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Polaris

About Polaris

Polaris is an open source policy engine for Kubernetes. It includes more than 30 built-in configuration policies. Custom policies can be written using a JSON syntax. It can automatically remediate issues based on policy criteria. Polaris can be operationalized together with Fairwinds Insights.

Products

  • Polaris: Validates and remediates Kubernetes resources against configuration policies.
  • Fairwinds Insights: Provides Polaris findings, historical results across clusters, and remediation guidance.

Used for

  • Validating that containers run with minimal privileges, avoiding privilege escalation, root users, and non-read-only file systems.
  • Validating the presence of readiness and liveness probes in pods.
  • Checking hostNetwork and hostPort settings to flag excessive permissions.
  • Running checks to ensure CPU and memory requests and limits are in place.
  • Identifying when an image tag is unspecified or set to latest and when an image pull policy is not Always.

Who it is for

  • Platform engineers who enable developers.

From Polaris's own website, read 2026-10-23. How we build listings.

How to evaluate Cloud Security & CSPM

This is how the CIOPages Research Team evaluates this category. It is not an assessment of Polaris. It comes from our Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) buyer guide.

25%
Risk Prioritization & Attack-Path Analysis
Context graph that correlates misconfiguration, internet reachability, identity/permissions, vulnerabilities, secrets, and data sensitivity into ranked attack paths to crown-jewel assets; toxic-combination detection; quality of the “fix these 10” output versus raw finding volume; false-positive rate in your own accounts
20%
Coverage Model: Agentless Breadth vs. Runtime Depth
Agentless snapshot/API scanning for fast 100%-estate visibility versus agent/eBPF runtime for in-production threat detection (CDR); container, serverless, and Kubernetes (KSPM) coverage; how the two models combine without double-counting; performance impact and deployment friction
20%
Multi-Cloud & Platform Consolidation (CNAPP)
Depth and parity across AWS, Azure, GCP, OCI, and Kubernetes from one console; how many of CSPM, CIEM, CWPP, DSPM, KSPM, and code/IaC security are genuinely unified on one data model versus bolted-on acquisitions; single policy and one risk score across domains
15%
Identity & Entitlements (CIEM)
Effective-permission analysis across human and machine identities, cross-account and federated role mapping, detection of unused and over-privileged entitlements, least-privilege right-sizing recommendations, and privilege escalation / lateral-movement path discovery
10%
Remediation, Automation & Developer Workflow
Guided and auto-remediation, IaC and pull-request fixes (shift-left to code), guardrails that prevent drift, ticketing/SOAR integration, ownership routing to the right team, and API/Terraform coverage for security-as-code
10%
Compliance, Reporting & SOC Integration
Out-of-the-box frameworks (CIS, PCI DSS, HIPAA, SOC 2, FedRAMP, NIST) with custom policy authoring, audit-ready evidence and drift history, RBAC/SSO on the console, and clean export of correlated cloud risk into the SIEM/SOC rather than a siloed dashboard

CIOPages put this listing together from public sources. It’s information, not an endorsement. How we build listings. Work here? Claim this listing or .

Quick Facts

fairwinds.com/polaris
CategoryCybersecurity
SubcategoryCloud Security & CSPM

We publish a detail only when we can point at the page it came from. Know when Polaris was founded or where it is based? Send it to us, free.

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