• Dradis vs PlexTrac (2026)
  • This comparison is for you if
  • Side-by-side summary
  • What PlexTrac does well
  • The architectural fork: SaaS-first vs self-hosted-first
  • Data sovereignty: where your findings live
  • Open-source vs proprietary: vendor risk
  • Issue Library and Rules Engine vs WriteupsDB
  • Scanner integrations
  • AI-assisted reporting: where the data goes
  • Methodologies vs Runbooks: different paradigms, different teams
  • Pricing transparency
  • When PlexTrac is the right choice
  • When PlexTrac is not the right fit
  • Practical next steps
  • Related content
  • Frequently asked questions

Dradis vs PlexTrac (2026)

If you lead an internal security team and your shortlist has come down to PlexTrac and Dradis, the feature comparison is almost beside the point. Both tools handle pentest reporting, findings management, and scanner integration. The question that decides between them is where the platform runs, who owns the code, and what happens to your accumulated findings when the vendor relationship changes.

PlexTrac was merged into Brinqa in August 2026; see what the Brinqa acquisition means for PlexTrac customers.

This comparison is for you if

Read this if:

• Your shortlist includes both PlexTrac and Dradis, and you need to understand the architectural differences before the procurement review
• You are running PlexTrac today and a data residency requirement, vendor-risk review, or pricing change has you re-evaluating
• Your CISO or compliance team needs to sign off on where pentest findings are stored and who controls the platform

Skip this if:

• You want vendor-managed hosting with no infrastructure responsibility and have no data residency constraints. PlexTrac is built for that.
• Your primary use case is purple-team adversary emulation with structured TTP (Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures) tracking. PlexTrac Runbooks is purpose-built for that; Dradis is not.

Side-by-side summary

	Dradis Pro	PlexTrac
Deployment model	Self-hosted-first (on-prem, private cloud, air-gapped)	SaaS-first (vendor-hosted AWS); on-prem available under enterprise contract (feature limited)
License	Open-source core (GPLv2): inspect, audit, fork, run perpetually	Proprietary, closed-source
Data residency	Customer-controlled infrastructure by default	Vendor-hosted US AWS by default
Pricing (as of August 2026)	Published: from $100/user/month	Enterprise quote-based; not publicly listed
Vendor independence	Run perpetually regardless of vendor status	Subscription dependency; acquired by Brinqa August 2026
SSO*	SAML/LDAP	SAML/SSO across paid tiers
Finding repository	Issue Library: revision history, states, tags, Rules Engine	WriteupsDB
Scanner integrations	47 tools	42 listed in their Integration catalog (as of August 2026)
AI	Echo: you choose where the model runs, a local model through Ollama or Anthropic, Gemini or OpenAI; shared prompts library, multi-user sessions	Plex AI (we have not confirmed where its model runs) and PlexTrac MCP, a read-only bridge to the AI tools your team connects
Methodology support	OWASP, PTES, HIPAA, custom; Kanban + report export	Runbooks (red team / purple team execution tracking)
Output formats	Word (content-control engine: charts, filters, cross-refs), Excel, CSV, HTML, PDF	Word, PDF (verify additional formats against current PlexTrac docs)
Roadmap continuity	Security Roots, 19 years continuous development, bootstrapped	Acquired by Brinqa (August 2026); previously Insight Partners Series B 2022

* SSO (SAML/LDAP) is available in Dradis Enterprise plan. PlexTrac includes SSO across paid tiers (verify current docs).

Want to evaluate the architecture before committing? Dradis Community Edition is free, self-hosted, GPLv2. One project at a time, but the reporting engine and 47 scanner integrations are there. Run it for a real engagement before you book a demo.

What PlexTrac does well

PlexTrac is well-funded, polished, and the most visible SaaS in the pentest reporting space. These are real advantages, and if they match your requirements, PlexTrac may be the right tool.

