Acunetix vs Contrast Security Protect comparison

Invicti and Contrast Security are both solutions in the Application Security Tools category. Invicti is ranked #14 with an average rating of 7.9, while Contrast Security is ranked #30. Invicti holds a 2.1% mindshare in AS, 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
3,138 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

Contrast Security Protect

Read 3 Contrast Security Protect reviews

1,187 Views
1,140 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Acunetix

Contrast Security Protect

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 8, 2024

Acunetix and Contrast Security Protect compete in application security testing. While Acunetix is known for usability and pricing, Contrast Security Protect wins favor for advanced security features.

Features: Acunetix is valued for its comprehensive vulnerability scanning, automation abilities, and detailed reporting tools. Contrast Security Protect is noted for runtime application self-protection, dynamic analysis, and real-time threat detection.

Room for Improvement: Acunetix can enhance integration with development workflows, reporting details, and speed in processing. Contrast Security Protect could improve usability, reduce performance impact, and streamline its feature complexity.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Acunetix is praised for its straightforward setup and responsive support. Contrast Security Protect requires more deployment time due to its complexity but offers comprehensive customer service.

Pricing and ROI: Acunetix is competitively priced, attractive to small and medium businesses, offering a solid ROI. Contrast Security Protect has a higher initial cost but suggests greater ROI for large enterprises due to its extensive features.

To learn more, read our detailed Acunetix vs. Contrast Security Protect Report (Updated: March 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Acunetix vs. Contrast Security Protect

March 2026

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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

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (10th), Vulnerability Management (28th), DevSecOps (6th)

Contrast Security Protect

Ranking in Application Security Tools

30th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

5.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Application Security Tools category, the mindshare of Acunetix is 2.1%, down from 2.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Contrast Security Protect is 1.0%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Security Tools Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Acunetix	2.1%
Contrast Security Protect	1.0%
Other	96.9%

Application Security Tools

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 provides us with more in-depth visibility into ongoing attacks.

I rate Contrast Security Protect eight out of 10. Overall, it's a solid product, but I deduct a couple of points because of the interface and some shortcomings in the reporting. If you have a large enterprise where you're dealing with a lot of servers, then it makes sense not to use the internal MySQL database. You should use something like Oracle or Microsoft SQL, but if you don't have many transactions, the embedded MySQL database works great.

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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

"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."

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

"It generates automated reports."

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

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

"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."

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

More Acunetix pros

"Protect provides us with more in-depth visibility into ongoing attacks."

"The product gives a few false positives. We get 99 percent true positives."

"The solution has excellent real-time capabilities."

Cons

"We want to see how much bandwidth usage it consumes. When we monitor traffic we have issues with the consumption and throttling of the traffic."

"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 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."

"Acunetix should improve by further reducing false positives and providing more customized reports, plus better integration with newer tools such as GitHub and Azure DevOps."

"There is room for improvement in the pricing."

"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."

"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."

"The vulnerability identification speed should be improved."

More Acunetix cons

"Protect's reporting GUI is very basic. To get all statuses from the APIs, we needed to write our own KPI dashboard to provide reports."

"There's room for improvement in the initial setup."

"Contrast Security Protect needs to improve integration."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

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

"The pricing is a little high, and moreover, it's kind of domain-based."

"The solution is expensive."

"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 price is exceptionally high."

More Acunetix pricing and cost advice

Information not available

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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

21%

Manufacturing Company

14%

Computer Software Company

Media 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

No data available

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...

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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.

See all answers

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Comparisons

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Compared 11% of the time

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Compared 8% of the time

Invicti vs Acunetix

Compared 6% of the time

Veracode vs Acunetix

Compared 5% of the time

SonarQube vs Acunetix

Compared 4% of the time

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Veracode vs Contrast Security Protect

Compared 10% of the time

Checkmarx One vs Contrast Security Protect

Compared 9% of the time

SonarQube vs Contrast Security Protect

Compared 8% of the time

OpenText Core Application Security vs Contrast Security Protect

Compared 7% of the time

GitGuardian Platform vs Contrast Security Protect

Compared 5% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Acunetix

March 2026

Download Acunetix product report

Buyer's Guide

Application Security Tools

February 2026

Download Contrast Security Protect product report

Also Known As

AcuSensor

Contrast Protect

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 Protect

March 2026

Free Report: Acunetix vs. Contrast Security Protect

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