Acunetix vs Contrast Security Assess comparison

Invicti and Contrast Security are both solutions in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category. Invicti is ranked #13 with an average rating of 8.3, while Contrast Security is ranked #28 with an average rating of 8.0. 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 33 Acunetix reviews

6,393 Views
4,155 Comparison Views

86% willing to recommend

Contrast Security Assess

Read 11 Contrast Security Assess reviews

1,269 Views
723 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: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Acunetix vs. Contrast Security Assess

July 2025

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Helped 861,524 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

16th

Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

13th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Vulnerability Management (22nd), DevSecOps (6th)

Contrast Security Assess

Ranking in Application Security Tools

30th

Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

28th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of Acunetix is 3.5%, up from 2.6% 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

KashifJamil

CEO at Xcelliti

Has enabled teams to improve security testing with smooth integration and high accuracy

Acunetix has a very good ratio of fewer false positives, so users don't need to retest everything. Acunetix operates smoothly with no interruptions required, and it performs at 100% efficiency without issues in scanning anything. The solution is excellent at detecting SQL injection and cross-site scripting vulnerabilities. Acunetix integrates with every type of tool, including CI/CD tools, offering 100% integration in DevOps environments. The main benefit of Acunetix is that at the first level, users can address security issues related to penetration testing, allowing them to expose vulnerabilities and ensure all required testing is completed with very few false positives.

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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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The scalability is good. The scalability is more than good because it can operate both as a standalone and it can be integrated as part of applications. So that really makes it a very, very versatile solution to have."

"I find it to be one of the most comprehensive tools, with support for manual intervention."

"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."

"The vulnerability scanning option for analyzing the security loopholes on the websites is the most valuable feature of this solution."

"The tool's most valuable feature is performance."

"The product is really easy to use."

"The usability and overall scan results are good."

"I haven't seen reporting of that level in any other tool."

More Acunetix pros

"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."

"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."

"Assess has an excellent API interface to pull APIs."

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

"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."

"The solution is very accurate in identifying vulnerabilities. In cases where we are performing application assessment using Contrast Assess, and also using legacy application security testing tools, Contrast successfully identifies the same vulnerabilities that the other tools have identified but it also identifies significantly more. In addition, it has visibility into application components that other testing methodologies are unaware of."

"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."

"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."

More Contrast Security Assess pros

Cons

"It should be easier to recreate something manually, with the manual tool, because Acunetix is an automatic tool. If it finds something, it should be easier to manually replicate it. Sometimes you don't get the raw data from the input and output, so that could be improved."

"The solution's pricing could be better."

"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."

"The only problem that they have is the price. It is a bit expensive, and you cannot change the number of applications for the whole year."

"The pricing is a bit on the higher side."

"I rate its stability six out of ten."

"The cost can be reduced as management has noted it to be on the higher side."

"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

"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 out-of-the-box reporting could be improved. We need to write our own APIs to make the reporting more robust."

"Personalization of the board and how to make it appealing to an organization is something that could be done on their end. The reports could be adaptable to the customer's preferences."

"To instrument an agent, it has to be running on a type of application technology that the agent recognizes and understands. It's excellent when it works. If we're using an application that is using an unsupported technology, then we can't instrument it at all. We do use PHP and Contrast presently doesn't support that, although it's on their roadmap. My primary hurdle is that it doesn't support all of the technologies that we use."

"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."

"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."

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

"I would like to see them come up with more scanning rules."

More Contrast Security Assess cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Acunetix was around the same price as all the other vendors we looked at, nothing special."

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

"The price is exceptionally high."

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

"Implementing Acunetix needs a medium or larger business agency, because you need some money to get Acunetix. It is costly, but if you care about your agency's security, then maybe it's a cost that might help you in the future."

"When compared with other products, the pricing is a little bit high. But it gives value for the price. It serves the purpose and is worthwhile for the price we pay."

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

"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

"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."

"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."

"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."

"The solution is expensive."

"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."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

14%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

22%

Manufacturing Company

11%

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.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Acunetix Vulnerability Scanner?

Most of the customers who use Acunetix are looking for security testing. The primary use case is performing penetration testing. The main use cases include vulnerability scanning, security testing,...

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

Acunetix supports multi-user environments effectively. Acunetix is targeted for small to mid-size teams in a DevSecOps environment, making it the best choice for small and mid-size companies, offer...

See all answers

What do you like most about Contrast Security Assess?

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

See all answers

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

What advice do you have for others considering Contrast Security Assess?

Contrast Security Assess is deployed on-cloud in our organization. I would recommend Contrast Security Assess to other users. It's a really good tool. It provides lots of details on web-based vulne...

See all answers

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Acunetix

July 2025

Download Acunetix product report

Buyer's Guide

Contrast Security Assess

July 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

July 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: July 2025.

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