Managed hosting is a real advantage for some teams. PlexTrac handles uptime, backups, patching, and server management for teams without the ops capacity to run self-hosted. A former Dradis customer put it plainly: "the move to PlexTrac is a managed cloud service on their part, so I don't have to worry about up-time, server updates, backups" (sales inbox 2021-2026, anonymized). For teams without data residency constraints, that trade-off is rational.

Runbooks is a different category, not a lesser one. PlexTrac built dedicated execution tracking for red-team and purple-team engagements with structured TTP mapping and operator collaboration. Dradis methodologies cover pentest workflow (OWASP, PTES, HIPAA) with Kanban views, not adversary-emulation runbooks. For teams whose primary workflow is purple-teaming with MITRE ATT&CK-mapped execution, PlexTrac is purpose-built. Dradis is not. For Red Teams SysReptor is an alternative.

The UX polish is there. PlexTrac raised venture capital and invested it in product design. Dradis has earned its quality through 19 years of practitioner feedback, but until recently it did not carry the same level of UI investment.

PlexTrac offers an on-prem option. Do not read this comparison as "Dradis is self-hosted, PlexTrac is cloud-only." PlexTrac On-Prem exists as a separate tier under enterprise contract. The distinction is architectural: Dradis is self-hosted-first (designed around it, air-gapped tested and supported; All features covered), PlexTrac is SaaS-first (cloud default, different on-prem economics and update cadence). Verify current PlexTrac On-Prem pricing, feature parity, and AI availability with their team.

The architectural fork: SaaS-first vs self-hosted-first

Both Dradis and PlexTrac can run on customer infrastructure. The difference is which deployment model the product was built around.

PlexTrac was built as a cloud SaaS. Default deployment is vendor-hosted on AWS (US region), and the roadmap, update cadence, and feature rollout target cloud-tenant customers. The on-prem option is separately licensed with a different update cycle.

Dradis was built as a self-hosted application. CE and Pro both run on customer hardware: on-premises servers, private clouds, secure laptops, or air-gapped networks with no internet connectivity. Self-hosted is the only deployment model.

When you evaluate "self-hosted PlexTrac" versus "self-hosted Dradis," you are comparing a product that added on-prem as a tier against a product that has never been anything else.

Data sovereignty: where your findings live

PlexTrac SaaS hosts your security findings on vendor-controlled AWS infrastructure. For many teams, that works. For teams subject to NIS2 Article 21 supply chain requirements, US federal contractors with FedRAMP obligations, government work involving controlled unclassified information, or any client engagement where the DPA (Data Processing Agreement) prohibits vendor cloud storage of security findings, the SaaS default is architecturally incompatible.

PlexTrac On-Prem is designed to close this gap, though feature parity with the SaaS tier (Plex AI, all integrations, Asset Portal) is worth confirming with PlexTrac before committing.

With Dradis, findings live on your infrastructure by default. Your clients' most sensitive findings never touch infrastructure you do not control. For teams whose assessments include classified networks, air-gapped environments, or client contracts with strict data residency clauses, this is not a feature. It is a prerequisite.

Open-source vs proprietary: vendor risk

Dradis Framework Community Edition is GPLv2 with the full source on GitHub (842+ stars, continuous public development since 2007). Customers can inspect every line of code, fork the project, run it perpetually regardless of Security Roots's commercial decisions, and audit it for security-sensitive deployments.

PlexTrac is proprietary and closed-source. Customers cannot inspect the codebase, cannot fork it, and cannot run it independently if the vendor relationship ends. Procurement teams at regulated organizations ask: what happens to the platform and the data when the vendor's circumstances change?

On August 19, 2026, Brinqa announced its acquisition of PlexTrac. Standard procurement frameworks treat acquisitions as re-assessment triggers (see NIST SP 800-161 Rev. 1 on supply-chain risk: architectural controls over vendor assurances).

