Acunetix vs Contrast Security Protect comparison

Invicti and Contrast Security are both solutions in the Application Security Tools category. Invicti is ranked #12 with an average rating of 8.4, while Contrast Security is ranked #31. Invicti holds a 2.3% mindshare in AS, 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
2,979 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

Contrast Security Protect

Read 3 Contrast Security Protect reviews

926 Views
889 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: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Acunetix vs. Contrast Security Protect

December 2025

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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

12th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (7th), Vulnerability Management (19th), DevSecOps (6th)

Contrast Security Protect

Ranking in Application Security Tools

31st

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

5.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Application Security Tools category, the mindshare of Acunetix is 2.3%, down from 2.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Contrast Security Protect is 0.8%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Security Tools Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Acunetix	2.3%
Contrast Security Protect	0.8%
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

"By integrating with CI/CD tools, it enables a shift-left approach in the development process."

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

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

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

"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."

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

"We use the solution for the scanning of vulnerabilities like SQL injections."

"Acunetix helps reduce the man-days and effort needed for scanning bulk applications through automated assessments, allowing good dashboard visualization that can be reported easily to management, providing complete visibility on vulnerability metrics."

More Acunetix pros

"The solution has excellent real-time capabilities."

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

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

Cons

"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 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."

"Acunetix needs to improve its cost."

"The solution limits the number of scans. It would be much better if we could have unlimited scans."

"I had some issues with the JSON parameters where it found some strange vulnerabilities, but it didn't alert the person using it or me about these vulnerabilities, e.g., an error for SQL injection."

"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."

"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."

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

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

"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."

"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 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."

"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."

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

More Acunetix pricing and cost advice

Information not available

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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

26%

Manufacturing Company

15%

Computer Software Company

Insurance Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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

No data available

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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Comparisons

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Compared 8% of the time

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Compared 7% of the time

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Compared 5% of the time

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Compared 14% of the time

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Compared 13% of the time

Veracode vs Contrast Security Protect

Compared 9% of the time

SonarQube vs Contrast Security Protect

Compared 9% of the time

PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional vs Contrast Security Protect

Compared 7% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Acunetix

January 2026

Download Acunetix product report

Buyer's Guide

Application Security Tools

January 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

December 2025

Free Report: Acunetix vs. Contrast Security Protect

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