Acunetix vs Contrast Security Assess comparison

Invicti and Contrast Security are both solutions in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category. Invicti is ranked #10 with an average rating of 7.9, while Contrast Security is ranked #27. Invicti holds a 2.6% mindshare in SAST, compared to Contrast Security’s 1.0% 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 36 Acunetix reviews

6,676 Views
4,072 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

Contrast Security Assess

Read 11 Contrast Security Assess reviews

2,206 Views
1,147 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: March 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Acunetix vs. Contrast Security Assess

March 2026

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Helped 884,873 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

14th

Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

10th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Vulnerability Management (28th), DevSecOps (6th)

Contrast Security Assess

Ranking in Application Security Tools

29th

Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

27th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of Acunetix is 2.6%, down from 3.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Contrast Security Assess is 1.0%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Static Application Security Testing (SAST) Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Acunetix	2.6%
Contrast Security Assess	1.0%
Other	96.4%

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

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

"The most valuable feature of the solution is the speed at which it can scan multiple domains in just a few hours."

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

"For us, the most valuable aspect of the solution is the log-sequence feature."

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

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

"Their technical support has been very active. If I have an issue, I can reach out to them and get an answer pretty quick."

"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."

More Acunetix pros

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

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

"The accuracy of the solution in identifying vulnerabilities is better than any other product we've used, far and away. In our internal comparisons among different tools, Contrast consistently finds more impactful vulnerabilities, and also identifies vulnerabilities that are nearly guaranteed to be there, meaning that the chance of false positives is very low."

"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."

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

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."

"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."

"Tools that would allow us to work more efficiently with the mobile environment, with Android and iOS."

"When monitoring the traffic we always have issues with the bandwidth consumption and the throttling of traffic."

"We have had issues during upgrades where their scans worked on some apps better with previous versions. Then, we had to work with their tech support, who were great, to get it fixed for the next version."

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

"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 provides the benefit of saving time for an end user. I would not say it saves money because the cost and license of Acunetix is far more than what others offer."

More Acunetix cons

"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."

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

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

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

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 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."

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

"The solution is expensive."

"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."

"The price is exceptionally high."

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

"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."

More Acunetix pricing and cost advice

"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 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."

"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."

"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 solution is expensive."

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

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

12%

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Financial Services Firm

20%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Computer Software Company

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	18

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

Questions from the Community

What is your primary use case for Acunetix Vulnerability Scanner?

I'm using Acunetix to automate security checks. Acunetix helped me catch common vulnerability issues early and improved the overall security posture of the application before development, specifica...

See all answers

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

I would advise anyone or any startup looking to engage in the security part to directly use Acunetix, as this will help in most aspects. I would rate this product a nine out of ten.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Acunetix?

The experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing has been that the setup cost and pricing need to be reconsidered.

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Compared 6% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Acunetix

March 2026

Download Acunetix product report

Buyer's Guide

Contrast Security Assess

March 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

March 2026

Free Report: Acunetix vs. Contrast Security Assess

Find out what your peers are saying about Acunetix vs. Contrast Security Assess and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.

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