Acunetix vs Contrast Security Assess comparison

Invicti and Contrast Security are both solutions in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category. Invicti is ranked #14 with an average rating of 8.3, while Contrast Security is ranked #22 with an average rating of 8.7. Invicti holds a 3.5% mindshare in SAST, compared to Contrast Security’s 0.5% mindshare. Additionally, 86% of Invicti users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Contrast Security users who would recommend it.

Acunetix

Read 32 Acunetix reviews

4,309 Views
3,462 Comparison Views

86% willing to recommend

Contrast Security Assess

Read 11 Contrast Security Assess reviews

766 Views
488 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Acunetix

Contrast Security Assess

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 8, 2024

Acunetix and Contrast Security Assess compete in the security solutions category. Contrast Security Assess appears to have the upper hand in feature offerings due to its real-time detection and integration capabilities.

Features: Acunetix is recognized for comprehensive scanning capabilities, detailed vulnerability reports, and competitive pricing. Contrast Security Assess is noted for its integration capabilities, real-time detection, and superior feature offerings.

Room for Improvement: Acunetix could improve by enhancing scalability, increasing update frequency, and expanding adaptability. Contrast Security Assess may benefit from improved documentation, simplifying its learning curve, and refining user guidance.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Acunetix is known for straightforward deployment and effective customer service. Contrast Security Assess has a more complex setup but is supported by robust customer service once deployed.

Pricing and ROI: Acunetix is seen as cost-effective, offering quick ROI and affordability. Contrast Security Assess, while more expensive, is viewed as a worthwhile investment given its advanced features and high long-term returns.

To learn more, read our detailed Acunetix vs. Contrast Security Assess Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Acunetix vs. Contrast Security Assess

April 2025

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Helped 847,625 peers since 2012

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

Acunetix

Ranking in Application Security Tools

17th

Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

14th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Vulnerability Management (23rd), DevSecOps (6th)

Contrast Security Assess

Ranking in Application Security Tools

26th

Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

22nd

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of Acunetix is 3.5%, up from 2.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Contrast Security Assess is 0.5%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

Featured Reviews

AnubhavGoswami

Compliance Manager at Compunnel

Attractive automated reports with boost user productivity and an easy setup

The primary use is mainly related to vulnerability assessment, including both public and internal IP addresses By using this tool, we have reduced the workload and increased the productivity of users. It generates automated reports. This feature is beneficial when sharing reports with clients as…

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ToddMcAlister

Lead Application and Data Security Engineer at a insurance company with 5,001-10,000 employees

It has an excellent API interface to pull APIs.

Assess has brought our development time down because it helps create code the first time. Instead of going through the Jenkins process to build an application, they can see right off the bat that if there are errors in the code and fix them before it even goes to build.

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Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"Acunetix has an awesome crawler. It gives a referral site map of near targets and also goes really deep to find all the inputs without issues. This was valuable because it helped me find some files or directories, like web admin panels without authentication, which were hidden."

"The features of Acunetix have proved most effective in identifying vulnerabilities."

"There is a lot of documentation on their website which makes setting it up and using it quite simple."

"We use the solution for the scanning of vulnerabilities like SQL injections."

"The most important feature is that it's a web-based graphical user interface. That is a great addition. Also, the ability to schedule scans is great."

"By integrating with CI/CD tools, it enables a shift-left approach in the development process."

"It's very user-friendly for the testing teams. It's very easy for them to understand things and to fix vulnerabilities."

"It can operate both as a standalone and it can be integrated with other applications, which makes it a very versatile solution to have."

More Acunetix pros

"No other tool does the runtime scanning like Contrast does. Other static analysis tools do static scanning, but Contrast is runtime analysis, when the routes are exercised. That's when the scan happens. This is a tool that has a very unique capability compared to other tools. That's what I like most about Contrast, that it's runtime."

"This has changed the way that developers are looking at usage of third-party libraries, upfront. It's changing our model of development and our culture of development to ensure that there is more thought being put into the usage of third-party libraries."

"The most valuable feature is the continuous monitoring aspect: the fact that we don't have to wait for scans to complete for the tool to identify vulnerabilities. They're automatically identified through developers' business-as-usual processes."

