Developer Tools · head to head
Cortex vs OWASP ZAP
Cortex
Developer Tools
Internal developer portal that scores service ownership and maturity rather than just cataloguing services
- From
- On request
- Free plan
- No
OWASP ZAP
Cybersecurity
Free, open-source web application scanner and intercepting proxy, now governed by the Software Security Project.
- From
- Free
- Free plan
- Yes
The short version
- Only OWASP ZAP 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.; OWASP ZAP authenticated scanning of modern single-page applications is the hard part and ZAP makes you build it by hand: session handling, token refresh and login scripts are configured per application, and a misconfigured session means the scanner logs itself out and reports a clean result for pages it never reached.
- They diverge on capability: Cortex covers Service catalogue, OWASP ZAP covers Intercepting proxy.
- Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which Cortex and OWASP ZAP actually diverge.
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 OWASP ZAP
- Intercepting proxy
- Passive scanner
- Active scanner
- AJAX spider
- Automation Framework
- Headless daemon and REST API
- Docker images
- Add-on marketplace
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 OWASP ZAP
- An organisation where ownership of production services is genuinely unknown after reorganisations or acquisitionsnot OWASP ZAP
- Enforcing production readiness standards on new services at creation time rather than at incident reviewnot OWASP ZAP
- Replacing a self-hosted Backstage that is consuming a full-time engineer or two just to stay upgradednot OWASP ZAP
OWASP ZAP
- Adding a baseline security scan to every application's pipeline where per-target commercial licensing would limit coverage to a handfulnot Cortex
- Manual penetration testing that needs an intercepting proxy, request replay and fuzzing without a paid licence per testernot Cortex
- Teaching developers what an attack against their own endpoint looks like, using a tool they can install themselvesnot Cortex
- Pre-release regression scanning of an internal application that would never justify a commercial DAST subscriptionnot 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.
OWASP ZAP
- Authenticated scanning of modern single-page applications is the hard part and ZAP makes you build it by hand: session handling, token refresh and login scripts are configured per application, and a misconfigured session means the scanner logs itself out and reports a clean result for pages it never reached.
- There is no support contract in the product, so when a scan breaks the day before a release the escalation path is a GitHub issue and a community chat, which is not an answer that satisfies a delivery manager or an auditor who wants a named responsible party.
- Active scanning sends genuine attack traffic, so it can create records, trigger emails, exhaust rate limits or destabilise a fragile environment, and pointing it at production without prior agreement produces an incident rather than a test result.
- Output needs triage: passive rules generate large volumes of low-severity informational findings about headers and cookie flags that bury the few results that matter, and a team without someone tuning the rule set stops reading the report within a few sprints.
- As a dynamic scanner it can only test what it can reach, so authorisation flaws between accounts, business logic abuse and anything behind an undiscovered endpoint go unreported, and a passing ZAP scan is evidence of nothing more than the absence of the classes of bug it looks for.
Pricing, plan by plan
Cortex
On request- Cortex$undefined/year
- Service catalogue and ownership mapping
- Scorecards and initiatives
- Self-service templates
OWASP ZAP
Free- Free & Open SourceFree
- Full functionality
- Active & passive scanning
- Spider
Which should you pick?
Choose Cortex if
- You need service catalogue.
- You work on Web, API.
- You also want scorecards.
Choose OWASP ZAP if
- You need intercepting proxy.
- You want to start without paying.
- You work on Desktop, Cli, Api.
- You also want passive scanner.
Questions people ask
- Is Cortex or OWASP ZAP better?
- Neither clearly leads. Cortex starts at On request and OWASP ZAP at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
- Which is cheaper, Cortex or OWASP ZAP?
- OWASP ZAP has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at On request for Cortex and Free for OWASP ZAP.
- Does Cortex or OWASP ZAP run on more platforms?
- Cortex runs on Web, API. OWASP ZAP runs on Desktop, Cli, Api.
- Can I use OWASP ZAP for free?
- Yes. OWASP ZAP 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 OWASP ZAP is typically brought in for.
- What can Cortex do that OWASP ZAP cannot?
- Cortex covers Service catalogue, Scorecards, Initiatives, Self-service templates. OWASP ZAP covers Intercepting proxy, Passive scanner, Active scanner, AJAX spider.
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.
OWASP ZAP: Is it still called OWASP ZAP?
The project left OWASP in August 2024 and is now governed by the Software Security Project, with core development sponsored by Checkmarx. The tool is now just ZAP, though most existing documentation, courses and search results still use the OWASP name.
Cortex: Is pricing published?
No. Cortex requires a sales conversation and prepares a custom proposal.
OWASP ZAP: Is it free for commercial use?
Yes. It is Apache 2.0 licensed, with no per-application, per-scan or per-user cost, and it can be used and modified commercially without a licence agreement.
Cortex: Can it self-host?
It is offered as a hosted product; on-premise arrangements are handled through sales rather than published.
OWASP ZAP: Can it replace a penetration test?
No. It automates checks for known vulnerability classes against endpoints it can reach. It does not reason about business logic, chain findings into an attack, or test authorisation between accounts, which is most of what a tester actually does.
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.
OWASP ZAP: Does it run in CI?
Yes, through the official Docker images and the Automation Framework, which defines scan jobs in YAML so configuration lives in the repository. A baseline passive scan is the usual starting point because it is fast and non-intrusive.
OWASP ZAP: How does it compare to Burp Suite?
Burp Suite Professional is the more polished manual testing tool and has a stronger scanner and extension ecosystem, but it is licensed per tester and Burp Suite Enterprise per target. ZAP is the better fit where cost per target is the binding constraint; many teams use both.
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