CAI (Cybersecurity AI) vs Katana: Side-by-Side Comparison (2026)
Features, pricing, ratings, and pros and cons, compared head to head.
CAI (Cybersecurity AI) is a free red-team & adversary emulation tool by Alias Robotics. Katana is a free security scanning tool. Compare features, ratings, integrations, and community reviews side by side to find the best red-team & adversary emulation fit for your security stack. Independent and vendor-neutral: our scores and rankings are earned, never bought — sponsored placement is always labeled.
CST VerdictShort answer
Security teams at startups and small consulting firms who need LLM-powered penetration testing without licensing friction should build on CAI; the framework's 500+ supported LLMs and 15+ agents let you run offensive automation in your own environment at zero cost. The GitHub community (3,641 stars) and on-premises deployment mean you control the entire supply chain, which matters when handling client data during assessments. Skip this if your organization lacks Python engineers to customize agents or needs vendor-backed SLAs; CAI prioritizes offensive capability over the detection and response coverage that enterprise security teams typically require. Security teams running reconnaissance workflows or building custom crawling pipelines will get the most from Katana; the 14K GitHub stars reflect genuine adoption by practitioners who need fine-grained control over spidering logic rather than point-and-click scanners. The framework approach means you're writing code to extract what matters to your target scope, which beats generic crawlers for complex authentication flows or JavaScript-heavy applications. Skip this if your team lacks engineering resources or needs a managed SaaS interface; Katana requires Python knowledge and infrastructure to operationalize.
Based on our analysis of NIST CSF 2.0 coverage, core features, company size fit, deployment model, here is our conclusion:
