10 Best Application Security Testing Software [2024 Review]

This tutorial reviews and compares the top Application Security Testing Software to help you select the best Application Security Testing tool to find security vulnerabilities:

Application Security Testing Software is an application to find vulnerabilities in an application or your environment. Application Security Testing should be performed by looking at all the angles. These tools can discover known as well as unknown attacks.

Web Security Testing tools can be divided into two categories, Automation tools, and Manual tools. Vulnerability scanners, code analyzers, and software composition analyzers are automatic tools whereas tools like attack frameworks and password breakers are manual.

For enterprise web application security, businesses should follow some practical steps. They must invest in a good application security testing software, a DAST solution, and a tool that can find web-facing assets matching the specified criteria.

Application Security Testing Software

Few more tips for selecting the right Application Security Testing Software

It is hard to find out the best application security testing tool. Every software has some unique features. Some tools are good at finding security flaws, some have better reporting capabilities, some are easy to use, while some offer a rich set of features. So to find out the best tool you should do your research and find out the best tool for your environment.

The tool should be convenient to use. Small features can also make the tool convenient to use. Features like knowing more about the discovered vulnerability in a single click, configuring the scanner to email, and sending an alert will make a big deal and provide conveniences.

The tool should have reporting capabilities and it should be able to provide reports according to the regulations that you follow. As per your requirement, you can also check for enterprise-level testing capabilities such as providing reports that follow specific regulations.

For immediate security improvements, enterprises should start with existing issues. Some tools provide the facility to prioritize the vulnerabilities. This will help you with deciding the next course of action. You can streamline the workflows to integrate security. This will give you immediate improvement in security.

Significance of Application Security Testing Tools

Invicti (formerly Netsparker) has surveyed security professionals to find out the way of translating security policies and programs into everyday practice. It has revealed that almost 75% of executives trust that their organization is scanning all web applications for vulnerabilities. On the other hand, half of the security staff disagree with this fact.

The same research says that according to 60% of DevOps people, the rate at which security vulnerabilities are found is more than the rate at which they got fixed.

All the above survey results, stats, and graphs say that 20% of enterprises don’t secure all the web applications and take the calculated risks. This potentially leaves security holes. The top reasons for not scanning all the web applications include that the application is considered low-risk and not worth scanning, lack of resources, tools can’t scan all web applications, etc.

Web applications, APIs, and Web Technologies will grow in numbers. The problems can be eliminated before they occur and the processes can be automated with the use of the right security tools.

Here, in this tutorial, we are covering the top application security testing tools to help you select the one as per your requirement.

Suggested Reading =>> Security Testing of Web Applications

List of the Best Application Security Testing Software

Here is a list of popular application security testing tools:

1. Invicti (formerly Netsparker) (Recommended Tool)
2. Acunetix (Recommended Tool)
3. Indusface WAS
4. Intruder.io
5. ManageEngine Vulnerability Manager Plus
6. Offensive360
7. Veracode
8. Checkmarx
9. Rapid7
10. Synopsys
11. ZAP
12. AppCheck Ltd.
13. Wfuzz
14. Wapiti
15. MisterScanner

Comparison of Top Application Security Testing Tools

Tool Name	Best for	Deployment	Free Trial	Price	Our Ratings
Invicti (formerly Netsparker)	Automating web security	Desktop application, Hosted, or On-premises.	Demo available.	Get a quote for the Standard, Team, or Enterprise plan.
Acunetix	Providing a complete view of your organization’s security.	On-premises or Hosted	Demo available.	Get a quote for the Standard, Premium, or Acunetix360 plan.
Indusface WAS	OWASP Top 10 Threat Detection	Cloud-hosted	14 DAYS	Starts at $44/app/month
ManageEngine Vulnerability Manager Plus	Protection against Zero Day, OS, and third-party vulnerabilities.	Desktop, On-Premise	30 day	Professional Plan: Custom quote, Enterprise Plan: Starts at $1195 per year, Free edition also available.
Offensive 360	Deep application security	on-premises, Cloud, Hybrid.	14 days	Get a quote
Veracode	Managing the entire application security program on a single platform.	Cloud-based	Demo available.	Get a quote
Checkmarx	Application security testing.	On-premise, in the cloud, or hybrid environments	Demo available	Get a quote
Rapid7	Shared visibility, analytics, & automation capabilities	Cloud-based	Available for 30 days.	Starts at $2000 per app

Let us review the above-listed tools.

#1) Invicti (formerly Netsparker) (Recommended Tool)

Best for automating web security.

