PlexTrac keeps its prices behind a request for pricing or a demo, keeps its cloud customers’ data in its own environment, and sells Plex AI as an add-on for its cloud versions. Pental publishes its price, includes every feature for every tester, keeps each firm’s data in the firm’s own Postgres database and drafts with AI on your own key. Here is the comparison, from each one’s own published information.
Each of PlexTrac's answers is taken from its own website or documentation, and each of Pental's from the screens it describes. Where PlexTrac's documentation does not cover something, the line says so rather than guessing.
| Compared | Pental | PlexTrac |
|---|---|---|
| Built for | Penetration testing firms of every size, with every feature at any size: the Portal priced per tester, the rate falling as a team grows, and our free, open-source reporting tool for a firm that wants only the reporting. | Service providers and enterprise security teams, with Essential, Core and Premium packages for each. |
| Hosting and data | The Portal: Pental runs the software and your firm holds the data, in its own Postgres database: in your own cloud, on a server of yours or on Supabase Cloud, where Pental cannot read your findings. The free reporting tool runs on your own server, beside its own PostgreSQL. | PlexTrac’s multi-tenant cloud, a private instance hosted by PlexTrac, or on-premises with Docker containers in your own environment. |
| Client portal | A standing account for each client with every report, finding, retest outcome and attestation letter. Findings arrive when you release them, and questions are raised on the finding. | A white-labelled client portal: client users see reports once published and update the remediation status of findings. |
| Your brand | Your own domain with TLS issued automatically, your sign-in page, email from your own address, and no Pental branding anywhere. | A white-labelled portal: its documentation covers renaming the interface’s labels, theme colours, and the email sender and logo, and a private instance can run under your own subdomain. |
| Report templates | Your own Word template, with your cover page, headers, fonts, tables and appendices, or the built-in PDF. The same engagement renders the same file every time. | Word templates written with Jinja, and PDF. Reports also export to Markdown, XML and PlexTrac’s own .ptrac format. |
| Editing the report in Word | Upload the edited report and the assessment updates to match, item by item, only where you tick. A reviewer’s tracked changes arrive as suggested edits. | Its import documentation covers PlexTrac’s own .ptrac files rather than an edited Word report. |
| AI | Your own key with OpenAI, Anthropic or Groq, or a model on your own hardware through Ollama or any compatible endpoint. Every prompt can be read and rewritten. | Plex AI, an add-on that drafts finding and narrative text, built on Google Cloud’s Vertex AI with private models, on the cloud versions of PlexTrac. PlexTrac says no customer data is used to train it. |
| QA review | Draft, in review and approved, with suggested edits made on the field itself, the firm’s own QA checklist ticked before a report can be approved, an AI reviewer if the firm turns it on, and release waiting for approval. | QA comments and edits held in one central place. |
| Retests | Clients ask from the finding they are reading, or by closing a ticket in their own tracker. Every finding is tracked as fixed, still open or newly introduced. | Built-in retesting workflows. |
| CVSS | CVSS 3.1 or 4.0, with the vector derived as you choose the metrics. | Calculators for CVSS 3.1 and 4.0. |
| Findings library | Write-ups saved once and reused with their scoring and remediation intact. | WriteupsDB, which PlexTrac says holds over 25,000 write-ups out of the box. |
| Issue trackers | Clients connect their own Jira (Cloud or Data Center), ServiceNow, Azure DevOps, GitHub, GitLab or Linear, and the ticket’s state is read back; any other system can take findings by webhook. | Jira with two-way sync, ServiceNow, and Azure DevOps. |
| Importing tool output | Sixteen formats imported as findings, including Nessus, Burp Suite, OpenVAS, Qualys, Nmap, ZAP, Nuclei and SARIF. | File imports from tools including Burp Suite, Nessus, Nexpose, Qualys and Nmap. |
| Pricing | Published: the Portal is £75 a tester a month for one ($99), falling with every tester added, with every feature included. Our reporting tool, the reporting on its own, is free and open source under the AGPL-3.0. | Not published: the pricing page lists its packages and offers to get pricing or book a demo. |
| Trying it | A free trial of the Portal with no card required, whose days start when your portal goes live. The reporting tool is free to download and run. | A test drive or a personalised demo, on request. |
Facts about PlexTrac come from PlexTrac’s own website, its pricing, deployment and integrations pages, its documentation and its announcements, and Brinqa’s announcement of the acquisition, read on 28 October 2026. Products change: if anything here is out of date, tell us and we will correct it. Product names are the trademarks of their owners, and Pental is not affiliated with any of them.
PlexTrac does not publish its prices: its pricing page lists packages and asks you to get pricing or book a demo. Pental’s are on the page: the Portal is £75 a tester a month for one, falling as testers are added, with every feature included, so nothing is sold as an add-on.
PlexTrac’s standard platform is multi-tenant cloud software, with a private instance hosted by PlexTrac, or an on-premises deployment with Docker that your firm runs. Pental runs the software for you, and every firm’s data lives in its own Postgres database, in your own cloud, on a server of yours or on Supabase Cloud, where Pental cannot read your findings.
Plex AI is an add-on, built on Google Cloud’s Vertex AI with private models, and it needs a cloud version of PlexTrac. Pental’s AI comes with every plan: it drafts on your own OpenAI, Anthropic or Groq key, or on a model on your own hardware, and every prompt it uses can be read and rewritten.
PlexTrac’s import documentation covers its own .ptrac files rather than an edited Word report. In Pental the report your reviewer edited in Word goes back in, and the assessment updates to match, item by item, only where you tick.
A PlexTrac report’s .ptrac, a ZIP of a client’s reports, its findings CSV or a WriteupsDB CSV goes in Coming from another platform, under Settings, Data. Pental reads it, shows you the mapping with real values from your own data beside each field, and lets you correct it before a single row is written. Your clients, engagements and findings come across, and WriteupsDB goes into your library.
Pental fits a testing firm that wants its clients' findings in a database of its own, reports in its own Word template, a client portal under its own name and AI on its own key, with every feature included. See the pricing, or see the platform. For the reporting on its own, our free, open-source reporting tool runs on your own server.
Where the data is held, and what is published. PlexTrac’s cloud editions keep your data in PlexTrac’s environment, with a private instance or an on-premises deployment for firms that want otherwise. Pental runs the software and keeps each firm’s data in the firm’s own Postgres database. PlexTrac gives its prices on request; Pental’s are on its pricing page, with every feature included.
Not on its website, as of 28 October 2026: its pricing page lists Essential, Core and Premium packages for service providers and enterprises and offers to get pricing or book a demo. Pental’s Portal is £75 a tester a month for one, falling as testers are added, and our reporting tool is free and open source.
Yes. Pental fills your own DOCX, with your cover page, headers, fonts, tables and appendices, and its report builder lets you place what goes where by clicking on the document. An edited report can be uploaded back, and the assessment updates to match where you tick.
Brinqa. It announced the acquisition on 19 August 2026, and says the PlexTrac products will continue operating as standalone offerings.
A PlexTrac report’s .ptrac, a ZIP of a client’s reports, its findings CSV or a WriteupsDB CSV goes in Coming from another platform, under Settings, Data. Pental reads it, shows you the mapping with real values from your own data beside each field, and lets you correct it before a single row is written. Your clients, engagements and findings come across, and WriteupsDB goes into your library.
Set up your own database, upload your own Word template and take a real engagement through it, client portal and all. A free trial of the whole Portal, no card required, and its days start when your portal goes live.