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Heeler vs ArmorCode.
Agentic Development Security — an end-to-end platform that prevents, fixes, and operates on a runtime context engine — versus ArmorCode, an ASPM / unified vulnerability management aggregation and orchestration platform.
Two different jobs — the conductor, or the engine.
The two solve different problems. ArmorCode is the conductor for the scanners you already own — scannerless by design, it unifies, prioritizes, and orchestrates findings from 350+ tools across every domain, with enterprise SLA and compliance program management.
Heeler is the native engine underneath — it detects (SAST/SCA/secrets), fixes with validated CI-repaired PRs, and operates on its own runtime-aware context, capabilities ArmorCode ingests or orchestrates rather than performs.
Heeler leads on native detection, remediation, runtime context, and the AI SDLC; ArmorCode leads on multi-tool aggregation, cross-domain breadth, and compliance program management. Many teams run both. Scope here is code security.
Unify the scanners you own, or be the engine that detects and fixes.
Both put a risk graph and automated workflows at the center. The difference is where the findings and the fixes come from: ArmorCode ingests other tools' detections and orchestrates the fix to a human; Heeler produces the detections itself, computes exposure from runtime it observes, and delivers a validated fix. Scope here is code security.
ASPM aggregation & orchestration
Scannerless by design — unify, prioritize, orchestrate.
- →Ingests, correlates, and deduplicates findings from 350+ tools across apps/code/cloud/infra/AI into one Context Risk Graph
- →Risk-based prioritization (CVSS/EPSS/KEV/threat-intel/business-context + correlated reachability, attack paths), patented org-context prioritization and SLA release gating
- →Remediation orchestration — owner attribution, root-cause ticket grouping, Jira/ServiceNow/Azure routing, no-code Runbooks, Anya agents for analysis + guidance; compliance evidence + audit trails
- →Doesn't detect, doesn't write/validate code fixes, and doesn't observe runtime natively (ingests from CNAPP/CSPM); no source-based endpoint discovery, no agent-file governance
Modeled around the running service
Prevent, Fix, and Operate on one runtime-aware model.
- →One context engine across six dimensions (code, cloud/runtime, business, ownership, threat, agent), sensor-less and read-only — runtime exposure is a native input
- →Its own detection — SAST, build-graph SCA (14 ecosystems), validated secrets, agent-file governance — plus an MCP server, Agent Skills, and a CLI
- →Prioritizes by runtime reachability and internet exposure; remediation is built in a sandbox and repaired in your CI until green
- →Guardrails gate new risk at the PR; workflows operate to a runtime-verified close with per-finding SLOs
Side-by-side, with a verdict per row.
Four states. Heeler-leaning where Heeler advances; explicit when ArmorCode leads; honest about parity.
Heeler advantage
Heeler delivers a capability ArmorCode doesn't, or in a way that changes outcomes.
Heeler edge
Both deliver the capability. Heeler's implementation is materially better on a verifiable dimension.
Parity
Both products deliver the capability comparably.
ArmorCode advantage
Explicit signal that ArmorCode leads on this row.
