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Developer Tools · head to head

Cortex vs Osano

Cortex logo

Cortex

Developer Tools

Internal developer portal that scores service ownership and maturity rather than just cataloguing services

From
On request
Free plan
No
Full reviewWebsite
Osano logo

Osano

Cybersecurity

Consent management and data privacy platform with a published self-serve tier

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Osano has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: Cortex pricing is quote only, so a platform team cannot build a business case or compare against the true cost of self-hosted Backstage without entering a sales cycle first.; Osano the published visitor ceilings are low, with the paid self-serve tier stopping around 30,000 monthly visitors, so any consumer facing site with real traffic leaves published pricing immediately and negotiates a quote with no public anchor.
  • They diverge on capability: Cortex covers Service catalogue, Osano covers Consent banner.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Cortex and Osano actually diverge.

Attributes where Cortex and Osano differ
AttributeCortexOsano
Starting priceOn requestFree
Pricing modelquotePer month by monthly website visitors
Free tierNoYes
PlatformsWeb, APIWeb
CategoryDeveloper ToolsCybersecurity

Identical on both: user rating (Not yet rated).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Cortex

  • Service catalogue
  • Scorecards
  • Initiatives
  • Self-service templates
  • Query language
  • Eng intelligence
  • Integrations layer
  • On-call and ownership mapping

Only in Osano

  • Consent banner
  • Pre-consent tag blocking
  • Consent record
  • No fines guarantee
  • Subject rights requests
  • Data mapping
  • Vendor privacy monitoring
  • Cookie scanning

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Cortex

  • A platform team that needs to prove to leadership how far a Kubernetes or framework migration has actually progressed across hundreds of servicesnot Osano
  • An organisation where ownership of production services is genuinely unknown after reorganisations or acquisitionsnot Osano
  • Enforcing production readiness standards on new services at creation time rather than at incident reviewnot Osano
  • Replacing a self-hosted Backstage that is consuming a full-time engineer or two just to stay upgradednot Osano

Osano

  • A mid market company selling into the EU and California that needs one banner honouring different consent rules by visitor regionnot Cortex
  • A privacy counsel who wants a vendor that will contractually stand behind its consent product rather than disclaim all liabilitynot Cortex
  • A marketing team that needs Google Consent Mode signals wired correctly so analytics and ads degrade rather than break when consent is refusednot Cortex
  • A company with a handful of brand domains wanting one consent record and one scanning schedule across all of themnot Cortex

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Cortex

  • Pricing is quote only, so a platform team cannot build a business case or compare against the true cost of self-hosted Backstage without entering a sales cycle first.
  • The catalogue is only as accurate as the metadata you supply, so an organisation with inconsistent repository conventions spends its first quarter cleaning data before any scorecard means anything.
  • Scorecards create political friction: publishing a per-team grade turns an engineering standard into a performance metric, and teams will game the rules rather than fix the underlying issue.
  • It is closed source and hosted, so organisations with strict data residency or air-gap requirements have limited options compared with running Backstage themselves.
  • Value scales with organisation size, so a company with fifty engineers and thirty services will find the catalogue tells them nothing they did not already know while still paying an enterprise contract.

Osano

  • The published visitor ceilings are low, with the paid self-serve tier stopping around 30,000 monthly visitors, so any consumer facing site with real traffic leaves published pricing immediately and negotiates a quote with no public anchor.
  • The no fines guarantee is bounded and conditional on configuring the product as instructed, so it is a marketing differentiator with an indemnity cap rather than the insurance policy the name suggests, and the limits should be read before it influences a decision.
  • Everything beyond consent, including subject rights automation, data mapping and vendor monitoring, is enterprise quoted, so the transparent pricing that attracts buyers covers only the cheapest part of the platform.
  • Tag blocking depends on tags being loaded through the mechanisms Osano can intercept, and marketing teams that inject scripts directly into templates or through server side tagging routinely leak trackers past the banner without anyone noticing.
  • It is a privacy platform rather than a security compliance one, so organisations that also need SOC 2 or ISO 27001 evidence collection run it alongside a separate tool and duplicate parts of the vendor and asset inventory.

Pricing, plan by plan

Cortex

On request
  • Cortex$undefined/year
    • Service catalogue and ownership mapping
    • Scorecards and initiatives
    • Self-service templates

Osano

Free
  • FreeFree
    • 1 user
    • 1 domain
    • 5,000 monthly visitors
  • Plus$199/month
    • 2 users
    • 3 domains
    • 30,000 monthly visitors
  • Enterprise$undefined/year
    • Unlimited domains and higher visitor volumes
    • Subject rights request automation
    • Data mapping and assessments

Which should you pick?

Choose Cortex if

  • You need service catalogue.
  • You work on Web, API.
  • You also want scorecards.
Cortex review

Choose Osano if

  • You need consent banner.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You also want pre-consent tag blocking.
Osano review

Questions people ask

Is Cortex or Osano better?
Neither clearly leads. Cortex starts at On request and Osano at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Cortex or Osano?
Osano has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at On request for Cortex and Free for Osano.
Does Cortex or Osano run on more platforms?
Cortex runs on Web, API. Osano runs on Web.
Can I use Osano for free?
Yes. Osano has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Cortex starts at On request.
What is Cortex best used for?
Cortex is most often used for a platform team that needs to prove to leadership how far a kubernetes or framework migration has actually progressed across hundreds of services, an organisation where ownership of production services is genuinely unknown after reorganisations or acquisitions, enforcing production readiness standards on new services at creation time rather than at incident review, replacing a self-hosted backstage that is consuming a full-time engineer or two just to stay upgraded. Of those, a platform team that needs to prove to leadership how far a kubernetes or framework migration has actually progressed across hundreds of services and an organisation where ownership of production services is genuinely unknown after reorganisations or acquisitions are not what Osano is typically brought in for.
What can Cortex do that Osano cannot?
Cortex covers Service catalogue, Scorecards, Initiatives, Self-service templates. Osano covers Consent banner, Pre-consent tag blocking, Consent record, No fines guarantee.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Cortex: How is Cortex different from Backstage?

Backstage is an open source framework you build and staff. Cortex is a hosted product with scorecards and initiatives out of the box and no platform team required to keep it running.

Osano: Does the free tier include the no fines guarantee?

No. The guarantee attaches to paid use of the consent product, and the free tier is capped at one domain and 5,000 monthly visitors.

Cortex: Is pricing published?

No. Cortex requires a sales conversation and prepares a custom proposal.

Osano: How is Osano priced?

By monthly website visitors, number of domains and tier. The self-serve path stops at a low visitor ceiling and everything above is quoted.

Cortex: Can it self-host?

It is offered as a hosted product; on-premise arrangements are handled through sales rather than published.

Osano: Can it handle US state privacy laws as well as GDPR?

Yes, with region aware rule sets covering GDPR, ePrivacy and the US state regimes, so an EU visitor sees an opt-in banner and a US visitor sees the applicable opt-out.

Cortex: What is the main adoption risk?

Bad or missing service metadata. The catalogue and every scorecard on top of it inherit whatever quality your repositories already have.

Osano: Does Osano do subject access requests?

Yes, but in the enterprise tier rather than the published plans, and it is quoted separately from consent.

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