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Fortra's Cobalt Strike vs The NodeZero Platform by Horizon3.ai comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 8, 2026

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Fortra's Cobalt Strike
Ranking in Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS)
7th
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
The NodeZero Platform by Ho...
Ranking in Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS)
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (8th), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (13th), Penetration Testing Services (1st), Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS) category, the mindshare of Fortra's Cobalt Strike is 2.8%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of The NodeZero Platform by Horizon3.ai is 14.2%, up from 8.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
The NodeZero Platform by Horizon3.ai14.2%
Fortra's Cobalt Strike2.8%
Other83.0%
Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS)
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2519427 - PeerSpot reviewer
Cyber Security Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Compact, versatile, creates shell codes for bypassing antivirus and built-in report templates streamline the process
Probably its delivery methods could be improved. It might need some improvements on its spear phishing module. You can clone a web page, and then you can spear phish a target, and the target connects to your beacon. I believe that it needs to be more modernized to the current standards of multi-factor authentication bypass. Although there are already tools that actually do that, like Evilginx that’s been used as a proxy server, I truly believe Cobalt Strike could do something like that. I believe if Cobalt modernize this specific feature to try to bypass multi-factor authentication, it’s gonna be something. I’m not aware if it’s actually a feature in the latest Cobalt Strike updates, but from my version, I don’t see that it’s possible right now. I don’t think AI is at the stage where it can conduct such complex operations. AI is mostly being used to create phishing templates, very simple stuff. AI is not mature enough to do something more complex, although I truly believe that in a few years, it might have such capabilities.
Brent Hamlin - PeerSpot reviewer
Infrastructure Manager at a construction company with 501-1,000 employees
Continuous threat scanning has improved remediation time and strengthened executive reporting
The best features that The NodeZero Platform by Horizon3.ai offers include the automated scans, which are great to use; you set it, scope it, and let it go, which works really well. The executive reporting feature is impactful for me as a manager, providing a strong foundation to give quarterly and yearly reports to our executives and board to see the state of our infrastructure from a security standpoint. The level of detail and clarity in the executive reports from The NodeZero Platform by Horizon3.ai absolutely helps me communicate effectively with leadership. They are detailed enough for me to extract the necessary information tailored for the executives and to provide a broader perspective on our mitigation efforts or accepted risk stance and where additional controls exist. The NodeZero Platform by Horizon3.ai has positively impacted my organization by giving us a better continuous picture of our security posture, what's exploitable, and what can be used against the organization. It allows us to run scans whenever needed, unlike a single third-party system that only provides a snapshot in time; our processes must be ongoing as the security landscape is dynamic. NodeZero's endpoint security effectiveness feature impacts my understanding of potential security threats by providing a clear picture of both the external and internal landscapes within my organization, enabling me to prioritize and adjust as needed for vulnerabilities such as WordPress plugin issues or user enumerations and software code version assessments. I have built The NodeZero Platform by Horizon3.ai into our weekly and monthly workflows for security CI/CD, and we scan our externally accessible assets every week to address anything quickly if it comes up. That includes our firewalls, websites, and anything that is an external web server, which we scan weekly, while the monthly scans are for internal systems that feed our security CI/CD pipeline, enabling us to action across and prioritize any vulnerabilities caught by The NodeZero Platform by Horizon3.ai.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Cobalt Strike offers significant customization capabilities."
"It also made a lot of post-exploitation activities easier."
"For us, The NodeZero Platform is literally the single best security solution we have because the way that it works is we're able to scan every part of our network, both internally and externally, and then get completely actionable feedback that doesn't matter if it's for an application developer or a network admin."
"The best feature of The NodeZero Platform by Horizon3.ai is that it is an autonomous pen testing tool that knows how to penetrate into the system automatically and perform lateral movement inside the network without the need for scripting."
"My favorite feature about The NodeZero Platform is that it's autonomous, and it truly delivers on that promise—it can be set and forgotten while it performs its tasks, and it does exactly what it claims to do."
"The NodeZero Platform by Horizon3.ai has positively impacted my organization by giving us a better continuous picture of our security posture, what's exploitable, and what can be used against the organization."
"I rate the stability of the NodeZero Platform a ten out of ten."
"If someone was looking into this product, I would absolutely recommend it."
"The NodeZero Platform's real attack capabilities help identify vulnerabilities on my on-premise systems by adding an element of validation and offensive security testing on top of known vulnerabilities. The feature that allows security teams to fix and retest vulnerabilities instantly is very useful, even though it may not happen literally 'instantly.' It's a necessary tool for any organization to understand whether vulnerabilities are genuinely exploitable by attackers. With its near-real-time testing capabilities, it's an essential part of any security portfolio."
"Otherwise, the solution itself is very fine and I would recommend it as an MSP partner or as a user of the tool to pretty much any company."
 

Cons

"Probably its delivery methods could be improved."
"The stability of the tool can be improved."
"The NodeZero Platform by Horizon3.ai could be improved by speeding up the time from initializing a test to actually starting the test, as the deployment of the underlying infrastructure can take several minutes, sometimes over 10 minutes."
"If we have had problems, that is with the actual licensing style they are using."
"We did hundreds of tests, so that is why we did not continue, as it was very expensive for a very low yield."
"You need to be cautious about what it scans, as it could potentially cause issues."
"The downsides of The NodeZero Platform by Horizon3.ai are that it is an expensive tool; it is a very expensive tool."
"However, my team struggles with the onboarding side of our engagement, which should have been more robust; having a statement of work and a clear definition of success would have been beneficial."
"I think customizability is one area of The NodeZero Platform by Horizon3.ai that could be improved or enhanced."
"I think The NodeZero Platform could improve by leveraging GPUs for password cracking, which would be pretty good."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's expensive."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
22%
Healthcare Company
11%
Transportation Company
9%
Hospitality Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
8%
Educational Organization
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise8
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortra's Cobalt Strike?
While not inexpensive, Cobalt Strike is a comprehensive platform. Its pricing reflects the capabilities and flexibility it offers. The solution can be cost-effective when utilizing its full potenti...
What needs improvement with Fortra's Cobalt Strike?
The stability of the tool can be improved. There are some limitations, but they tend to be more from outside of the tool rather than within it. The limitations often come from operators who may lac...
What is your primary use case for Fortra's Cobalt Strike?
I use Cobalt Strike to emulate threat actor activities.
What needs improvement with Horizon3.ai?
The NodeZero Platform by Horizon3.ai could be improved by reducing the elapsed time from identifying a zero-day vulnerability from their QA environment to their production environment.
What is your primary use case for Horizon3.ai?
My main use case for The NodeZero Platform by Horizon3.ai includes pen testing and vulnerability management. I use The NodeZero Platform by Horizon3.ai to run weekly external and internal scans to ...
What advice do you have for others considering Horizon3.ai?
My advice to others looking into using The NodeZero Platform by Horizon3.ai is to do yourself a favor and see what the product will find. The platform's real attack capabilities have helped in iden...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Horizon3.ai
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Government agencies, Defense Industrial Base organizations, and enterprises in regulated industries such as finance, healthcare, manufacturing, and criticalinfrastructure rely on NodeZero to meet rigorous security and compliance requirements with continuous, scheduled, and on-demand testing.
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortra's Cobalt Strike vs. The NodeZero Platform by Horizon3.ai and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,270 professionals have used our research since 2012.