Acquisitions can change roadmaps first; then products follow on a 12-to-24-month lag. For consultancies whose primary workflow is client delivery and reporting, the question is where pentest-services features rank in the combined roadmap.

With a GPLv2 platform deployed on your infrastructure, the "what if the vendor is acquired" question has a structural answer. Your instance, your data, and your accumulated Issue Library survive any corporate event, including Security Roots's own.

Dradis has been in continuous development by the same team since 2007 by a small, independent, dedicated team. Revenue comes from 1,182 paying teams across 81 countries, not VC equity rounds. Security Roots was founded in 2010 and is bootstrapped.

Your team is comparing architectures, not feature lists. See how Dradis handles pentest reporting on your infrastructure.

Issue Library and Rules Engine vs WriteupsDB

Both Dradis and PlexTrac have a shared finding repository: a place where your team stores approved vulnerability descriptions and pulls them into projects.

The Dradis Issue Library adds governance depth: per-entry states (active, pending), revision history (every change tracked), custom tags (team-defined taxonomy), and deep Rules Engine integration. When Nessus, Burp Suite, or any supported scanner detects a finding that matches an Issue Library entry, Dradis can automatically substitute your team's approved write-up, strip scanner boilerplate, and deduplicate across tools.

Two testers, same finding, same severity rating, same remediation language. Every time. Not because they remembered to check, but because the Rules Engine enforced the team's standard.

PlexTrac WriteupsDB is the counterpart feature. Verify against current PlexTrac documentation whether WriteupsDB includes revision history, per-entry state management, and rules-based automated substitution at the same depth.

The question for internal teams: five years from now, when your tool changes or your vendor is acquired, where does the Issue Library go? With Dradis, the data lives on your infrastructure under GPLv2. With PlexTrac, WriteupsDB data lives on PlexTrac (now Brinqa) infrastructure under their licensing terms.

Scanner integrations

Dradis integrates with 47 security tools: Burp Suite, Nessus (full vulnerability data), OpenVAS, Qualys, Tenable, Nexpose, Metasploit, Acunetix, Nikto, Checkmarx, Veracode, and more. The Rules Engine can automatically merge, deduplicate, and map scanner output to your Issue Library entries.

PlexTrac maintains its own integration catalog (42 entries as of August 2026). Verify the current count and breadth against their integrations page before making your comparison.

The practical question is not "how many integrations?" but "does the tool handle the scanners your team runs?" The scanners teams ask about most often: Burp Suite, Nessus, Nmap, Qualys, OpenVAS, ZAP, Nexpose, and Metasploit. Verify coverage for your specific workflow on both tools.

AI-assisted reporting: where the data goes

Dradis Echo gives your team a shared Prompts library and multi-user sessions, and an Admin chooses where the model runs. On a local Ollama model, your pentest findings never leave your network, and Echo works air-gapped. With Anthropic, Gemini or OpenAI, the finding content goes to that provider. See what happens when pentest findings reach an outside AI.

PlexTrac Plex AI is the counterpart feature (launched circa 2024). Verify against current PlexTrac documentation whether Plex AI runs in-tenant (customer-controlled LLM), uses a PlexTrac-hosted endpoint, or offers both options. If Plex AI routes findings through an external LLM API, the data sovereignty argument applies to the AI feature even for teams using PlexTrac On-Prem. Your client's findings would be sent to an additional vendor.

For teams whose security policy prohibits sending findings to external services, this architectural distinction determines whether AI-assisted reporting is available at all.

Methodologies vs Runbooks: different paradigms, different teams

Dradis ships OWASP, PTES, HIPAA, and custom methodology templates with Kanban views, task assignment, progress tracking, and exportable compliance evidence in the final report. For consultancies running web-app engagements, infrastructure pentests, or compliance assessments, Dradis methodologies are the team collaboration tool.

PlexTrac Runbooks targets red-team and purple-team execution tracking with TTP-level operator coordination. Runbooks was built for adversary-emulation workflows where operators track techniques, tactics, and procedures across a multi-phase campaign.

