NodeZero by Horizon3.ai is a solid autonomous penetration testing platform. It's also priced for enterprise security teams with six-figure budgets. If you're a startup or growing company trying to stay secure without a dedicated security team, that price point puts it out of reach.
What NodeZero does well
NodeZero runs autonomous pentests against your network infrastructure. It discovers attack paths, chains vulnerabilities together like a real attacker would, and produces a report you can act on. The "attack path" framing is particularly useful — it shows how a low-severity misconfiguration combined with a default credential creates a critical path to your database.
Compare its capabilities and cost against your security testing requirements.
What NodeZero doesn't cover
NodeZero is primarily a network/infrastructure pentesting tool. It doesn't:
- Review your code for security vulnerabilities as you write it
- Scan your GitHub PRs for CVEs, secrets, or injection flaws before they merge
- Give you an AI agent you can talk to about your security posture
- Cost nothing to evaluate, which matters when you're pre-revenue
What BattleTest covers
BattleTest is built for the full lifecycle — from the PR that introduces the vulnerability to the running infrastructure that exposes it:
PR-time security review
Every pull request gets an AI-powered security review covering CVE detection, secret scanning, injection vulnerability analysis, and config hardening checks. This runs in 2–3 minutes and posts findings as a PR comment. It is free on public repositories, with a monthly allowance on private ones — and no limit at all once you connect your own model API key.
Live battletest (dedicated deployment)
Pointed at a domain, BattleTest runs a coordinated security assessment: discovery (crawling, endpoint mapping), targeted testing (injection probing, directory enumeration, port analysis, and browser-based crawling), and reporting with confirmed vulnerabilities. Runs follow the testing scope and permission tier you authorise. This side of the product is not self-serve: it runs as an isolated deployment inside your own infrastructure, on a perpetual licence that costs $10,000 once. An optional $3,500 a year covers support, product updates and the vulnerability-database feeds. The software licence is perpetual.
Continuous monitoring
Within a dedicated deployment, battletests run on a schedule. You get a diff of what's new since the last run — new endpoints, new findings, regressions on previously clean areas.
Pricing comparison
| Feature | NodeZero | BattleTest |
|---|---|---|
| Autonomous infrastructure testing | Yes | Yes |
| PR / code review integration | No | Yes |
| Secret scanning | No | Yes |
| CVE detection on dependencies | No | Yes |
| Continuous monitoring | Add-on | Dedicated deployment |
| Starting price | ~$25,000/yr, recurring | Free for PR review; $10,000 one time for live testing |
| Free tier | No | Yes — PR review, public and private repos |
Who should use NodeZero vs BattleTest
NodeZero makes sense if you have a dedicated security team, a large internal network with many nodes, and need to demonstrate continuous pentesting for compliance purposes (SOC 2, ISO 27001 audit evidence).
BattleTest makes sense if you're a startup or growing team that needs security coverage across your code and infrastructure, wants it integrated into your development workflow, and can't justify a six-figure annual contract before you've validated product-market fit.
For most companies under 100 people, BattleTest's PR review costs nothing to run, which makes it the easier place to start. At enterprise scale — sprawling internal networks, compliance evidence on a deadline — NodeZero's depth earns its price tag.