| Section | ● Heeler advantage | ◐ Heeler edge | ✓ Parity | ○ ArmorCode advantage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prevent | 2 | 1 | – | – |
| Fix | 3 | – | – | – |
| Operate | 7 | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| Total | 12 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| Capability | Heeler | ArmorCode | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| Prevent · stop risk before and as it enters | |||
| Security at AI code generation | Heeler's MCP server hands the coding agent its runtime-aware context as it writes — 30+ read-only tools exposing live SAST, SCA, and secrets findings, endpoint exposure, runtime and deployment risk, guardrail status, and SLO pressure, plus named secure-development prompts — and can trigger Heeler's validated remediation with the right scope. Drop-in Agent Skills and the CLI cover the same surface locally, for Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, and VS Code. | ArmorCode's MCP server exposes its Anya agents and platform data so teams can build and invoke custom agents, and its AI Exposure Management governs AI adoption (inventorying models, agents, APIs, and MCP servers). It operates at the platform layer over ingested findings — it doesn't sit with the coding agent to secure code as it's written, or trigger a validated fix. | ●Heeler advantage |
| CLI / local developer scanning | The heelercli runs local scans across the full surface — SAST, SCA, secrets (offline validation), license, and malicious-package checks — with non-zero exit for pre-commit and CI, SARIF output, and policy-as-code; plus IDE reach through the MCP server. | ArmorCode is a cloud aggregation platform, scannerless by design — there is no local developer scan of its own. Developers receive consolidated, owner-routed tickets and Anya's guidance; any local scanning is done by the third-party tools ArmorCode ingests. | ●Heeler advantage |
| PR guardrails & release gating | Block / Warn / Observe guardrails post a native status check on GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, and Azure DevOps and gate PRs on new dependency vulnerabilities, dependency hygiene, SAST, secrets, and SLO breaches — scoped by runtime context (enforce only on Tier-1, production, or internet-facing services) — with a validated fix committed straight into the PR branch. Block relies on SCM branch protection to enforce. | ArmorCode's patented SLA-based release gating fails a CI/CD build on three tiers — vulnerability-count thresholds, whether the designated scanners actually ran, and risk/compliance parameters (OWASP Top 10, CWE Top 25, PCI, HIPAA, ASVS) — a genuinely strong program-level gate. It gates on findings ingested from your tools and on tool execution, isn't scoped by observed runtime exposure, and ships no fix into the PR. | ◐Heeler edge |
| Fix · resolve findings — code and dependencies | |||
| SAST autofix | Deterministic, strategy-matched transforms (Parameterize / Escape / Allowlist / Path-Normalize) anchored to the exact source-to-sink flow, precomputed per finding on every scan, confidence- and effort-scored, and delivered as PRs validated the same way as dependency fixes (sandbox build + CI repair). Findings needing an architectural change get written guidance instead. | ArmorCode's Anya Remediation Agent generates code-aware remediation guidance for a finding or a group of findings and routes a consolidated ticket to the owning developer; the docs are explicit that it “does not take the developer out of the loop.” Writing the actual code fix is the developer's job — or a separate ingested tool (e.g. Mobb) — not something ArmorCode produces and validates. | ●Heeler advantage |
| SCA autofix (upgrades) | Deterministic, multi-signal upgrade selection over the resolved graph — Heeler picks the version that clears the most risk with the least disruption (no new known vulnerabilities, proven adoption, cleared minimum-age cooldown), and for transitive vulns finds the smallest bump to the direct ancestor you control (npm, Go, Cargo). Every fix is built in a sandbox and repaired through your CI until green before merge. Auto-fixable across Java, Go, JavaScript, Python, and C#. | ArmorCode orchestrates dependency remediation — grouping findings by root cause, attributing an owner, and routing a ticket — and can hand off the actual upgrade to an ingested code-remediation integration. It doesn't compute the upgrade, open a version-bump PR, or build and test the change itself. | ●Heeler advantage |
