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Acunetix vs w3af comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
8th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
38
Ranking in other categories
Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (5th), Vulnerability Management (21st), DevSecOps (5th)
w3af
Ranking in Application Security Tools
42nd
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Application Security Tools category, the mindshare of Acunetix is 2.4%, down from 2.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of w3af is 0.7%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Security Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Acunetix2.4%
w3af0.7%
Other96.9%
Application Security Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Rahul Kumar - PeerSpot reviewer
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 Acunetix positively impacts my organization by helping identify outdated libraries and applications, including legacy applications vulnerable to old attacks based on OWASP Top 10, thus aiding in compliance checks for PCI DSS and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.
OS
Information Security Advisor, CISO & CIO, Docutek Services at Docutek Services
It's buggy and seems to try to do too many things, but having this on a USB drive has been valuable.
I tried to install this on numerous systems and eventually, with help, I got it running. It needs far too many dependencies installed and there's too much messing about to be of much use. Once running, it's buggy and begs the question can it be relied upon? Even within Kali it reports website time-outs, yet Zap or Burp are able to do a successful scan. I wanted this to work so much and be able to use it as an additional check of my results but have now binned it.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Overall, the tool is efficient enough to identify and track your vulnerabilities and it's good for intelligence scanning purposes."
"The solution is comprehensive and easy to use."
"By integrating with CI/CD tools, it enables a shift-left approach in the development process."
"Every organization who has their assets over the internet and are exposed to a public website needs to have vulnerability assessment using Acunetix."
"I appreciate the features that Acunetix has for the speed and the fact that it is in the cloud, which does not put any resources in my network, so I can set up a scan, go to bed, come back, and see the reports in my email."
"Overall, I believe Acunetix to be one of the best products on the market."
"The solution is highly stable."
"It's very user-friendly for the testing teams. It's very easy for them to understand things and to fix vulnerabilities."
"The best free software for pen testing web applications."
 

Cons

"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."
"However, it doesn't seem very helpful or useful for scanning web services, and that has what I feel that the organization could work better on that."
"Currently only supports web scanning."
"The pricing is a bit on the higher side."
"I rate its stability six out of ten."
"The solution limits the number of scans. It would be much better if we could have unlimited scans."
"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 costs for the licensing have changed and it's not in our favor which is why we're now looking at other options."
"Unfortunately, once you get around the seemingly strict set of pre-requisites to install it, it is incredibly buggy."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is expensive."
"The price is exceptionally high."
"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."
"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."
"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 costs aren't very expensive. It costs around $3000 or $4000."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business18
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise19
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your primary use case for Acunetix Vulnerability Scanner?
In a typical enterprise environment, Acunetix is mainly used for visibility, detection, and investigation across network traffic. The main use cases usually fall into a few core areas, with primary...
What advice do you have for others considering Acunetix Vulnerability Scanner?
I advise that Acunetix is the best option. Invest time in proper initial configuration and scope definitions. The tool is powerful, but its effectiveness depends heavily on how the authenticated ar...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Acunetix?
Everything is perfect and good, including the pricing and all related aspects.
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Comparisons

 

Also Known As

AcuSensor
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Joomla!, Digicure, Team Random, Credit Suisse, Samsung, Air New Zealand
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about SonarSource Sàrl, Checkmarx, Veracode and others in Application Security Tools. Updated: June 2026.
900,747 professionals have used our research since 2012.