Invicti offers a user-friendly web application security scanner that can be used by small to large businesses. It is a platform with functionalities of vulnerability management and reporting. It will help you with prioritizing tasks of fixing issues by automatically assigning the severity level to vulnerabilities.

Invicti uses a proof-based scanning technology which makes it enable to safely utilize the found vulnerabilities and create a proof-of-concept. This way it will get confirmed about vulnerabilities and there are no false positives.

Features:

• Invicti provides built-in reports as well as a facility to create custom reports.
• It has team management features such as creating roles, assigning issues, etc.
• It will allow you to manage vulnerabilities with the help of third-party applications like Azure DevOps and vulnerability management systems like Metasploit.
• It can be integrated into your CI/CD platform.
• Invicti provides all the functionalities to automate web security.
• It provides complete visibility of your web assets through reports like HIPAA reports, PCI reports, and OWASP reports.

Verdict: Invicti’s Asset Discovery services perform the continuous scanning of the Internet. It discovers the assets based on IP addresses, SSL certificate information, etc. It highlights the potential damage by automatically assigning the severity level to vulnerabilities.

Price: Invicti offers the solution with three pricing plans, Standard, Team, and Enterprise. You can get a quote for pricing details. Standard is an on-premises desktop scanner. The enterprise solution is available as Hosted or On-premise. The Team plan is available as a hosted solution.

#2) Acunetix (Recommended Tool)

Best for providing a complete view of your organization’s security.

Acunetix is a web application security scanner that has functionalities to find, fix, and prevent vulnerabilities. It will help you secure websites, web applications, and APIs. Though it is a vulnerability scanner, it has functionalities for managing the security of your web assets, no matter what is the scope of your web presence.

With Acunetix, you can schedule and prioritize full scans as well as incremental scans. It can be integrated with your tracking system like Jira, GitHub, etc.

Features:

• Acunetix can detect over 6500 vulnerabilities. It can detect vulnerabilities like weak passwords and exposed databases.
• It can discover vulnerabilities such as SQL injections, XSS, misconfiguration, and out-of-band vulnerabilities.
• It is a platform that can scan all pages, complex web applications, and web apps.
• It can scan the applications with a single page and lots of HTML5 and JavaScript.
• Acunetix makes use of advanced macro recording technology that will let you scan multi-level forms and password-protected areas of the site.

Verdict: This end-to-end web security scanner will give you a complete view of the security of your organization. It will provide better results in less time. It is an intuitive and easy-to-use platform.

Price: Acunetix has three pricing plans, Standard, Premium, and Acunetix 360. You can get a quote for pricing details. The price of the platform will be based on multi-year contracts.

#3) Indusface WAS

Best for OWASP Top 10 Threat Detection.

Indusface WAS is a phenomenal application security testing tool. The software is known to perform both manual pen-testing and automated scans to identify a wide range of high-risk vulnerabilities and malware that mostly go unnoticed. Its proprietary scanner was built keeping the js framework and single-page applications in mind.

This makes Indusface WAS a great software for in-depth intelligent crawling. What really makes this software shine though is its ability to detect the most common vulnerabilities that have been validated by respected institutions like OWASP and WASC. The application scanner also facilitates blacklisting tracking on major search engines and other similar platforms.

Features:

• Unlimited Scanning to detect vulnerabilities validated by OWASP and WASC.
• Complete and Intelligent Web Application Scanning.
• Extensive auditing to find specific logical business vulnerabilities.
• 24/7 customer support.
• Malware monitoring and blacklisting detection.

Verdict: Indusface WAS is a software we recommend to all businesses who wish to carry out a complete scan of their application to ferret out all sorts of vulnerabilities, malware, and critical CVE’s. It is also one of those rare software that gives you zero false positive assurance to make vulnerability fixing as simple as possible.

Price: Free plan available, $49/app/month for the advanced plan, $199/app/month for the premium plan. A 14-day free trial is also available.

#4) Intruder.io

Best for Continuous vulnerability management across your entire estate.

Intruder is an online vulnerability scanner that finds cyber security weaknesses in your digital infrastructure to avoid costly data breaches. It’s powered by industry-leading scanning engines, delivering enterprise-grade protection but without complexity.

The software performs ongoing, automated scans to identify high-risk vulnerabilities and threats that often go unnoticed.

It monitors risks across your stack, including your publicly and privately accessible servers, cloud systems, websites, and endpoint devices to find vulnerabilities such as misconfigurations, missing patches, encryption weaknesses, and application bugs, including SQL Injection, Cross-Site Scripting, OWASP top 10, and more.

