ActiveState
ActiveState provides a secure open source management platform (the Curated Catalog) with 79M+ vetted, source-built components across 12 language ecosystems, serving enterprise security and engineering teams with vulnerability remediation SLAs and AI coding assistant governance.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded1997
- HeadquartersVancouver, Canada
- Headcount51–100
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingSoftware
What ActiveState does
ActiveState Software Inc. is a Vancouver, Canada-based (founded 1997) private software company that provides a secure open source software management platform for enterprise engineering and security teams. Its core offering, the Curated Catalog, is a private repository of more than 79 million open source components built from source code in SLSA Level 3 compliant infrastructure across 12 programming language ecosystems, with full provenance, automated SBOM generation, and contractual vulnerability remediation SLAs (5 business days for Critical CVEs versus a 54-day industry average).
The platform is delivered through standard package managers (pip, npm, Maven) and integrates natively with enterprise artifact repositories (JFrog Artifactory, Sonatype Nexus, GitHub Packages, AWS CodeArtifact, Azure Artifacts), Kubernetes, and the Trivy and Wiz security tools, including governance for AI coding assistants (Cursor, Claude Code, GitLab Duo, Tabnine, Windsurf, JetBrains AI). Adjacent products include the Open-Source Management Platform, Secure Containers, and Secure Container Image Catalog, while legacy products (ActivePerl, ActiveTcl, ActiveRuby) provide continuity maintenance revenue.
ActiveState operates a tiered subscription model: a Free Tier for individual developers, a Business Tier with standard email support, and an Enterprise Tier with priority response times (2-hour for critical issues), plus Custom Managed Distributions for environments such as Python 2.7 extended support. The go-to-market combines product-led growth (self-service free tier, CI/CD integration) with direct enterprise field sales. Customers include Barclays, Moody's, Cisco, Siemens, DXC, Druva, Mercury Financial, and 200+ global enterprise clients, with the company citing 99% CVE exposure reduction and 30% developer time reclaimed as headline outcomes.
ActiveState firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- ActiveState
- Legal name
- ActiveState Software Inc.
- Website
- https://activestate.com
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 1997
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 51–100 employees
- Short description
- ActiveState provides a secure open source management platform (the Curated Catalog) with 79M+ vetted, source-built components across 12 language ecosystems, serving enterprise security and engineering teams with vulnerability remediation SLAs and AI coding assistant governance.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
ActiveState industry classification
Industry- Product category
- Open Source Software Supply Chain Security
- NAICS
- Computer Systems Design and Related Services (5415), Computing Infrastructure Providers, Data Processing, Web Hosting, and Related Services (518)
- SIC
- Services-Prepackaged Software (7372), Services-Computer Programming, Data Processing, Etc. (7370)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Managed DevOps / Platform Operations (Run & Operate) (BPAEAKAO)
Keywords
Where ActiveState is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- Vancouver
- HQ country
- Canada
- HQ region
- North America
Offices1 record
Markets served
ActiveState business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Technology or R&D, Personnel, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure, Operations
Revenue model
- Enterprise Tier Subscription: Full-featured subscription with dedicated support contacts, priority response times (2 hours for critical issues), remote support, and comprehensive CVE remediation SLAs.
- Business Tier Subscription: Standard support subscription with email support to one named contact, Monday to Friday 8am-5pm PST, with 2 business day response time.
- Free Tier: Unsupported version of products and services available at no cost, limited to personal use with specific feature limits. Used for adoption and lead generation.
- Custom Managed Distributions: Managed Distributions built, maintained, and managed according to customer specifications in Order Forms, with custom SLAs for Python 2.7 extended support.
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Subscription | Annual | Enterprise Tier - Full support with priority response times |
| Subscription | Annual | Business Tier - Standard email support |
| Freemium | Pay-as-you-go | Free Tier - Limited personal use |
Go-to-market motion2 records
Distribution channels4 records
Marketing channels8 records
ActiveState product offering
Product offeringCore offering
ActiveState provides a secure open source software management platform centered on the Curated Catalog, a private repository of 79M+ vetted, rebuilt-from-source open source components spanning 12 programming language ecosystems (Python, Java, JavaScript, Go, R, C/C++, Rust, .NET, Ruby, Perl, Tcl). The platform continuously monitors for upstream vulnerabilities, rebuilds affected components in SLSA Level 3 infrastructure, and delivers them with full provenance, automatic SBOMs, and contractual remediation SLAs through existing artifact repositories and standard package managers.
