Case Study: Appian avoids a 15-20 engineer build and speeds FedRAMP with Chainguard
Key results
The challenge
Appian builds and ships a low-code process automation platform on open source software, and keeping third-party components patched imposed significant engineering overhead. Compliance obligations including IL5 and FedRAMP added further complexity and slowed product development.
The solution
Appian adopted Chainguard Containers to provide pre-hardened, continuously patched base images rather than building and maintaining an internal golden-image program. This satisfied IL5 and FedRAMP requirements for the underlying components while returning engineering time to product work.
“Chainguard provides us a significant level of comfort. We know that when we leverage third party components through Chainguard, they're patched, they're hardened. And so all of our IL5 and FedRAMP requirements are satisfied.”
AMAbdullah MunawarDirector of Product Security, Appian
The results, in context
Appian estimated that building an equivalent capability in-house would have required 15-20 full-time engineers. With Chainguard, its FedRAMP accreditation, originally estimated at more than a year, was completed in a few months, and the company holds more than 30 compliance certifications.