"It is a stable solution...Contrast Security Assess is one of the first players in this market, so they have experience and customers, especially abroad. Overall, it's a good product."

"I am impressed with the product's identification of alerts and vulnerabilities."

"By far, the thing that was able to provide value was the immediate response while testing ahead of release, in real-time."

"In our most critical applications, we have a deep dive in the code evaluation, which was something we usually did with periodic vulnerability assessments, code reviews, etc. Now, we have real time access to it. It's something that has greatly enhanced our code's quality. We have actually embedded a KPI in regards to the improvement of our code shell. For example, Contrast provides a baseline where libraries and the usability of the code are evaluated, and they produce a score. We always aim to improve that score. On a quarterly basis, we have added this to our KPIs."

"We use the Contrast OSS feature that allows us to look at third-party, open-source software libraries, because it has a cool interface where you can look at all the different libraries. It has some really cool additional features where it gives us how many instances in which something has been used... It tells us it has been used 10 times out of 20 workloads, for example. Then we know for sure that OSS is being used."

More Contrast Security Assess pros

Cons

"There are some versions of the solution that are not as stable as others."

"Currently only supports web scanning."

"While we do have it integrated with other solutions, it could still offer more integrations."

"It would be nice to have a feature to "retest" only a single vulnerability that the customer reports as patched, and delete it from the next scans since it has already been patched."

"Acunetix needs to improve its cost."

"There is room for improvement in website authentication because I've seen other products that can do it much better."

"You can't actually change your password after you've set it unless you go back into the administration account and you change it there. Thus, if you're locked out and don't remember your password, that's a thing."

"Integration into other tools is very limited for Acunetix. While we're trying to incorporate a CI/CD process where we're integrating with JIRA and we're integrating with Jenkins and Chef, it becomes problematic. Other tools give you a high integration capability to connect into different solutions that you may already have, like JIRA."

More Acunetix cons

"The product's retesting part needs improvement. The tool also needs improvement in the suggestions provided for fixing vulnerabilities. It relies more on documentation rather than on quick fixes."

"The solution needs to improve flexibility...The scalability of the product is a problem in the solution, especially from a commercial perspective."

"Contrast Security Assess covers a wide range of applications like .NET Framework, Java, PSP, Node.js, etc. But there are some like Ubuntu and the .NET Core which are not covered. They have it in their roadmap to have these agents. If they have that, we will have complete coverage."

"Contrast's ability to support upgrades on the actual agents that get deployed is limited. Our environment is pretty much entirely Java. There are no updates associated with that. You have to actually download a new version of the .jar file and push that out to your servers where your app is hosted. That can be quite cumbersome from a change-management perspective."

"The setup of the solution is different for each application. That's the one thing that has been a challenge for us. The deployment itself is simple, but it's tough to automate because each application is different, so each installation process for Contrast is different."

"I think there was activity underway to support the centralized configuration control. There are ways to do it, but I think they were productizing more of that."

"Regarding the solution's OSS feature, the one drawback that we do have is that it does not have client-side support. We'll be missing identification of libraries like jQuery or JavaScript, and such, that are client-side."

"The solution should provide more details in the section where it shows that third-party libraries have CVEs or some vulnerabilities."

More Contrast Security Assess cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I would say that Acunetix is expensive because there are products on the market with similar features that are equally or better-priced."

"The cost is based on two types of licenses, ConsultLite, and ConsultPlus, as well as the number of domains that are scanned."

"All things considered, I think it has a good price/value ratio."

"The solution is expensive."

"The pricing and licensing are reasonable to a point. In order to run multiple scans at a time, we are going to have to purchase a 100 count license, which is an overkill. Though, compared to what we were paying for, the cost seems reasonable."

"When we looked at all other vendors and what they were asking for, to provide a third of what Acunetix was capable of doing, it was an easy decision... But now that it's coming to a cost where it's line with market value, it becomes more of a competition... Acunetix is raising the cost of licensing. It's 3.5 times what we were initially quoted."

"The price is exceptionally high."