Features:

• Continuous, automated attack surface monitoring.
• Actionable results prioritised by context.
• Comply with security audits such as SOC 2 and ISO 27001.
• Many integrations available to save you time.
• Complete visibility across your cloud systems.

Verdict: Intruder’s powerful scanning engines combine with a simple but comprehensive user experience makes vulnerability scanning effortless for any size business. Not only does Intruder save users time and money, but it helps them meet client demand for effortless security compliance.

Price: Free 14-day trial for Pro plan, see website for prices, monthly or annual billing available.

#5) ManageEngine Vulnerability Manager Plus

Best for Protection against Zero Day, OS, and third-party vulnerabilities.

With ManageEngine Vulnerability Manager Plus, you get a cross-compatible vulnerability management and compliance solution in one tool. The software truly excels because of its built-in remediation capabilities. Once deployed, the software can scan and discover vulnerable areas on roaming devices as well as your local and remote endpoints.

You are also armed with attacker-based analytics, which can come in handy when prioritizing areas that are more likely to suffer an attack. That said, its patch management capabilities are perhaps the best in the market today. The software allows you to download, test, and automatically deploy patches to OS and more than 500 third-party applications.

Features:

• Vulnerability Assessment and Prioritization
• Meeting security and audit objectives
• Orchestrate, customize, and automate the patch process
• Zero-day Vulnerability Mitigation

Verdict: Vulnerability Manager Plus is quite an effective end-to-end vulnerability management tool that delivers with regard to excellent coverage, complete visibility, comprehensive assessment, and remediation of various security threats.

Price: Vulnerability Manager Plus adheres to a flexible pricing structure. Its enterprise plan features an annual subscription that starts at $1195 for 100 workstations and a perpetual license that’ll cost $2987. A custom professional plan is also available upon request. A free edition with limited features and a 30-day free trial of professional and enterprise plans are also up for grabs.

#6) Offensive360

Best for Application security testing and detecting hard to find vulnerabilities in the source code including malicious code.

Offensive 360 is a comprehensive application security testing system designed to enable users to scan their applications for vulnerabilities, Software Composition Analysis (SCA), Malware, and License compliance, among other critical aspects. Offering unlimited capabilities, Offensive 360 does not impose restrictions based on the number of lines of code or projects or the number of developers.

It’s an unrestricted system that can function entirely offline, crafted by world-class cybersecurity researchers, computer scientists, and the most trusted SAST solution in the European market.

Features:

• Unlimited Source Code Scanning and Project Creation: Offensive 360 allows infinite source code scanning and project creation.
• Developer-Friendly: With the ability to seamlessly integrate with any CI/CD pipeline, Offensive 360 also offers IDE plugins for Visual Studio, VSCode, IntelliJ, and Eclipse.
• Rich Knowledge Base: Our platform has a rich knowledge base, enabling developers to learn throughout the process.
• Accurate Results: Offensive 360 prioritizes research orientation over commercial orientation, ensuring highly accurate results.

Verdict: Offensive 360 delivers superior performance in the market in terms of speed and accuracy. It detects nuanced vulnerabilities that even skilled security researchers may find challenging to identify.

Pricing: For more detailed pricing information, please do not hesitate to contact Offensive 360 directly.

#7) Veracode

Best for the management of the entire application security program in a single platform.

Veracode offers a Web application security testing solution. With the help of Veracode, testing will be seamlessly integrated into your development and hence it becomes easier and cost-effective to eliminate vulnerabilities.

Further reading =>> Best alternatives to Veracode security testing solution

Veracode web application security testing tools are accessible through an online portal. You will not require any additional hardware, software, or security expertise to use Veracode. As it is a cloud-based solution, code review tools can get available on-demand.

Features:

• Veracode web application security testing solution provides the tools for Black-box analysis and manual penetration testing.
• It offers penetration testing services that will help you augment automated web application security testing.
• Its Black-box analysis services will discover vulnerabilities in the applications that are running in the production.
• Veracode App Security Testing services provide the functionalities for Web Application Scanning, Static Analysis, Veracode Static Analysis IDE Scan, etc.

Verdict: Veracode is a lightweight and cost-effective web application security testing solution that offers a wide range of solutions such as Web App Penetration Testing, Web Application Audit, Static Code Analysis, etc. It is a scalable and easy-to-use solution.

Price: You can get a code for Veracode pricing. As per the review, the tool will cost you $500 per app for the dynamic scan and $4500 per year for the static analysis.

Website: Veracode

#8) Checkmarx

Best for application security testing.