| Validated, merge-ready fixes (build + CI repair) | Heeler validates every fix twice: a real build in an isolated sandbox with your project's toolchain before the PR (mvn/Gradle, npm/pnpm/Yarn, pip/uv/Poetry, go build, dotnet), then — once the PR is open — it runs your CI and repairs its own build/test failures with up to five follow-up commits until green, or hands off with an explanation. Draft PR if the sandbox build didn't pass; human review, no auto-merge. | ArmorCode writes, builds, and tests no code. It is a remediation-orchestration platform: it consolidates and routes work, tracks SLAs, and provides context and guidance, with the fix and its validation left to the developer or an ingested tool. There is no sandbox build or CI-repair loop. | ●Heeler advantage |
| Operate · detect, prioritize, and run the program | |||
| SAST detection | Path-aware, interprocedural source-to-sink taint analysis across functions and files — plus structural (Graphscan) and heuristic methods — from Heeler's own engine, with detection rules adapted per codebase, automatic reachability/exposure triage, and step-by-step data-flow proof. | Not offered. ArmorCode is scannerless by design — it has no SAST engine of its own. It ingests SAST findings from the tools you already run (Semgrep, Checkmarx, Fortify, Veracode, and the like) and normalizes them into one record. | ●Heeler advantage |
| Dependency vulnerability (CVE) detection | Build-graph SCA across 14 ecosystems that resolves the full direct-and-transitive graph itself, from manifests — no committed lockfile required and no build change — covering first-party and bundled dependencies too, matched with CVSS, EPSS, and known-exploited signals. GitHub Actions and reusable workflows are a first-class dependency ecosystem, scanned like any other. | Not offered as native detection. ArmorCode ingests SCA and infrastructure CVE findings from your existing scanners across domains and enriches them with EPSS, CISA KEV, and threat intelligence — it unifies and scores detections rather than producing them. | ●Heeler advantage |
| Secrets detection & validation | First-class secrets: full git-history scanning across all branches with commit attribution, active live validation (read-only calls to the issuing provider; an active secret is weighted as maximal impact), offline structural validation, and 700+ rules across 20+ languages; contained and gated at the PR. | Not offered. ArmorCode ingests and normalizes secrets findings from the secrets scanners you run (GitGuardian and others); it has no native secrets-detection engine and no live validation of its own. | ●Heeler advantage |
| Dependency reachability & noise reduction | Heeler treats a dependency vuln as reachable only when two independent checks agree: runtime reachability (the library is loaded in a running deployment) and static call-graph reachability to the vulnerable functions across six ecosystems (Go, Java, Python, JS/TS, Rust, Ruby). Unreachable findings are auto-mitigated; elsewhere it uses runtime reachability and errs toward reachable. | ArmorCode derives reachability by correlating signals across ingested layers — code (SCA/SAST), infrastructure (container/cloud), and network — to judge whether an exposure is callable, reachable, and internet-facing, and reduces noise by deduplicating across tools (a claimed up-to-90% reduction). It correlates reachability from the tools you feed it rather than computing it natively from your code and runtime. | ◐Heeler edge |
| Multi-tool, cross-domain aggregation & normalization | Heeler is its own detection-and-fix engine, focused on code security plus the cloud/runtime context of the services that code deploys to — not an aggregator of third-party scanners, and not an enterprise-wide vulnerability-management platform unifying standalone infrastructure, network, and endpoint findings. It exports findings (SARIF, API) and can feed a system of record, but unifying and deduplicating many other vendors' tools across every domain is not its purpose. | ArmorCode's core strength: 350+ out-of-the-box integrations across 30+ tool categories, with AI-driven correlation that deduplicates and normalizes disparate findings into a single enriched record — spanning applications, code, cloud, infrastructure, containers, and network. It ingests from infra/network scanners (Nessus, Qualys, Rapid7, Tenable), CNAPP/CSPM (Wiz, Prisma, Orca, Lacework), pentest, and XDR, so one program spans every domain, not just code. Vendor-agnostic — the “conductor of the symphony of scanning tools.” | ○ArmorCode advantage |
