Acunetix vs Contrast Security Assess comparison

Invicti and Contrast Security are both solutions in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category. Invicti is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.4, while Contrast Security is ranked #28. Invicti holds a 2.9% mindshare in SAST, compared to Contrast Security’s 0.8% mindshare. Additionally, 88% of Invicti users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Contrast Security users who would recommend it.

Acunetix

Read 38 Acunetix reviews

6,206 Views
3,910 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

Contrast Security Assess

Read 11 Contrast Security Assess reviews

1,722 Views
895 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: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Acunetix vs. Contrast Security Assess

December 2025

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Helped 881,082 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

12th

Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

7th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Vulnerability Management (19th), 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 January 2026, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of Acunetix is 2.9%, down from 3.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Contrast Security Assess is 0.8%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Static Application Security Testing (SAST) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Acunetix	2.9%
Contrast Security Assess	0.8%
Other	96.3%

Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

Featured Reviews

Rahul Kumar

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.

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reviewer1605099

Director of Threat and Vulnerability Management at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees

We're gathering vulnerability data from multiple environments in real time, fundamentally changing how we identify issues in applications

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. Assess also provides the option of helping developers incorporate security elements while they're writing code. It depends on whether individual developers decide to utilize the information that's provided to them from the solution, but it definitely gives them visibility into more environments. It gives them an opportunity to remediate vulnerabilities well before production deployments.

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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

"The solution is excellent at detecting SQL injection and cross-site scripting vulnerabilities."

"Overall, it's a very good tool and a very good engine."

"Since implementing Acunetix, I have seen improvements as we have discovered real vulnerabilities and threats on our web application server, which is very critical to our organization."

"The most valuable feature of Acunetix is the UI and the scan results are simple."

"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."

"We are able to create a report which shows the PCI DSS scoring and share it with the application teams. Then, they can correlate and see exactly what they need to fix, and why."

"Our developers can run the attacks directly from their environments, desktops."

"Acunetix has saved me a lot of time in security checks and automating security testing with the workflow without adding too much complexity."

More Acunetix pros

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

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

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

"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."

More Contrast Security Assess pros

Cons

"It is difficult to create a proxy connection."

"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."

"I believe Acunetix can improve customer support, as the dedicated support staff are often unfamiliar with problems and troubleshooting, leading to communication gaps that delay issue resolution."

"Acunetix needs to be dynamic with JavaScript code, unlike Netsparker which can scan complex agents."

"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 is generally stable, however, there might be room for improvement regarding glitches or bugs."

"Acunetix needs to include agent analysis."

"The solution can be improved by adding the ability to scan subdomains automatically, and by providing reports that can be exported to external databases to share with other solutions."

More Acunetix cons

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

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

More Contrast Security Assess cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"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."

"The solution is expensive."

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

"The costs aren't very expensive. It costs around $3000 or $4000."

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

"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."

"The price is exceptionally high."

More Acunetix pricing and cost advice

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

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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

14%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Financial Services Firm

23%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Computer Software Company

10%

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	15
Midsize Enterprise	7
Large Enterprise	17

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	2
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	6

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?

My main use case for Acunetix is providing a vulnerability scanner for our web application server. I use Acunetix to scan our web security and discover vulnerabilities so we can patch these vulnera...

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

My advice to others looking into using Acunetix is that it is really helpful to discover the web attacks and have great, powerful reporting so you can have reduced incidents to look at. I have rate...

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Compared 7% of the time

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Compared 5% of the time

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Compared 5% of the time

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Compared 4% of the time

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Compared 4% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Acunetix

January 2026

Download Acunetix product report

Buyer's Guide

Contrast Security Assess

January 2026

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

December 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: December 2025.

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