Product overview
ActiveState is a unified secure open source software platform centered on the Curated Catalog, which provides 79 million+ vetted, source-built components across 12 programming language ecosystems (Python, Java, JavaScript, Go, R, C/C++, Rust, .NET, Ruby, Perl, Tcl). The platform is delivered as a combination of the Curated Catalog (the main governance and delivery layer), the ActiveState Library (underlying component repository), and Secure Containers (hardened container images). Additional offerings include the Secure Container Image Catalog for KubeCon/enterprise container evaluation, and the Open-Source Management Platform for end-to-end discovery and license management. Legacy products ActivePerl, ActiveTcl, and ActiveRuby represent historical language distributions now superseded by the Curated Catalog. Components are delivered through standard package managers (pip, npm, Maven) and integrated with enterprise artifact repositories (JFrog Artifactory, Sonatype Nexus, GitHub Packages, AWS CodeArtifact, Azure Artifacts), CI/CD pipelines, and AI coding assistants.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Brands
- ActivePerl: Enterprise-standard Perl distribution for Windows and enterprise platforms.
- ActivePython
- ActiveTcl
- ActiveGo
- ActiveRuby
- ActiveNode
- ActiveLua
- Komodo
- The Open Source Languages Company
- Curated Catalog
- ActiveState Library
Products and services
- Curated Catalog ActiveState's flagship secure open source platform providing a private repository of vetted, rebuilt-from-source components across 12 programming languages with 79M+ packages. The Curated Catalog offers continuous vulnerability monitoring, automatic remediation with contractual SLAs, SLSA Level 3 provenance, and delivery through existing artifact repositories and package managers. Targeted at enterprise security, engineering, and DevOps teams.
- ActiveState Library A component library offering access to 79M+ built-from-source open source components across multiple ecosystems, serving as the underlying repository for the Curated Catalog platform.
- Secure Containers Pre-built, hardened container images that minimize attack surface with zero or minimal vulnerabilities. ActiveState automates building, testing, and deploying open source code on container images, ensuring consistency and efficiency for DevSecOps workflows. Targets security teams and DevOps engineers deploying in Kubernetes and cloud environments.
- Open-Source Management Platform End-to-end cloud-native service that automates discovery, governance, and license management of open source components, providing comprehensive visibility and control over enterprise open source consumption. Targeted at enterprise security and compliance teams.
- ActivePerl Legacy enterprise Perl distribution for Windows and enterprise platforms. ActiveState continues to support existing enterprise deployments while new customers are directed to the Curated Catalog.
- ActiveTcl Legacy enterprise Tcl distribution. ActiveState maintains existing deployments while transitioning new customers to the modern Curated Catalog platform.
- ActiveRuby Legacy Ruby distribution (Beta). ActiveState continues historical support while focusing new development on the Curated Catalog.
Quantifiable outcome
- 99% CVE exposure reduction
- +5 more outcomes
Companies that use ActiveState
Customer profileNamed customers5 records
Segments5 records
Ideal customer profiles4 records
ActiveState technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- Yes
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Integration17 records
AI capability2 records
Feature6 records
ActiveState partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
Eight partnerships are on record, tiered core, major and minor.
- Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF)coreActiveState joined OpenSSF as a member organization to support the foundation's efforts in securing open source software supply chains. The membership supports addressing mandatory security standards like the EU's Cyber Resilience Act.
- TrivycoreActiveState joined Trivy Partner Connect to integrate its CVE advisories, secure libraries, and containers into Trivy's open source vulnerability scanner. This collaboration aims to improve security accuracy and reduce research time for developers.
- JFrog ArtifactorycoreNative integration with JFrog Artifactory for seamless delivery of secure open source components through enterprise artifact management infrastructure.
- Sonatype NexuscoreNative integration with Sonatype Nexus for secure component delivery and repository management.
- KubernetesmajorIntegration with Kubernetes for container orchestration, enabling secure deployments in Kubernetes environments.
- WizmajorIntegration with Wiz cloud security platform for enhanced visibility and security posture management.
- Dark ReadingminorCollaboration with Dark Reading on the 2026 Container Security Webinar, presenting research findings from the State of Vulnerability Management report.
- IDCmajorActiveState commissioned IDC to produce an Analyst Brief examining open source software governance failures at scale and what security leaders need to do. Research published in 2026.
Scale indicators10 records
Recent moves6 records
Expansion highlights6 records
ActiveState competitors and assessment
Company assessmentDirect peers
- Snyk: Snyk is a developer security platform with Open Source, Code, Container, and IaC scanning products used by millions of developers. It directly competes with ActiveState on open source vulnerability scanning and remediation, with a stronger freemium motion and significantly larger sales and marketing footprint.
- Chainguard: Chainguard provides hardened, minimal-distribution container images and recently expanded into language libraries. It competes with ActiveState Secure Containers and increasingly with Curated Catalog on supply chain provenance, with significant venture backing and a similar SLSA-focused security narrative.