If your team runs structured purple-team engagements with MITRE ATT&CK-mapped execution tracking, PlexTrac Runbooks is purpose-built for that. For OWASP web-app assessments, infrastructure pentests, or compliance work with auditable evidence, Dradis methodologies are the fit.

Pricing transparency

Dradis publishes per-user pricing on dradis.com/pricing:

• Community Edition: free (GPLv2, one project at a time)
• Assess: $100/user/month (consultancies)
• Remediate: $200/user/month (corporate cybersecurity teams)

All prices as of August 2026. See full Dradis Pro editions for the complete feature breakdown.

PlexTrac pricing is not publicly listed. Teams who have evaluated both describe PlexTrac pricing as higher (sales inbox 2021-2026, anonymized), but we cannot confirm specific numbers without a current public source. Request a quote from PlexTrac to compare.

The pricing difference matters at renewal and at seat expansion. One team described it directly: "Switching to PlexTrac was simply too expensive and too much effort" (sales inbox 2021-2026, anonymized).

When PlexTrac is the right choice

• Your team wants vendor-managed hosting and has no data residency constraints. PlexTrac handles infrastructure, uptime, patching, and backups.
• Your primary use case is purple-team adversary emulation. PlexTrac Runbooks is purpose-built for structured TTP tracking and operator collaboration in red-team and purple-team engagements.
• The Brinqa acquisition aligns with your program. If your organization runs a Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) program and having pentest validation inside that platform is a positive, the combined Brinqa-PlexTrac offering may serve you better than a standalone reporting tool.

When PlexTrac is not the right fit

• Your CISO or procurement team requires self-hosted deployment by default. PlexTrac's SaaS-first architecture means the on-prem option is a separate tier with different economics. Dradis runs on your infrastructure as the only deployment model.
• You need to inspect the source code. Vendor audits, internal security assessments, or code-level assurance. Dradis is GPLv2. PlexTrac is closed-source.
• Data residency or air-gapped operation is a requirement. If your pentest findings cannot leave your controlled infrastructure (NIS2, CMMC (Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification), classified environments, client DPAs), Dradis is built for that by architecture.
• Published pricing matters to your procurement process. If your finance team needs per-user costs without a sales conversation, Dradis publishes them. PlexTrac does not.
• Vendor independence is a procurement criterion. With the Brinqa acquisition, PlexTrac's roadmap is now part of a larger exposure-management strategy. The roadmap direction is no longer PlexTrac's alone. With Dradis, the GPLv2 license means your instance and your data are yours regardless of what Security Roots does.

Practical next steps

• If you are evaluating both tools right now: book the PlexTrac demo and the Dradis demo in the same week. Run the architectural-fork questions from this page in both conversations. Ask PlexTrac about on-prem feature parity, Plex AI data flow, and pricing at your seat count.
• If you are re-evaluating after the Brinqa acquisition: archive a complete export of your PlexTrac data this week regardless of what you decide. Get roadmap and pricing commitments in writing before your next renewal.
• If you want to inspect the architecture before committing: Dradis Community Edition is free, self-hosted, GPLv2. Run it for a real engagement and see how the reporting engine, scanner integrations, and Issue Library work on your infrastructure.
• If your team has 5+ seats or data residency requirements: talk to us about how Dradis Pro handles your specific scanner workflow, reporting templates, and deployment requirements.

Related content

Data sovereignty and compliance:

• What data sovereignty means for pentest teams
• NIS2 Article 21 and pentest data requirements

Dradis tools:

• Echo: local AI-assisted reporting
• Issue Library and Rules Engine
• OWASP, PTES, HIPAA methodology templates

Other comparisons:

• Pentest report generator roundup
• Dradis vs Cyver Core another cloud-first platform
• Dradis vs PwnDoc if you are evaluating open-source options
• Dradis vs SysReptor if you are interested in red teaming

Frequently asked questions