Forrester TEI study: Chainguard Containers delivered 233% return on investment

The latest Forrester Consulting Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) study, commissioned by Chainguard, uncovered a 233% return on investment (ROI) over three years for customers that use Chainguard Containers. Organizations choose Chainguard Containers to reduce vulnerabilities, simplify maintenance, and lower overall compliance overhead associated with frameworks such as FedRAMP, PCI DSS, CMMC, and more. In total, the study found that Chainguard Containers delivered $2.5 million in benefits and paid for itself in less than six months.

Almost all modern software is built on open source. In fact, Forrester notes that 77% of enterprise codebases now come directly from open source software, not proprietary development. That reality has transformed how organizations build and secure applications. Containerized development has accelerated delivery, but it has also introduced a growing attack surface, increased vulnerability volume, and added operational burden across engineering and security teams.

Chainguard Containers, which is powered by Chainguard OS, is designed to help organizations tackle these challenges with as little disruption as possible. By using Chainguard’s minimal, zero-CVE container images, protected by our industry-leading remediation SLA, engineering teams can move from reactive, manual security practices to proactive, automated, scalable container security. In doing so, they can unlock increased bandwidth and additional revenue built on new products and features.

Vulnerability management has become unsustainable

For many organizations, container vulnerability remediation has turned into constant firefighting.

Before adopting Chainguard Containers, customers in the Forrester TEI study described environments defined by:

• Manual and fragmented vulnerability tracking

• Ad hoc patching across siloed teams

• Inconsistent security practices

• High remediation costs in engineering time

• Increasing regulatory and customer demands

Security teams were overwhelmed by the sheer volume of CVEs, while developers struggled to prioritize fixes that never seemed to meaningfully reduce risk.

As one application security product leader in the software industry put it:

“

Before Chainguard Containers… it was not done at scale.

The result was delayed releases, mounting technical debt, and strained relationships between security and engineering teams. These strained relationships were costly and put pressure on both sides to do their jobs with limited bandwidth. The vulnerability management doom cycle was in full effect.

Why organizations turn to Chainguard Containers

Customers interviewed in the TEI study consistently described a strategic shift: moving away from reactive vulnerability patching toward secure-by-default infrastructure. These organizations understood the need to reduce supply chain risk exposure, meet strict compliance requirements, automate remediation, and reduce toil. By accomplishing these goals, they free their engineers to focus on innovation and strengthen customer trust, unlocking growth opportunities for the business.

For customers in highly regulated industries, the stakes were even higher:

“

If we didn’t have Chainguard to meet requirements… [one customer in a highly regulated industry] just wouldn’t give us their business.

Chainguard Containers delivered quantified benefits

Forrester aggregated interviews with eight decision-makers across six organizations into a composite enterprise with $250M revenue and 100 engineers. Across that composite, Chainguard Containers delivered $2.5M in total present value benefits over three years.

1. 90% reduction in engineering effort for vulnerability tracking and remediation

One of the largest impacts came from dramatically reducing the time engineers spent tracking and patching vulnerabilities.

Forrester found a:

• 90% reduction in development and security engineering effort

• Worth $871K over three years

Instead of dedicating cycles to base image patching, teams could redirect effort toward higher-value development.

“

Now we pretty much don’t spend any time at all [on base image vulnerabilities].

2. 90% reduction in vulnerabilities

Chainguard Containers also helped customers significantly reduce the overall vulnerability volume across container environments.

Forrester quantified:

• 90% reduction in vulnerabilities

• $380K in avoided breach and incident-related costs

A senior director of product security in the energy industry reported:

“

We went from 30,000 vulnerabilities to effectively zero.

Fewer vulnerabilities directly translate into a reduced likelihood of supply chain exploits, regulatory penalties, and operational disruption.

3. Compliance-enabled revenue growth

For organizations selling into finance, healthcare, government, and other regulated markets, compliance with frameworks like FedRAMP, PCI DSS, CMMC 2.0, and others is a growth requirement. In these frameworks, eliminating vulnerabilities and keeping them out is key, and each framework has strict requirements for continuous monitoring and remediation to make that possible.

Forrester found:

• A 5% increase in new business revenue

• Worth $597K in additional profit over three years

The composite organization was able to win contracts that would otherwise be blocked by vulnerability findings or audit gaps. With zero CVEs, compliance becomes a much smaller burden.

4. Faster builds and reduced off-cycle release work

Chainguard Containers also improved delivery velocity by reducing rebuild delays and emergency patch cycles.

Forrester quantified:

• 50% reduction in off-cycle release work

• Worth $670K in freed developer capacity

A senior manager of developer platform in the transportation industry described build improvements from:

“

...A 20-minute build to 2 to 3 minutes.

That reclaimed time directly fuels innovation and faster execution of the product roadmap. This in turn leads to more sales and better business outcomes.

The financial impact: Break even in under six months

Over three years, the composite organization experienced:

• $2.5M benefits

• $756K costs

• $1.8M Net present value (NPV)

• 233% ROI

• Payback in <6 months

This demonstrates that hardened, continuously updated containers go beyond a one-time security investment; they’re an operational and business accelerator that can free up bandwidth for engineering and security teams and help the entire business achieve real, desired outcomes.

What engineering and security leaders should take away

The Forrester TEI study reinforces several key lessons:

Container vulnerability remediation cannot scale manually. Engineering teams should not be spending thousands of hours patching base images.

Security outcomes improve when security is built into the artifact. Reducing vulnerabilities upstream is more effective than chasing them downstream.

Compliance is both risk mitigation and revenue enablement. Hardened containers unlock regulated markets and customer trust.

Improving security doesn’t have to come at the cost of a worse developer experience. Less toil means happier engineers and faster delivery.

Read the full study to learn more about the cost savings and business benefits of Chainguard Containers.

Secure-by-default containers at enterprise scale

The Forrester TEI study makes one thing clear: organizations adopting Chainguard Containers can shift from reactive patching to proactive supply chain security, while still delivering measurable ROI.

If your teams are overwhelmed by vulnerability volume, compliance demands, and remediation fatigue, it may be time to rethink container security from the foundation up.

Chainguard Containers help enterprises reduce vulnerabilities, automate patching, accelerate delivery, and build trust in the software supply chain securely, continuously, and at scale. Get in touch with our team to learn more.