Checkmarx is a comprehensive software security platform. It has various tools for application security testing. Checkmarx integrates SAST, SCA, IAST, and AppSec Awareness into one platform. Checkmarx supports on-premise, in the cloud, or hybrid environment’s deployment.

Features:

• Checkmarx provides the features of interactive application security testing.
• Its CxOSA is for Software Composition Analysis.
• CxSAST is a tool for Static Application Security Testing.
• It offers CxCodebashing for Developer AppSec Training.

Verdict: Checkmarx is the best fit solution for DevSecOps. The tool will create an infrastructure for software security essential. It will seamlessly get embedded in your CI/CD pipeline. It can be used from uncompiled code to runtime testing.

Price: You can get a quote for the Checkmarx platform. As per reviews, it may cost you $59K per year for 12 developers. Or $99K per year for 50 developers.

Website: Checkmarx

#9) Rapid7

Best for shared visibility, analytics, and automation capabilities.

Rapid7 provides solutions for Application Security, Vulnerability Management, Cloud Security, Detection & Response, and Orchestration & Automation. Its InsightAppSec is a cloud-based Dynamic Application Security Testing Solution. It can scan the complex and internal as well as external modern web applications.

InsectAppSec will perform the automatic crawling and assessment of web applications and discovers the vulnerabilities like SQL Injection, XSS, and CSRF. Rapid7 has a library of over 90 attack modules that can identify various vulnerabilities. Attach Replay is the solution for providing interactive HTML reports. You will be able to share these reports with your development team and business stakeholders.

Features:

• Rapid7 has a Universal Translator that can recognize the formats, development technologies, and protocols used in today’s web applications.
• It has features to scan scheduling and blackouts.
• It has a cloud as well as on-premises scan engines.
• With Rapid7 you will get powerful reporting for compliance and remediation.

Verdict: Rapid7 will speed your remediation and improve the security posture. It is a platform with modern UI and intuitive workflows. The platform is easy to manage and run. Rapid7 has a wide range of solutions for various use cases like penetration testing, on-premise vulnerability management, on-premises application security, etc.

Price: Rapid7 offers a free trial of 30 days. InsightAppSec price starts at $2000 per app. This price is for annual billing.

Website: Rapid7

#10) Synopsys

Best for addressing a wide range of security & quality defects.

Synopsys has application security and quality analysis tools. A wide range of security and quality defects can be addressed by Synopsys. It will seamlessly get integrated into your DevOps environment. It offers the functionalities to find bugs and security risks in proprietary source code, third-party binaries, and open-source dependencies. It can identify runtime vulnerabilities in the applications, APIs, protocols, and containers.

Features:

• Synopsys provides the tool for Static Analysis Security Testing that can find quality and security issues in the code.
• It has functionalities to secure and manage open source applications, containers, and services.
• Interactive Application Security Testing features will help you automate web application security testing.
• It has functionalities for , API Security Testing, and Protocol fuzzing.

Verdict: Synopsys offers tools for application security testing, IP integration, verification, etc. It is built to fulfill the requirements of CI/CD and DevSecOps. The platform will seamlessly get integrated into your workflow.

Price: You can get a quote for pricing details.

Website: Synopsys

Further Reading => Most Popular Software Supply Chain Security Vendors

#11) ZAP

Best for testing web applications.

OWASP Zed Attack Proxy, in short ZAP, is a web app scanner. It is a free and open-source tool. A dedicated team of international volunteers maintains ZAP. For the automation of security, ZAP offers powerful APIs. There are various add-ons available in the ZAP marketplace that will extend the ZAP’s functionality.

Features:

• ZAP has features for HTTP active & passive scanning and WebSockets passive scanning.
• It provides alerts with a flag that will indicate the risk.
• It can handle various Authentication Methods to be used for websites or web apps.
• ZAP contains many more features like Anti-CSRF-Tokens, Breakpoints, Contexts, Data-Driven Content, HTTP Sessions, etc.

Verdict: ZAP provides a platform to perform security testing. It is a flexible and extensible platform to test web applications. You can connect the ZAP to the already using proxy. It can be used by developers, new security testers, and security testing experts.

Price: ZAP is a Free and open-source tool.

Website: ZAP

#12) AppCheck Ltd.

Best for automating the discovery of security flaws.

AppCheck is a security scanning tool that can perform the automatic discovery of security flaws in websites, cloud infrastructures, applications, and networks. Its vulnerability management dashboard is completely configurable and you can configure it as per the current security posture. AppCheck will help you to quickly launch scans.

