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Invicti vs Qualys Web Application Scanning comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 8, 2024

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

Invicti
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
11th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
Container Security (25th), Software Composition Analysis (SCA) (10th), API Security (10th), Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) (4th), Application Security Posture Management (ASPM) (9th)
Qualys Web Application Scan...
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
14th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (19th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of Invicti is 2.0%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Qualys Web Application Scanning is 1.9%, down from 2.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Static Application Security Testing (SAST) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Invicti2.0%
Qualys Web Application Scanning1.9%
Other96.1%
Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
 

Featured Reviews

PrashantUppuluri - PeerSpot reviewer
Solution Architect at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Automated scanning has strengthened web application security and supports hybrid protection
A good scanning engine is what I appreciate about Invicti. When you want to find out the vulnerabilities within your web applications, Invicti has done a thorough job with respect to filtering out the vulnerabilities and identifying the risk factors with respect to the security modules within the solution. Invicti does have a segment of the solution which works on the automated scanning engine. As long as the license is active, the scanners that work within the solution are pretty effective. With respect to SAST and DAST, being a real-time scanning engine is one of the portfolios and one of the selling factors of the solution. Invicti is known to be a solution that works within the hybrid environment, be it cloud, on-premises, or a mix and match across multiple marketplaces. It does a thorough job. Most importantly, Invicti is a very good SAST and DAST solution that is very competitive in the market with respect to competitors. Invicti is a part of the Magic Quadrant with respect to Gartner's Magic Quadrant and has made a very good customer database and pipeline within the marketplace locally. With respect to security impacts in terms of support, Invicti is pretty much supportive. With respect to use cases or the POCs I have run on the solution, we have identified a couple of vulnerabilities and Invicti was able to trace them, detect, and quarantine the attacks.
AnkitSharma13 - PeerSpot reviewer
Security Officer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Web scanning needs improvement but offers good vulnerability detection
The downside of Qualys Web Application Scanning is that it cannot crawl automatically. If I provide an IP address and a login form, it does basic testing, but it doesn't go deep as IBM AppScan does. If Qualys Web Application Scanning could improve its crawling capability, it would be more user-friendly. Qualys Web Application Scanning does IP-level testing, requiring direct input of credentials, and can only scan a few pages to provide known generic vulnerabilities, which isn't as beneficial from my point of view. The Vulnerability Management also relies heavily on version numbers and will flag vulnerabilities based on the component version, but it doesn't check if a real fix exists, leading to flags on components that actually have workarounds available.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It has very good integration with the CI/CD pipeline."
"Netsparker offers some pretty features: Crawling feature: Netsparker has very detail crawling steps and mechanisms, this feature expands the attack surface, Attacking feature: Actually, attacking is not a solo feature, it contains many attack engines, Hawk, and many properties, but Netsparker's attacking mechanism is very flexible, this increases the vulnerability detection rate, also, Netsparker made the Hawk for real-time interactive command-line-based exploit testing, it's very valuable for a vulnerability scanner, and a very useful API for automating the scans."
"Its ability to crawl a web application is quite different than another similar scanner, and sometimes it can find more vulnerabilities that another scanner can’t."
"The dashboard is really cool, and the features are really good. It tells you about the software version you're using in your web application. It gives you the entire technology stack, and that really helps. Both web and desktop apps are good in terms of application scanning. It has a lot of security checks that are easily customizable as per your requirements. It also has good customer support."
"Netsparker has done an awesome job with its crawler, as it has found all of the links (also thanks to its good DOM parser)."
"The best features of Invicti are its ability to confirm access vulnerabilities, SSL injection vulnerabilities, and its connectors to other security tools."
"The most valuable feature of Invicti is getting baseline scanning and incremental scan."
"It has improved the security of our code by scanning it and finding security defects."
"It works with many different products."
"It protects against zero-day vulnerabilities, like Heartbleed."
"The tool links vulnerabilities with DDIs and gives a complete overview of the application. The continuous monitoring capability is good."
"By using QualysGuard, we are able to finish external scans with assured results in half the time.​"
"The most valuable feature is that we are able to scan the services and put credentials like a user ID password, and we can verify the vulnerability level."
"Qualys is perfect, scalability-wise."
"I recommend Qualys Web Application Scanning as it is easy to set up scans and is affordable from a cost perspective."
"The advantage of Qualys Web Application Scanning lies in its user-friendly dashboard and appealing reports, which are useful for presentation to leadership."
 

