Looking for an Intruder alternative?
Here’s how Intruder and HackRisk actually compare: who each product is built for, what it covers, and what it costs.
Intruder is an excellent vulnerability scanner for lean security and IT teams, with real technical depth across cloud, APIs and web apps.
HackRisk is built for a different buyer: the UK small business owner or director who wants to know how exposed they are, in plain English, at a published price from £49.99 a month on a 12-month commitment.
Choose Intruder if you have technical staff to act on scanner output. Choose HackRisk if you want a score, a readable report and human experts on hand.
Why people go looking for an alternative
Intruder deserves its reputation. It holds a 4.8/5 rating on G2, scans continuously rather than once a year, and covers ground most small tools don’t: cloud configurations, APIs, internal networks, even AI-assisted penetration testing.
So why do smaller organisations end up searching for something else? Three reasons come up again and again.
The pricing is no longer public. Intruder’s plan prices are gated behind a quote (checked August 2026). There is a free tier and a 14-day trial, but to find out what Cloud, Pro or Enterprise actually costs, you speak to sales. Pricing also scales per target, so costs grow as your infrastructure does, and the only figure published on the site is for AI pentesting, starting at $3,500 per test.
It speaks to technical operators. Intruder’s own homepage says it’s “built for lean security and IT teams”. The output assumes someone on your side can read a vulnerability report, judge severity in context and do the fixing. If your company doesn’t employ that person, you’re paying for a console nobody logs into.
It answers a narrower question than the one many SMBs are asking. Intruder tells you which vulnerabilities exist in the assets you point it at. It doesn’t tell a non-technical director whether the business as a whole is in decent shape, whether staff credentials are circulating on the dark web, or how close you are to Cyber Essentials.
None of this makes Intruder a bad product. It makes it a product for a specific buyer. If that buyer isn’t you, here’s the alternative.
HackRisk in brief
HackRisk is a cyber risk monitoring service for UK small and mid-sized businesses, built and run by the security experts at CyberLab. It scans your business from the outside, the way an attacker sees it, and turns everything it finds into one score: your credit score for cyber security.
Behind the score sits continuous monitoring of your external attack surface, dark web monitoring for stolen staff credentials, vulnerability scanning and supply chain checks. The results arrive as a report your board can actually read, with the fixes ranked by what needs attention first. Pricing is published: £49.99 a month for the Core plan on a 12-month commitment (£59.99 a month rolling), with a Cyber Essentials Readiness tier from £77 a month.
It starts with a free report. Enter your domain and you get a board-ready assessment within 24 hours, plus 30 days of full portal access, without handing over card details or sitting through a sales call.
HackRisk vs Intruder at a glance
| HackRisk | Intruder | |
|---|---|---|
| Built for | Business owners, directors and ops leads at UK SMBs | Security engineers and IT teams |
| Core output | A single risk score plus a plain-English, board-ready report | Vulnerability findings in a technical console |
| Published pricing | Yes: £49.99/month Core on a 12-month commitment (£59.99/month rolling); CE Readiness from £77/month | No: plans quoted on request, priced per target (checked Aug 2026) |
| Free offer | Free report in 24 hours + 30 days portal access, no card | Free tier (5 web apps, weekly scans) + 14-day trial |
| External attack surface scanning | Included | Included, with strong depth |
| Dark web credential monitoring | Included in Core | Not a core focus |
| Cloud security (CSPM), API and container scanning | Not offered | Included on paid plans; this is where Intruder is strongest |
| Cyber Essentials support | Dedicated readiness tier with quarterly consultant sessions | No; compliance reporting is oriented to SOC 2, ISO 27001 and similar |
| Human expert support | Included; delivered by CyberLab's security team | Self-serve product with support; AI analyst in product |
| Cyber insurance angle | Up to 10% insurance discount (Core plan) | Not offered |
| Review footprint | New brand, small footprint | G2 4.8/5; well established |
Where the two really differ
Who it’s for
Intruder assumes a technical reader; HackRisk assumes a busy one. Intruder gives your security engineer a powerful scanner. HackRisk gives your managing director an answer: here’s your score, what an attacker can currently see, and what to fix first.
If you’ve ever forwarded a vulnerability report to your IT supplier with the message “is this bad?”, you’re the buyer HackRisk was designed for.
Pricing
HackRisk publishes its prices. Core is £49.99 a month on a 12-month commitment (£59.99 a month on a 1-month rolling plan) for one domain with continuous monitoring, and extras are priced openly too: additional domains at £25 a month, extra vulnerability scan targets at £8 a month, staff phishing and awareness training at £2 per person a month. You can work out your annual cost on the pricing page before anyone from HackRisk knows you exist.
Intruder’s free tier is useful, and there’s no shame in saying so. But its paid plans are quoted rather than published, prices exclude VAT, and per-target pricing means the bill moves with your infrastructure. For a small business that just wants a predictable line in the budget, that’s friction.