Features:

• AppCheck has features for application and infrastructure scanning.
• You will be able to secure your development life cycle with AppCheck.
• AppCheck provides reports that include elaborated and easily understandable remediation advice on vulnerabilities.
• It has pre-defined scan profiles and features of re-scanning and vulnerability scanning that will be helpful to retest the individual vulnerability.
• It has granular scheduling features that will let the scan run for the permitted scan window, pause automatically and resume as per the configured schedule.

Verdict: AppCheck is the platform to automate the discovery of vulnerabilities in your websites, cloud infrastructure, etc. It offers all licenses for unlimited users and unlimited scanning, 24 hrs a day. It is the platform with key features of zero-day detection and a browser-based crawler.

Price: You can get a quote for pricing details. A free trial is available.

Website: AppCheck

#13) Wfuzz

Best for brute-forcing web applications.

Wfuzz is a brute forcer that works for web applications. It will help you with finding resources that are not linked, such as serverlets, directories, etc. It can be used to check various injections, such as SQL, XSS, and LDAP, by brute-forcing GET and POST parameters. You can also brute force Forms parameters like user or passwords with Wfuzz.

Features:

• Wfuzz has features for Output to HTML, colored Output, and hiding results by return code, regex, line numbers, and word numbers.
• It has features of Cookies fuzzing, multi-threading, proxy support.
• Wfuzz will let your brute force HTTP methods.

Verdict: This web application Bruteforcer can be used for multiple functionalities like finding resources that are not linked or checking various injections, etc. It supports multiple proxies.

Price: Free tool

Website: Wfuzz

#14) Wapiti

Best for vulnerability scanning of web applications.

Wapiti is a web application vulnerability scanner that can also be used for auditing the security of websites and web applications. A black-box scan will be performed by the tool. It will not verify the source code of the application.

To perform the black box scan of the applications, it crawls the web pages of the deployed web app and identifies the scripts & forms to inject the data. Once it is finished with finding the list of URLs, forms, and their inputs, Wapiti will inject payloads and validate the vulnerability of the script.

Features:

• Wapiti is good at finding various vulnerabilities such as file disclosure, database injection, XSS, Command Execution, CRLF, XXE, SSRF, etc.
• It can identify the presence of backup files that are providing sensitive information.
• It has features to suspend and resume a scan or an attack.
• It can find uncommon HTTP methods that can be allowed.
• It offers various browsing features like authentication through several methods, supporting HTTP, HTTPS, etc.

Verdict: This web application vulnerability scanner is a command-line application and provides a fast and easy way to activate and deactivate attack modules. The tool makes it easier to add a payload.

Price: Wapiti is available for free.

Website: Wapiti

#15) MisterScanner

Best for online website vulnerability scanning.

MisterScanner is an online website vulnerability scanner. It contains automated testing functionality. It provides simplified reports. It has a facility that will let you choose a weekly or monthly scan. It supports OWASP, XSS, SQLi, and an SSL Test. It provides functionalities for cross-site scripting, SQL injection, cross-site request forgery, malware, and 3000 other tests.

Features:

• 1000+ security problems that are used by hackers can be identified by MisterScanner.
• It provides reports based on the results of the tests.
• The reports will have simple explanations about the security issue, how it is used by hackers, and how it can be resolved.
• It provides prompt alerts through email or text messages.

Verdict: MisterScanner is an online website vulnerability scanner with more than 1000 security tests, the facility to provide simple explanations through reports, and prompt alerts through email or text messages.

Price: MisterScanner is available with three pricing plans, Abbey ($15), MisterScanner ($19.99), and Scan Premium ($290). These prices are for the monthly billing cycle. An annual billing cycle is also available. You can try the tool for free.

Conclusion

Most businesses develop web applications in-house and hence it is necessary to secure them. This factor increases the need for application security.

Securing applications is a continuous process and hence should get integrated into the software development and testing workflows. Web application security can be achieved through scanning accuracy. Finding vulnerabilities will be easier and faster with the help of vulnerability scanners.

Also Read =>> Popular DAST tools

Invicti (formerly Netsparker) and Acunetix are our top recommended solutions as web application security scanners. Invicti (formerly Netsparker) has vulnerability management and reporting functionalities. It will help you by prioritizing tasks. Regardless of the scope of your web presence Acunetix will help you with managing the security of your web assets.

Finding out the best application security testing tools from the several options available in the market is a difficult task. To make this process easier, we have shortlisted and reviewed the top eleven application security testing tools. We have also included some free tools in this list, such as ZAP, Wfuzz, and Wapiti.

We wish you will find the right solution for your environment with the help of this article.

Research Process: 

• Time taken to research and write this article: 24 Hours
• Total tools researched online: 22
• Top tools shortlisted for review: 11