| Risk-based prioritization | Heeler Risk (Urgent / Plan / Defer) ranks SAST and SCA findings by real exposure. For SCA, a vuln must clear a gate: reachable (runtime-loaded, plus a call-graph path where supported) AND internet-exposed (an active deployment on internet-reachable compute) AND not mitigated — fail any and it Defers, however high the CVSS. For SAST, exposure is path-driven from an internet-facing entry point, behind auth, touching sensitive data. Both are weighted by service tier and threat (KEV/EPSS; CWE class), with a per-finding SLO, re-scored continuously. | ArmorCode's Adaptive Risk Scoring correlates CVSS, EPSS, CISA KEV, proprietary threat intelligence, business context (asset criticality, data classification, internet-facing), and correlated reachability into one dynamic score across every domain, surfacing exploitability clusters, vulnerability chains, and attack paths — with patented organizational-context prioritization. A deep, cross-domain prioritization engine, computed over ingested signals. | ✓Parity |
| Cloud, runtime & business context | Heeler builds its own model of where code runs — containers, VMs, and serverless fingerprinted, each deployment mapped to the exact running changeset, internet-accessibility auto-detected, service tier (1–4) and prod/non-prod classified, service-to-service and identity edges resolved, and ownership resolved to a RACI — all read-only and sensor-less. This context is what makes exposure, prioritization, and routing real. | ArmorCode's Context Risk Graph carries cloud resources, network topology, identities, business context, and ownership — but it correlates them from ingested data: cloud and runtime signals come from the CNAPP/CSPM tools you connect (Wiz, Prisma, Orca, and the like), not from ArmorCode observing runtime itself. Its “cloud-to-code correlation” traces ingested runtime findings back to source rather than building the deployment model. | ●Heeler advantage |
| Endpoint & API attack-surface discovery | Heeler enumerates every endpoint from source — REST, GraphQL, gRPC, SOAP, and WebSocket, plus the MCP tools/resources/prompts and Spring Boot actuator routes your code exposes — capturing each one's authentication posture and computing internet-accessibility from deployment topology, so your externally reachable, unauthenticated surface is inventoried with no runtime agents or traffic capture. | ArmorCode does “hidden asset discovery,” identifying APIs, containers, and infrastructure defined within code repositories or deployed outside them. It doesn't parse source to enumerate every route and handler with its authentication posture and internet-accessibility, and API-security findings otherwise come from ingested tools. | ●Heeler advantage |
| Agent-file detection & governance | A dedicated repo-level inventory scores every agent instruction/skill/subagent/hook/MCP-config file (CLAUDE.md, AGENTS.md, .claude/skills, .cursor, .mcp.json, .codex) 0–100 across Static, LLM-intent, and External-reference risk, with a Malicious / Suspicious / Benign verdict, across Claude, Cursor, Gemini, Codex, and OpenCode — with a CI-gating API and a workflow trigger. | Not offered. ArmorCode's AI Exposure Management inventories AI assets — including MCP servers — for governance and ownership, but it doesn't detect or risk-score the agent-instruction, skill, or config files in your repositories (CLAUDE.md, .mcp.json, and the like) for malicious intent. | ●Heeler advantage |
| Automated response workflows & routing | A standing when-this-then-that engine across the whole estate: one trigger (new finding, fix available, compromised dependency, new secret, at-risk agent file, SLO expiring, PR merged with unresolved guardrail violations) → AND-combined conditions → up to three chained actions that share context. Actions span messaging (Slack/Teams/Google Chat/email), ticketing (Jira/Linear/GitHub/Shortcut, de-duplicated), and domain actions (Fix with Heeler Agent, Update SLO Override, Generate SBOM, Webhook), routed to the owning team by RACI, with a plain-English builder. | Remediation orchestration is ArmorCode's home turf: owner attribution from repository metadata, root-cause ticket grouping (one ticket instead of 200), no-code Runbooks, deep ServiceNow VR/AVR/CVR, and Jira/Azure Boards routing — across every ingested tool and domain, with automated SLAs. Broad, mature orchestration; the remediation action it routes is a ticket and guidance rather than a native validated fix. | ✓Parity |