Scanning depth
Credit where it’s due: Intruder scans more things, more deeply. Cloud configuration checks across AWS, Azure and GCP, API and web app testing, container scanning, internal agent-based scanning at the Pro level.
HackRisk does not attempt to match that. Its vulnerability scanning covers your external footprint and a set number of internal targets, because its job is monitoring your overall exposure rather than deep-testing your build pipeline.
If you need DAST or cloud posture management, Intruder is the better tool and this page won’t pretend otherwise.
What the scanner can’t see
HackRisk includes dark web monitoring in its core plan, watching for staff emails and passwords in breach dumps and criminal marketplaces. Stolen credentials are how a large share of real-world breaches start, and no amount of vulnerability scanning surfaces them. HackRisk also checks supply chain risk, because your exposure includes the vendors you depend on.
Cyber Essentials
If Cyber Essentials certification is on your roadmap (increasingly a requirement for UK public sector contracts and supply chains), Intruder won’t take you there; its compliance features target frameworks like SOC 2 and ISO 27001. HackRisk has a dedicated Cyber Essentials Readiness tier from £77 a month, which adds an account manager and quarterly sessions with a security consultant to guide you through CE and CE+.
Humans
Intruder is a self-serve product, and a well-built one, with an AI analyst inside it. HackRisk is a product with people behind it: CyberLab’s accredited security experts build the service and are there to explain what a finding means for your business. For a buyer without in-house security skills, that’s the difference between information and help.
Who should stay with Intruder
Stick with (or choose) Intruder if:
- you have a security engineer, technically confident IT manager or MSP who will own the tool
- your risk lives in cloud infrastructure, APIs or web applications that need deep, continuous testing
- you’re working towards SOC 2 or ISO 27001 rather than Cyber Essentials
- the free tier covers what you need, which for very small web estates it might
The ideal Intruder customer is a lean technical team that wants pentest-grade findings on tap.
Who should choose HackRisk
HackRisk is the better fit if:
- nobody in the business reads vulnerability scanner output for a living
- you answer to a board, clients or insurers who want evidence you’re on top of cyber risk
- you want dark web monitoring and supply chain visibility alongside scanning
- Cyber Essentials is on your agenda
- you want to know the price before you talk to anyone
The ideal HackRisk customer is a UK business of roughly 10 to 250 people that needs a clear picture of its cyber risk without hiring for it.
Switching, or just comparing?
There’s no painful migration here. HackRisk scans from the outside, so there’s nothing to install or uninstall and no data to move. You don’t touch your Intruder setup to trial it.
The sensible first step costs nothing: request the free HackRisk Report, then put it next to your Intruder console and judge which one your business will actually act on.
If both earn their keep, some companies run exactly that combination: deep scanning for the technical team, a score and report for the board.
Weighing up CyberSmart as well? Read our CyberSmart alternative comparison.
Frequently asked questions
Is HackRisk a direct replacement for Intruder?
For external vulnerability scanning and attack surface monitoring, yes, with the addition of dark web monitoring and a risk score. For cloud posture management, API testing and container scanning, no; those are Intruder strengths HackRisk doesn't offer. Match the tool to who will use it.
How much does Intruder cost?
Intruder offers a free tier covering 5 web apps with weekly scans, and a 14-day trial. Paid plan prices aren't published on its website (checked August 2026); they're quoted on request, priced per target, exclude VAT, and discount by 20% for annual billing. The one published price is AI pentesting, from $3,500 per test.
How much does HackRisk cost?
HackRisk Core is £49.99 a month on a 12-month commitment, or £59.99 a month on a 1-month rolling plan you can leave at any time. It covers one domain with continuous monitoring, dark web monitoring and vulnerability scanning, plus up to 10% off cyber insurance. The Cyber Essentials Readiness tier starts at £77 a month on a 12-month term. Add-ons are published too: £25 a month per extra domain, £8 a month per extra scan target, £2 per person a month for training and phishing simulation.
Do I need technical staff to use HackRisk?
No. The score and report are written for non-technical readers, fixes are ranked by priority, and CyberLab's security experts are available to explain anything. That said, someone still has to apply the fixes, whether that's your IT provider or an internal team.
Can I try both before deciding?
Easily, and you should. Intruder's free tier and trial cost nothing, and HackRisk's free report takes minutes to request with no card details. Both can run at the same time because neither interferes with the other.
Does HackRisk help with Cyber Essentials?
Yes. The Cyber Essentials Readiness tier (from £77 a month on a 12-month term) includes an account manager and quarterly consultant sessions to prepare you for CE and CE+ certification. Intruder doesn't offer Cyber Essentials support.
See your score before you decide anything
The quickest way to compare is to see what HackRisk finds about your own business: your HackRisk Score and a board-ready breakdown of what attackers can see, within 24 hours.
No card details, no sales call. Plans from £49.99 a month on a 12-month commitment, if you decide to keep monitoring.
Competitor information on this page was checked against intruder.io and public review sites on 11 August 2026. If you spot something out of date, tell us and we’ll correct it.