Acunetix vs Contrast Security Assess comparison

Invicti and Contrast Security are both solutions in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category. Invicti is ranked #8 with an average rating of 7.9, while Contrast Security is ranked #26. Invicti holds a 2.6% mindshare in SAST, compared to Contrast Security’s 1.2% 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

8,861 Views
5,051 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

Contrast Security Assess

Read 11 Contrast Security Assess reviews

3,117 Views
1,621 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 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Acunetix vs. Contrast Security Assess

April 2026

Download the complete report

Helped 893,244 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

15th

Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

8th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Vulnerability Management (30th), DevSecOps (5th)

Contrast Security Assess

Ranking in Application Security Tools

32nd

Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

26th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of Acunetix is 2.6%, down from 3.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Contrast Security Assess is 1.2%, up from 0.5% 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	1.2%
Other	96.2%

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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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 automated approach to these repetitive discovery attempts would take days to do manually and therefore it helps reduce the time needed to do an assessment."

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

"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."

"The scalability is more than good; it can operate both as a standalone and it can be integrated with other applications, which makes it a very versatile solution to have, and this solution is simple enough, especially with the cloud."

"It generates automated reports."

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

"Picks up weaknesses in our app setups."

"It has been able to find some vulnerabilities, and we've been able to remediate our websites and vulnerabilities, thanks to Acunetix."

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."

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

"The accuracy of the solution in identifying vulnerabilities is better than any other product we've used, far and away."

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

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

"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."

"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

"Currently only supports web scanning."

"Acunetix needs to include agent analysis."

"Our experience with Acunetix has not been good, so we are in the process of switching solutions."

"Acunetix needs to improve its cost."

"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."

"In terms of what needs improvement, the way the licensing model is currently is not very convenient for us because initially, when we bought it, the licensing model was very flexible, but now it restricts us."

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

"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."

More Acunetix cons

"Personalization of the board and how to make it appealing to an organization is something that could be done on their end."

"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."

"Regarding the solution's OSS feature, the one drawback that we do have is that it does not have client-side support."

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

"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."

"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."

"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."

More Contrast Security Assess cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is expensive."

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

"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."

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

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

"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."

"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."

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."

"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."

"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 solution is expensive."

"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."

"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

Financial Services Firm

13%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

17%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

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?

My main use of Acunetix is to scan my web application. I mostly deal with web applications and with Acunetix Network Security Component, but I have not activated the network component before and wi...

See all answers

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

I am still working with Acunetix, and we have even moved to their new platform, Invicti. I have requested a demo for Acunetix DeepScan technology, but I have yet to go through DeepScan. That was th...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Acunetix?

I would say the pricing is average, but still, it is higher than low.

See all answers

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Compared 5% of the time

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Compared 4% of the time

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Compared 6% 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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Compared 4% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Acunetix

May 2026

Download Acunetix product report

Buyer's Guide

Contrast Security Assess

May 2026

Download Contrast Security Assess product report

Also Known As

AcuSensor

Contrast Assess

Overview

Acunetix is a dynamic application security tool used globally for web application vulnerability scanning, focusing on SQL injection and cross-site scripting.

Acunetix provides a comprehensive web vulnerability assessment platform designed for identifying and remediating security threats. Users benefit from its ability to schedule scans, boasting a fast detection rate for common vulnerabilities. The tool's centralized dashboard helps organizations with compliance monitoring and features such as crawling and login sequence enhancements, contributing depth to its security assessments. Despite high praise for its integration capabilities and automated scanning that saves time, pricing and false positives present challenges. Organizations often use Acunetix to maintain internal security and evaluate pre-release environments.

What are Acunetix's main features?

Comprehensive Reporting: Detailed reports assist in security analysis and compliance audits.
User-Friendly Interface: Simple navigation enhances user experience.
Scheduled Scans: Automation of scans allows for continuous monitoring.
Fast Detection: Quickly identifies vulnerabilities like SQL injection and cross-site scripting.
Integration Capabilities: Scalable solutions with compatibility across applications.
Crawling & Login Sequence: Improves depth in security analysis.

What benefits should businesses look for in reviews?

Low False Positive Rate: Accurate vulnerability detection saves time in analysis.
Time Efficiency: Automated scans reduce manual workload, improving team productivity.
Scalability: Integration features help accommodate growth and complexity.
Compliance Support: Centralized dashboard supports regulatory compliance checks.

In industries like finance, healthcare, and technology, Acunetix assists in protecting sensitive data through robust scanning and reporting capabilities. Its ability to perform dynamic assessments makes it a chosen tool in regulatory environments and development settings, offering both internal security inspections and pre-release evaluations.

Invicti

Contrast Security Assess is an IAST platform known for accurate vulnerability detection. It integrates into development workflows, offering real-time insights into security issues with minimal false positives, supporting legacy applications and enhancing code security visibility.

Designed to integrate seamlessly into DevOps workflows, Contrast Security Assess automates real-time vulnerability detection and reduces false positives through its powerful IAST features. By continuously monitoring vulnerabilities, it provides a robust option for securing legacy applications and identifying vulnerabilities without lengthy scans. This cloud-hosted platform supports numerous programming languages, making it versatile for security testing across enterprise environments. Users benefit from detailed reports that pinpoint exact code locations requiring remediation, enhancing speed and efficiency in addressing security concerns.

What are the key features of Contrast Security Assess?

IAST Technology: Delivers accurate vulnerability detection with reduced false positives.
Seamless Integration: Integrates into development processes, supporting real-time vulnerability detection.
Open Source Security: Analyzes third-party libraries for vulnerabilities.
Continuous Monitoring: Provides valuable insights with real-time security feedback for developers.
API Interface: Enhances operational efficiency and streamlining with minimal false positives.

What benefits should users look for in reviews?

Enhanced Security Visibility: Offers comprehensive insights across application environments.
Speed and Efficiency: Quick identification and remediation of vulnerabilities accelerate development.
Operational Streamlining: Seamless integration into DevOps workflows improves productivity.
Legacy Application Support: Effective for securing existing applications with ongoing monitoring.

Companies in industries requiring high levels of application security, such as finance and healthcare, implement Contrast Security Assess for its ability to enhance visibility and detect vulnerabilities early in the development lifecycle. Its seamless integration with DevOps processes makes it ideal for environments that prioritize agility while maintaining stringent security standards.

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 2026

Free Report: Acunetix vs. Contrast Security Assess

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