The Hexway alternative with pre-sales and managed SaaS.
Hexway (Hive + Apiary) is a self-hostable reporting and collaboration suite with a well-regarded separate client portal and a free tier. Cairn matches the self-hosting and delivery and adds the pre-sales pipeline, on-prem AI drafting, and a managed-SaaS option, in a single platform.
Reporting is table stakes. The lifecycle is the difference.
On core reporting and delivery, both are capable. The gap opens on everything around it: Hexway focuses on part of the engagement; Cairn owns the pre-sales, scoping and pricing that get you there, and the delivery that follows.
| Capability | Cairn | Hexway |
|---|---|---|
| Pentest reporting and findings library | ✓✓ | ✓ |
| Scanner imports | ✓✓ | ◐ |
| Findings dedup and correlation | ✓✓ | ✓ |
| Collaborative authoring with review workflow | ✓ | ◐ |
| Client delivery portal | ✓✓ | ✓ |
| Retest cycles and remediation tracking | ✓ | ✓ |
| Pre-sales CRM and pipeline forecasting | ✓✓ | – |
| Scoping questionnaire that writes the SoW | ✓✓ | – |
| Pricing models, proposals and e-signature | ✓✓ | – |
| On-prem / air-gapped AI drafting | ✓✓ | – |
| Published pricing | ✓✓ | ✓ |
| Self-host and SaaS | ✓✓ | ◐ |
Hexway marks are drawn from its public 2026 documentation and are directional, not hands-on tested. We did not find a capability where Hexway beats Cairn. Its genuine draws are a free self-hosted tier and the well-regarded Apiary client portal, aimed at lean, self-hosted-only teams.
The number, up front.
Published, per seat, billed annually. On-prem from a stated $30,000/year floor. A five-person firm on the Team tier pays $745/month, all in — replacing a CRM, a proposal tool, e-signature, a reporting platform and a portal.
Free-forever self-hosted edition for small teams plus paid Pentest plans from around $78 per user per month; self-hosted only (Linux/on-prem), no managed SaaS.
Walk the whole deal-to-delivery flow.
Take the two-minute product tour, or talk to us about migrating from Hexway and about on-prem deployment.
How Cairn compares to the rest of the field.
Is Cairn a good Hexway alternative?
For firms that want the whole engagement in one place, yes. Hexway (Hive + Apiary) is a self-hostable reporting and collaboration suite with a well-regarded separate client portal and a free tier. Cairn matches the self-hosting and delivery and adds the pre-sales pipeline, on-prem AI drafting, and a managed-SaaS option, in a single platform.
How does Cairn pricing compare to Hexway?
Cairn publishes per-seat pricing (Starter $99, Team $149, Business $249 per seat/month, on-prem from $30,000/year). Hexway: Free-forever self-hosted edition for small teams plus paid Pentest plans from around $78 per user per month; self-hosted only (Linux/on-prem), no managed SaaS.
What does Cairn do that Hexway does not?
The pre-sales half of the engagement: a client CRM with pipeline forecasting, a scoping questionnaire that writes the Statement of Work, five pricing models and e-signature, on the same data model as findings, reporting and a white-label client portal, with on-prem AI drafting.
How does Hexway compare to Cairn overall?
We did not find a capability where Hexway beats Cairn. Its genuine draws are a free self-hosted tier and the well-regarded Apiary client portal, aimed at lean, self-hosted-only teams.