No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Acunetix vs Checkmarx SAST comparison

Why PeerSpot?
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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 Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
11th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (16th), Vulnerability Management (30th), DevSecOps (8th)
Checkmarx SAST
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
21st
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of Acunetix is 2.5%, down from 3.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Checkmarx SAST is 2.3%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Static Application Security Testing (SAST) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Acunetix2.5%
Checkmarx SAST2.3%
Other95.2%
Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
 

Featured Reviews

Rahul Kumar - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Engineer - Penetration Tester at a government with 10,001+ employees
Identifies vulnerabilities across bulk web applications but needs better support and cleaner reports
The best feature Acunetix offers is the centralized dashboard and the quality of reports it generates, which includes various options for selecting reports and developer options for directly sharing the reports with developers. The centralized dashboard of Acunetix gives visibility into the security aspects of mass applications; for instance, with more than 200 applications, it provides a valuable overview of findings and necessary fixes, along with a high-level summary that helps us achieve compliance through monthly and sometimes weekly scanning. In terms of reporting, Acunetix is excellent because it can generate different types of reports, such as an executive summary report, detailed reports, and developer reports that can be shared directly with developers. Acunetix positively impacts my organization by helping identify outdated libraries and applications, including legacy applications vulnerable to old attacks based on OWASP Top 10, thus aiding in compliance checks for PCI DSS and OWASP. Acunetix provides a centralized report with compliance-related aspects and a vulnerability timeline, effectively helping reduce vulnerabilities and save time.
Tharindu Malwenna - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Application Security Engineer at a newspaper with 5,001-10,000 employees
Has supported early vulnerability detection but requires tuning to reduce false positives and scanning delays
When assessing the accuracy and efficiency of Checkmarx SAST scanning capabilities, they are currently recommending that doing the full scan is the main, correct way of scanning the repositories. However, based on the repository size we have, it sometimes takes more than 10 minutes for larger repositories, which is a downside. The accuracy of the results depends on various factors, as some of the test folders tend to give us false positives, which makes a huge impact on the vulnerabilities. Those are the major things that we have to fine-tune from our end. I would rate Checkmarx SAST around a seven, as it does have some false positives we have to work with, which are the major concerning things. The number of false positives is significant because we cannot implement policies because of this.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's very user-friendly for the testing teams. It's very easy for them to understand things and to fix vulnerabilities."
"The solution is highly stable."
"One of the features that I feel is groundbreaking, that I would like to see expanded on, is the IAS feature: The Interactive Application Security Testing module that gets loaded onto an application on a server, for more in-depth, granular findings. I think that is really neat. I haven't seen a lot of competitors doing that."
"If an organization has 100 plus applications and wants to use an automated scanner, they should definitely go ahead with Acunetix because it is very cost-effective and will save time compared to focusing on other solutions and performing manual security assessments."
"For us, the most valuable aspect of the solution is the log-sequence feature."
"Acunetix is the best service in the world. It is easy to manage. It gives a lot of information to the users to see and identify problems in their site or applications. It works very well."
"By integrating with CI/CD tools, it enables a shift-left approach in the development process."
"With Acunetix, we cut the time to make infrastructures and web applications for our colleagues more secure, and for one application with two or three critical vulnerabilities and some other vulnerabilities, it took about a week to remediate issues because the scan and findings were really fast."
"The most important feature is that Checkmarx protects our company against attacks."
"The detailed reports from Checkmarx SAST help with our security process by showing details about which line is actually vulnerable, which is beneficial for the developers, and I do not have any suggestions or inputs on that area."
"The CX1 is a unified platform that covers all components such as SAST, SCA, DAST, container scanning, and infrastructure code, which is quite beneficial because some clients need one-stop solutions for all their needs."
"This helps us a lot in identifying vulnerabilities in early stages, and the integration within the IDEs helps developers get the results into their IDE itself, making it easier for them to fix vulnerabilities."
"The most important competitive advantage and benefit is the ability to identify vulnerabilities in the source code immediately without needing to complete the coding."
 

Cons

"However, it doesn't seem very helpful or useful for scanning web services, and that has what I feel that the organization could work better on that."
"There are quite a few false positives that come out. It's mostly based upon finding XSS vulnerabilities, even though we know that XSS vulnerabilities do not exist within some of the web applications because of some frameworks we're using."
"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."
"Currently only supports web scanning."
"There's a clear need for a reduction in pricing to make the service more accessible."
"The time to fix issues is not too quick, so in the case of time-restricted projects for some customers, this might become a problem."
"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."
"The solution limits the number of scans. It would be much better if we could have unlimited scans."
"The accuracy of the results depends on various factors, as some of the test folders tend to give us false positives, which makes a huge impact on the vulnerabilities."
"The on-premises version is more expensive compared to the cloud version."
"We had some issues where Checkmarx did not recognize a vulnerability. We had to talk with the vendor, and they had to include an improvement in the tool to resolve this issue."
"I believe that nothing in particular could be improved about Checkmarx SAST, only the turnaround time and the fact that technical account managers keep moving around, which leads to some lag in communication."
"The main challenge with Checkmarx SAST is the price. The price is a challenge because Checkmarx SAST is a very big brand, and many mid-sized companies cannot afford it as they are very price-conscious."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Acunetix was around the same price as all the other vendors we looked at, nothing special."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"All things considered, I think it has a good price/value ratio."
"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 cost is based on two types of licenses, ConsultLite, and ConsultPlus, as well as the number of domains that are scanned."
"The costs aren't very expensive. It costs around $3000 or $4000."
Information not available
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Static Application Security Testing (SAST) solutions are best for your needs.
913,683 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business18
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise19
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your primary use case for Acunetix Vulnerability Scanner?
In a typical enterprise environment, Acunetix is mainly used for visibility, detection, and investigation across network traffic. The main use cases usually fall into a few core areas, with primary...
What advice do you have for others considering Acunetix Vulnerability Scanner?
I advise that Acunetix is the best option. Invest time in proper initial configuration and scope definitions. The tool is powerful, but its effectiveness depends heavily on how the authenticated ar...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Acunetix?
Everything is perfect and good, including the pricing and all related aspects.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Checkmarx SAST?
We were users in a small country, and we paid one consolidated bill for all the tools, so I don't know the specific amount for Checkmarx.
What needs improvement with Checkmarx SAST?
I believe that nothing in particular could be improved about Checkmarx SAST, only the turnaround time and the fact that technical account managers keep moving around, which leads to some lag in com...
What is your primary use case for Checkmarx SAST?
I manage the application security side of the products here, currently utilizing solutions such as Checkmarx, Akamai, Traceable, and Invicti, which are the security scanning tools that we use. In t...
 

Also Known As

AcuSensor
SAST
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Joomla!, Digicure, Team Random, Credit Suisse, Samsung, Air New Zealand
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Acunetix vs. Checkmarx SAST and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
913,683 professionals have used our research since 2012.