This article takes an honest look at the features of Jscrambler Web Page Integrity, another company focussing on client-side security.
Since you’re on the c/side website, we acknowledge our bias. That said, we’ve built our case honestly and based our analysis on publicly available information, industry information, and our own or our customers' experiences.
If you want to verify these claims yourself, please navigate to their product page.
| Criteria | c/side | Jscrambler |
|---|---|---|
| Approaches used | Proxy + agent based detections but also offers crawler and offers a free CSP reporting endpoint |
JS-Based Detection |
| Real-time Protection | ||
| Full Payload Analysis | ||
| Dynamic Threat Detection | ||
| DOM-Level Threat Detection | ||
| 100% Historical Tracking & Forensics | ||
| Bypass Protection | ||
| Certainty the Script Seen by User is Monitored | ||
| AI-driven Script Analysis | ||
| QSA validated PCI dash | ||
| SOC 2 Type II | ||
| PCI specific UI |
What is Jscrambler
Jscrambler is a cybersecurity tool that protects JavaScript code through obfuscation, runtime protection, and anti-tampering techniques. All three are embedded into one offering.
How Jscrambler works
Jscrambler protects first-party JavaScript code by transforming it through obfuscation. This makes the code difficult to reverse-engineer or steal. It's main use is to protect companies scripts with sensitive logic in the frontend such as proprietary algorithms, licensing enforcement, or in-browser app logic. Be sure to debug your own script after obfuscation to see if it functions as normal.
LLM's are increasingly getting better at deobfuscation however. Our own product c/side uses it in real-time to analyze even the most strong obfuscated scripts.
The “code locks” features allow developers to restrict where and when the code can run (e.g., on a specific domain or time window). It secures what’s already known (your own code), but it doesn’t track or analyze what other scripts are doing once the app is live.
Their runtime protections aim to detect tampering and debugging, but they are self-contained. These defenses can block execution if someone tries to interfere with the protected code, but they don’t extend to monitoring other scripts or the dynamic behavior of the full webpage.
One of the key issues with the Jscrambler client-side approach is that by design, they don't know what they don't catch. Any attack that successfully avoids their client-side hooks goes unseen and undetected making it much harder to improve detection capabilities and giving no ability to perform forensics.
This method most crucially places all detections in the browser, making an ideal sandbox for an attacker to develop an attack that circumvents their detection methods.
For securing those 3rd-party scripts, they use a Content Security Policy (CSP). This is a rules-based system which essentially trusts the source (domain). Should the source stay the same but the content changes, like in the biggest client-side attack of 2024 – Polyfill – a CSP won’t catch it.
We wrote an in depth article on Why CSP Doesn’t Work in regards to providing the best client-side security solution:
CSP operates on an allow-list model, which permits resources from trusted domains but cannot block individual scripts or resources from those domains.
How c/side goes further
c/side primarily offers a hybrid proxy approach which sits in between the user session and the 3rd party service. It analyzes the served dependencies code in real-time before serving it to the user.
This allows us to not only spot advanced highly targeted attacks and alert on them, c/side also makes it possible to block attacks before they touch the user's browser. It also checks the box for multiple compliance frameworks, including PCI DSS 4.0.1. We even provide deep forensics, including if an attacker bypasses our detections. Allowing you to more tightly scope the size of the incident us to make our detection capabilities better every day. No other vendor has this capability.
We believe this is the most secure way to monitor and protect your dependencies across your entire website. We've spent years in the client-side security space before we started c/side, we've seen it all, this is the only way you can actually spot an attack.
Sign up or book a demo to get started.
FAQ
Q: How does c/side's hybrid proxy differ from Jscrambler's trap-based detection?
A: The fundamental difference is prevention versus detection. Jscrambler injects decoy objects and monitoring code into your pages, hoping malicious scripts will interact with these "traps" after they've already loaded. c/side's hybrid proxy intercepts and analyzes scripts before they reach browsers, blocking malicious content at the network level. We prevent attacks from executing, while Jscrambler detects them after they've already been delivered to users.
Q: Can attackers bypass c/side's protection like they can with Jscrambler's browser traps?
A: No, because c/side's core analysis happens on our proxy, completely invisible to attackers. sophisticated attackers can easily detect and bypass Jscrambler's traps because the monitoring code runs in the browser where it's visible and analyzable. Attackers can simply ignore the decoy objects or block the callback endpoints. c/side's proxy analysis happens server-side before content reaches browsers, making it invisible and impossible for attackers to detect, study, or circumvent.
Q: What forensic evidence does c/side provide compared to Jscrambler's trap alerts?
A: Jscrambler provides alerts when traps are triggered, but c/side captures and archives the complete malicious code that was blocked. This gives you the actual attack payload for forensic analysis rather than just notification that a trap fired. Incident response teams get replay-ready evidence showing exactly how the attack worked, while trap-based systems only provide behavioral observations that may not even fire.
Q: How do compliance requirements compare between c/side and Jscrambler?
A: c/side provides superior PCI DSS compliance with immutable records of every script payload and comprehensive audit trails. Jscrambler's trap-based approach provides behavioral monitoring but lacks the detailed forensic evidence and historical tracking that regulators require. Our approach covers both requirements 6.4.3 and 11.6.1 with the complete documentation that compliance officers need for thorough regulatory reporting.
Q: Why is c/side's proactive blocking better than Jscrambler's reactive detection?
A: Proactive blocking prevents attacks before any user data can be compromised, while reactive detection only alerts you after malicious scripts have already executed and potentially stolen information. Jscrambler's traps may not even fire if attackers design their code to avoid the decoys. c/side ensures malicious scripts never reach browsers, providing guaranteed protection rather than hoping attacks will trigger monitoring systems.