Fortra Cobalt Strike vs Scanner: side-by-side comparison (2026)
Fortra Cobalt Strike is a commercial red-team & adversary emulation solution by Fortra. Scanner is a commercial security data pipelines solution by Scanner. Features, integrations, deployment and the company behind each one, side by side.
Threat emulation product for adversary simulations and red team operations
Security data lake platform for threat detection via S3-native log indexing.
Side-by-side comparison
Feature
Fortra Cobalt Strike
Scanner
Pricing model
Commercial
Commercial
Category
Red-Team & Adversary Emulation
Security Data Pipelines
Deployment and fit
Deployment type
On-Premises
Cloud
Company size fit
Mid-Market, Enterprise
SMB, Mid-Market, Enterprise
Company
Company
Fortra
Scanner
Use cases and capabilities
Red Team
Yes
No
Post Exploitation
Yes
No
C2
Yes
No
Lateral Movement
Yes
No
Log Management
No
Yes
S3
No
Yes
Detection Rules
No
Yes
AWS Security
No
Yes
MCP Security
No
Yes
AI SOC
No
Yes
Cloud Native
No
Yes
Search
No
Yes
Core features
- Post-exploitation payload (Beacon) with PowerShell execution, keylogging, screenshots, and file downloads
- Malleable Command and Control (C2) language for network indicator customization
- Browser pivoting for hijacking authenticated web sessions
- System Profiler for target fingerprinting and reconnaissance
- Shared team server for collaborative red team operations
- Asynchronous low and slow communication for stealth
- Multiple report types including activity, hosts, IOCs, sessions, and TTPs
- Extensible framework supporting custom scripts and extensions
7 features listed
Integrations
No integrations listed
7 integrations listed
Need help choosing?
See more solutions in this category, or build a security stack from your picks.