"It is a bit expensive. If you need to check five applications, you have to pay almost 14,000. It is an agreement for two years at 7,000 per year for only five applications. You cannot change the applications in the license. So, you are stuck with the same license for the five applications for one full year."

More Acunetix pricing and cost advice

"You only get one license for an application. Ours are very big, monolithic applications with millions of lines of code. We were able to apply one license to one monolithic application, which is great. We are happy with the licensing. Pricing-wise, they are industry-standard, which is fine."

"I like the per-application licensing model... We just license the app and we look at different vulnerabilities on that app and we remediate within the app. It's simpler."

"It's a tiered licensing model. The more you buy, as you cross certain quantity thresholds, the pricing changes. If you have a smaller environment, your licensing costs are going to be different than a larger environment... The licensing is primarily per application. An application can be as many agents as you need. If you've got 10 development servers and 20 production servers and 50 QA servers, all of those agents can be reporting as a single application that utilizes one license."

"The solution is expensive."

"For what it offers, it's a very reasonable cost. The way that it is priced is extremely straightforward. It works on the number of applications that you use, and you license a server. It is something that is extremely fair, because it doesn't take into consideration the number of requests, etc. It is only priced based on the number of onboarded applications. It suits our model as well, because we have huge traffic. Our number of applications is not that large, so the pricing works great for us."

"The product's pricing is low. I would rate it a two out of ten."

"The good news is that the agent itself comes in two different forms: the unlicensed form and the licensed form. Unlicensed gives use of that software composition analysis for free. Thereafter, if you apply a license to that same agent, that's when the instrumentation takes hold. So one of my suggestions is to do what we're doing: Deploy the agent to as many applications as possible, with just the SCA feature turned on with no license applied, and then you can be more choosy and pick which teams will get the license applied."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

18%

Financial Services Firm

14%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

23%

Manufacturing Company

13%

Computer Software Company

10%

Insurance Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Acunetix Vulnerability Scanner?

The tool's most valuable feature is scan configurations. We use it for external physical applications. The scanning time depends on the application's code.

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What is your primary use case for Acunetix Vulnerability Scanner?

I typically use Acunetix ( /products/acunetix-reviews ) to identify vulnerabilities for clients.

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What advice do you have for others considering Acunetix Vulnerability Scanner?

I would recommend Acunetix to others. Overall, I rate this solution seven out of ten.

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What do you like most about Contrast Security Assess?

When we access the application, it continuously monitors and detects vulnerabilities.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Contrast Security Assess?

The product's pricing is low. I would rate it a two out of ten.

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What needs improvement with Contrast Security Assess?

Technical support for the solution should be faster. We have to further analyze what kind of CVEs are in the reported libraries and what part of the code is affected. That analysis can be added to ...

See all answers

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Compared 7% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Acunetix

April 2025

Download Acunetix product report

Buyer's Guide

Contrast Security Assess

April 2025

Download Contrast Security Assess product report

Also Known As

AcuSensor

Contrast Assess

Overview

Acunetix Web Vulnerability Scanner is an automated web application security testing tool that audits your web applications by checking for vulnerabilities like SQL Injection, Cross site scripting, and other exploitable vulnerabilities.

Invicti

Contrast Security is the world’s leading provider of security technology that enables software applications to protect themselves against cyberattacks, heralding the new era of self-protecting software. Contrast's patented deep security instrumentation is the breakthrough technology that enables highly accurate assessment and always-on protection of an entire application portfolio, without disruptive scanning or expensive security experts. Only Contrast has sensors that work actively inside applications to uncover vulnerabilities, prevent data breaches, and secure the entire enterprise from development, to operations, to production.

Contrast Security

Sample Customers

Joomla!, Digicure, Team Random, Credit Suisse, Samsung, Air New Zealand

Williams-Sonoma, Autodesk, HUAWEI, Chromeriver, RingCentral, Demandware.

Buyer's Guide

Acunetix vs. Contrast Security Assess

April 2025

Free Report: Acunetix vs. Contrast Security Assess

Find out what your peers are saying about Acunetix vs. Contrast Security Assess and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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