Cons

"I think that it freezes without any specific reason at times. This needs to be looked into."
"Speed: It spends about one hour on scanning; I would like it to be less than 30 minutes."
"They don't really provide the proof of concept up to the level that we need in our organization. We are a consultancy firm, and we provide consultancy for the implementation and deployment solutions to our customers. When you run the scans and the scan is completed, it only shows the proof of exploit, which really doesn't work because the tool is running the scan and exploiting on the read-only form. You don't really know whether it is actually giving the proof of exploit. We cannot prove it manually to a customer that the exploit is genuine. It is really hard to perform it manually and prove it to the concerned development, remediation, and security teams. It is currently missing the static application security part of the application security, especially web application security. It would be really cool if they can integrate a SAS tool with their dynamic one."
"The scanner itself should be improved because it is a little bit slow."
"Maybe supported clients can be improved. It still does not search vulnerabilities in DB2 databases, for example."
"Asset scanning could be better. Once, it couldn't scan assets, and the issue was strange. The price doesn't fit the budget of small and medium-sized businesses."
"The licensing model should be improved to be more cost-effective. There are URL restrictions that consume our license. Compared to other DAST solutions and task tools like WebInspect and Burp Enterprise, Invicti is very expensive. The solution’s scanning time is also very long compared to other DAST tools. It might be due to proof-based scanning."
"Reporting should be improved. The reporting options should be made better for end-users."
"We procured around 110 licenses for Web Application Scanning, but we have issues running concurrent scans."
"The scanner reports a lot of false positives, which is something that needs to be improved."
"Please add manual penetration testing features. Also I didn't like the license terms and the features were limited compared to other tools used for web applications."
"The product should allow users to upload their payloads."
"We receive false positives sometimes when using a solution that could be improved. However, the technical team provides us with the exact explanation why it was giving us that kind of error."
"The licensing and user permissions are a little wonky for a DevOps team to use, probably because it’s traditionally an InfoSec tool."
"The pricing of Qualys is quite expensive in comparison with the other products in this category that are offering pretty much the same thing."
"There's a distinction between internal and external scanning processes that could be streamlined. Currently, for internal scanning, specific configurations and scanner appliances need to be deployed within the network, which differs from the simpler setup for external scans. This dual process complicates the setup for comprehensive scanning coverage."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is very expensive. It comes with a yearly subscription. We were paying 6000 dollars yearly for unlimited scans. We have three licenses; basic, business, and ultimate. We need ultimate because it has unlimited scan numbers."
"We are using an NFR license and I do not know the exact price of the NFR license. I think 20 FQDN for three years would cost around 35,000 US Dollars."
"OWASP Zap is free and it has live updates, so that's a big plus."
"I think that price it too high, like other Security applications such as Acunetix, WebInspect, and so on."
"We never had any issues with the licensing; the price was within our assigned limits."
"The price should be 20% lower"
"Invicti is best suited for large enterprises. I don't think small and medium-sized businesses can afford it. Maintenance costs aren't that great."
"Netsparker is one of the costliest products in the market. It would help if they could allow us to scan multiple URLs on the same license."
"I rate the software’s pricing a six out of ten."
"Licensing was based on the number of assets that you want to scan on your network. You can also do licensing on subscription. On subscription, it is easier and more flexible. You tell Qualys that you want to move from the 1000 to 2000 band or the 3000 or 5000 band, then they will give you the quotation for it. Once you pay for it, applying the licensing is quite easy and effective."
"There are different options available with respect to licensing."
"We are on an annual license for the solution and the pricing could be more affordable."
"The product pricing is fair and reasonably priced."
"Try the free trial of the product to understand the basic working mechanisms.​"
"The product is expensive, at least initially, in comparison to other products in this category."
"Qualys WAS' pricing is competitive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
8%
Computer Software Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Construction Company
7%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise13
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise27
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Netsparker Web Application Security Scanner?
The setup cost is pretty competitive. For example, if you want to talk about the SAST license, it comes to about $150 or sometimes less than $100, depending on the conversion or the number of licen...
What needs improvement with Invicti?
At this time, there is nothing that comes to mind. However, most of the products in the market are pretty much neck-to-neck competitors. Speaking about it, there are a couple of factors which they ...
What is your primary use case for Invicti?
I have worked on a couple of products, specifically in web application security. I have worked on Invicti, and with respect to PAM, I have worked with BeyondTrust. I have not worked specifically fo...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Qualys Web Application Scanning?
Regarding pricing, I think for personal use, it is costly, but if organizations are ready to pay, then it is fine as they are using it.
What needs improvement with Qualys Web Application Scanning?
The downside of Qualys Web Application Scanning is that it cannot crawl automatically. If I provide an IP address and a login form, it does basic testing, but it doesn't go deep as IBM AppScan does...
What is your primary use case for Qualys Web Application Scanning?
I use Qualys Web Application Scanning, and we are using Vulnerability Management. By Vulnerability Management, I mean not TotalCloud; they have some on-premises solutions also. Patch Management and...
 

Also Known As

Netsparker
Qualys WAS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Samsung, The Walt Disney Company, T-Systems, ING Bank
BskyB, Cartagena, ClearPoint Learning Systems, Connect Group, du, Fortrex Technologies, HBOR, HDI, Highlights for Children, The Lithuanian State Enterprise Centre of Registers, City of Miami Beach, Microsoft, MidlandHR, MSCI Inc., Northern Arizona University, Ofgem, Olympus Europa, PhoneFactor, RTL Nederland, ThousandEyes, VGZ Organisatie B.V.
Find out what your peers are saying about Invicti vs. Qualys Web Application Scanning and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.