundled files | Not specified as a distinct capability in the README | | Public dataset of findings | Yes — raw pilot scan JSON published in-repo pilot scan results.json | --demo makes zero network calls; scanning your own endpoint talks only to that endpointBeing fair about this matters more than making our tool look good, so here's the honest read. Cisco mcp-scanner is the most feature-dense of the three by a wide margin. If you want one tool that does YARA pattern matching, LLM-based semantic analysis, CVE dependency auditing, VirusTotal malware scanning, and sandboxed behavioral analysis of PyPI/npm packages, nothing else here comes close. It also supports 10+ languages for its behavioral analysis per the README and ships both a CLI and a REST API server mode. The tradeoff is setup complexity: several of its best capabilities LLM analysis, Cisco AI Defense inspect API, VirusTotal are only as good as the third-party API keys you're willing to configure. Snyk Agent Scan has by far the broadest auto-discovery. It knows about install paths for a dozen-plus coding agents and IDEs across three OSes, and it scans agent skills as well as MCP servers — a surface sentinel-scan-cli and mcp-scanner don't touch at all. If your threat model includes malicious Claude Skills or you want one command to sweep an entire dev machine for every agent config on it, this is the tool built for that. The tradeoff: it requires a Snyk account and API token before it will run at all, and it sends component data tool descriptions, server configs, skill content to Snyk's hosted analysis API as a hard requirement, not an opt-in. That's a real cost if you need to scan something before you have outbound network access approved, or you want a fully offline/air-gapped check. sentinel-scan-cli is deliberately narrower. It doesn't execute or connect to live MCP servers, doesn't do behavioral/sandboxed analysis, and doesn't scan packages or binaries for malware. What it does do: run entirely offline with zero signup and zero API key for the --demo and mcp manifest paths, tag every single finding against both the OWASP LLM Top 10 and the OWASP MCP Top 10 beta , and publish the raw output of a real scan run in the repo instead of asking you to trust a marketing claim. It's a five-minute smoke test you can run with curl and one Python file, not a platform. Three things we think are genuinely differentiated, not just "different": OWASP-mapped output on every finding. Neither Cisco mcp-scanner nor Snyk Agent Scan's public docs reference OWASP LLM Top 10 or OWASP MCP Top 10 category tags on their findings. Every sentinel-scan-cli finding — from the live-endpoint prompt-injection suite and from the static mcp manifest scan — carries an explicit OWASP LLM Top 10 category and, for the MCP heuristics, an OWASP MCP Top 10 beta category too. If you need to hand a finding to a compliance reviewer or map it onto a framework they already recognize, that mapping is built in rather than something you do by hand afterward. Zero-dependency, zero-signup, offline-capable install. curl one file and run it, or pip install , pipx run , or npx github:... — no Snyk account, no API token, no Docker, no uv . The --demo and mcp --demo paths make no network calls at all. That matters if you want to try a tool before deciding whether to trust it with your endpoint, or if you're in an environment where you can't get a new third-party API key approved before you need to check something. We publish our own scan output. The pilot scan results https://github.com/Ventrova/sentinel-scan-cli/blob/master/pilot scan results.json are unedited JSON from a real run against a disposable local model, and the sample report https://ventrova.dev/sample-report is the exact, unedited --demo output — not a curated screenshot. We'd rather you look at raw findings than take our word for it. What we don't do, honestly: no live MCP server connections, no LLM-based semantic analysis, no malware/binary scanning, no CVE dependency auditing, and no auto-discovery across IDE configs. If you need any of those, Cisco mcp-scanner or Snyk Agent Scan are the better fit — and there's nothing stopping you from running more than one of these; they check different things. github.com/invariantlabs-ai/mcp-scan Disclosure: sentinel-scan-cli is built by Ventrova. We tried to be as fair to the other two tools here as we'd want someone being fair to us.