| Compliance program management & audit evidence | Heeler produces compliance evidence continuously, as a byproduct of securing your code, so an audit becomes an export rather than a scramble: an auditor-ready pack assembled on demand from live data — portfolio posture and trend, SLO attainment (a defined-and-met remediation timeline, exactly what SOC 2 looks for), allow/deny license-policy control enforced at the PR, and per-application CycloneDX SBOMs — all backed by a full Audit Log that records every configuration, policy, role, and connection change, and every triggered fix, with the user, timestamp, source IP, and a redacted request body. Strong code-security evidence and change accountability, rather than a multi-framework GRC control-mapping suite. | ArmorCode offers enterprise SLA and compliance program management: hierarchical, enforceable SLAs, patented SLA-based release gating, and a single system of record for controls and evidence across CRA, PCI DSS, SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, OWASP, and CWE — with automated evidence collection, audit-ready reports, exception governance, and board-level dashboards. | ○ArmorCode advantage |
| SLOs & runtime-verified closure | Every finding carries a per-band SLO clock; SLO-expiring events trigger workflows, and an Update SLO Override action can extend a due date automatically. Findings run Active → Fixed → Deployed, and closure is runtime-verified — a fix reaches Deployed only once every running deployment confirms the vulnerability is actually gone, not merely merged. | ArmorCode tracks SLAs and rightly warns against “SLA theater” — a closed ticket that isn't a closed exposure — and calls for “validated risk reduction” confirming fixes held up through redeployment. But it specifies no mechanism for that verification; closure in practice is a ticket state or a re-scan, not confirmation against a running deployment. | ●Heeler advantage |
Where a native engine beats an aggregation layer.
Each is a capability an aggregator ingests or orchestrates rather than performs.
Detection you own, not detection you rent
ArmorCode is scannerless by design — it unifies findings from the scanners you already run, so its coverage, accuracy, and language support are only ever as good as those tools, and you keep paying for every one of them. Heeler brings its own detection — interprocedural SAST, build-graph SCA across 14 ecosystems, validated secrets, agent-file governance — so a new language or a coverage gap doesn't mean buying another scanner to feed the aggregator.
Fixes that build and pass CI, not tickets and guidance
ArmorCode's Anya Remediation Agent generates code-aware guidance and routes a consolidated ticket to the owner; the actual fix is the developer's job, or a separate ingested tool. Heeler writes the fix, builds it in a sandbox, and repairs its own CI failures until green — for code and dependencies — before a human merges it. Orchestrating a fix to a person is not the same as delivering one proven to build and pass tests.
Runtime context observed, not correlated from other tools' feeds
ArmorCode's Context Risk Graph is powerful, but its cloud, runtime, and reachability signals are ingested and correlated from the CNAPP, SCA, and network tools you feed it — the picture is only as complete as those feeds. Heeler observes runtime itself, sensor-less: deployment-to-changeset mapping, internet-accessibility, service tier, and reachability computed natively — ground truth, not inference.
Runtime-verified closure, not SLA theater
ArmorCode rightly warns against “SLA theater” — a closed ticket that isn't a closed exposure — and calls for validated risk reduction, but specifies no mechanism for it. Heeler moves findings Active → Fixed → Deployed and closes only when the running deployment confirms the vulnerability is actually gone. It is the mechanism ArmorCode names as the goal.
Built for the AI SDLC, end to end
Heeler hands the coding agent live, runtime-aware context through an MCP server as it writes, discovers your endpoint and API attack surface from source, and governs the agent-instruction files that now steer your code — scoring CLAUDE.md / .mcp.json / skills for malicious intent. ArmorCode governs AI adoption (shadow-AI inventory) and exposes its platform via an MCP server, but it doesn't secure code at generation, map the source-level attack surface, or vet agent files. Heeler runs the whole detect-fix-operate loop natively, at machine speed.
See Heeler on your codebase.
A demo runs Heeler against your real repos and cloud — native detection across the surface, the runtime map, the prioritization, the validated remediation PRs, and the agent-file catalog. If ArmorCode is unifying your scanners today, we'll show what a native engine underneath adds — detection you own, fixes that build and pass CI, and closure verified in production.