- Mend (formerly WhiteSource): Mend is an application security platform with open source license compliance and vulnerability scanning capabilities. It competes with ActiveState on enterprise open source governance, license compliance, and remediation prioritization, with a heavier focus on traditional SCA workflows.
- JFrog: JFrog Artifactory is the dominant enterprise artifact repository and supply chain platform, offering Xray for security scanning and Curation for vetted packages. ActiveState integrates with JFrog Artifactory as a channel, but JFrog's own Curation feature competes directly with the Curated Catalog at the package gating layer.
- Anchore: Anchore provides software composition analysis, SBOM generation, and container security, with strong FedRAMP and government market presence. It competes with ActiveState on enterprise compliance-driven container and dependency scanning, particularly in US federal and defense verticals.
- Sonatype: Sonatype operates Nexus Repository and Lifecycle, the most widely deployed artifact repository and open source governance platform in enterprises. It is directly comparable to ActiveState's Curated Catalog and Sonatype Nexus integration, competing head-to-head in SBOM generation, vulnerability management, and open source policy enforcement.
Broad incumbents
- GitLab: GitLab offers a DevSecOps platform with built-in dependency scanning, container scanning, and SBOM generation. It is a broad incumbent that competes with ActiveState at the platform layer, particularly for organizations standardizing on a single DevOps toolchain.
- GitHub Advanced Security: GitHub Advanced Security bundles Dependabot, CodeQL, and secret scanning into the GitHub enterprise platform. As a broad incumbent owned by Microsoft, it competes with ActiveState on open source vulnerability management and is often pre-procured via enterprise GitHub agreements, creating a bundling risk for standalone vendors.
Emerging players
- Socket: Socket is a developer-focused security platform detecting malicious and risky open source packages at install time. It is an emerging player with a different technical approach (behavioral analysis vs source-built provenance) but competes for the same developer-driven open source security buyer.
- Phylum: Phylum provides automated software supply chain security analyzing open source packages for risk indicators across the ecosystem. It is an emerging player focused on the same open source dependency risk category ActiveState addresses, with overlap in threat intelligence and policy enforcement at ingestion.
Market position
Strengths5 records
Weaknesses5 records
Competitive moat5 records
Key risks6 records
Key highlights7 records
Customer concentration
ActiveState social profiles
Digital presenceActiveState compliance and trust
Trust signalCompliance9 records
ActiveState financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
ActiveState leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles9 records
ActiveState funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds2 records
Investors2 records
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
ActiveState M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A2 records
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about ActiveState
What does ActiveState do?
ActiveState provides a secure open source software management platform centered on the Curated Catalog, a private repository of 79M+ vetted, rebuilt-from-source open source components spanning 12 programming language ecosystems (Python, Java, JavaScript, Go, R, C/C++, Rust, .NET, Ruby, Perl, Tcl). The platform continuously monitors for upstream vulnerabilities, rebuilds affected components in SLSA Level 3 infrastructure, and delivers them with full provenance, automatic SBOMs, and contractual remediation SLAs through existing artifact repositories and standard package managers.
Is ActiveState a public or private company?
ActiveState is a private company. It is classified as venture growth investor backed and is currently operating.
When was ActiveState founded?
ActiveState was founded in 1997. It employs 51 to 100 people.
Where is ActiveState based?
ActiveState is headquartered in Vancouver, Canada, in the North America region.
How does ActiveState make money?
Four revenue lines are on record. Enterprise Tier Subscription is the primary driver. The others are business Tier Subscription, free Tier and custom Managed Distributions.
Who are ActiveState's main competitors?
Direct peers on record are Snyk, Chainguard, Mend (formerly WhiteSource), JFrog, Anchore and Sonatype. Broad incumbents are GitLab and GitHub Advanced Security. Emerging players are Socket and Phylum.
Does ActiveState have an API?
Yes. ActiveState provides API access for platform integration and automation purposes. The platform offers an application programming interface that enables users to programmatically interact with the ActiveState service. Per the Master Terms of Service, the Service includes 'API (application programming interface), compliance scanning tools, hosted or cloud-based, web interfaces, dashboards and any related tools or support.' The Acceptable Use Policy includes specific API terms governing limits, token sharing, prohibited use, and commercial access provisions for high-volume usage. Developer documentation is at docs.activestate.com.
What industry is ActiveState in?
ActiveState's product category is Open Source Software Supply Chain Security. Its primary akta.pro industry code is BPAEAKAO, Managed DevOps / Platform Operations (Run & Operate). Its NAICS code is 5415 and its SIC code is 7372.