We performed a comparison between OWASP Zap and Acunetix based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Result: Based on the parameters we compared, OWASP Zap comes out ahead of Acunetix. Although both products have valuable features and have straightforward deployments, our reviewers found that Acunetix has high pricing, which is considered expensive by some users, especially for small organizations.
"It's very user-friendly for the testing teams. It's very easy for them to understand things and to fix vulnerabilities."
"Our developers can run the attacks directly from their environments, desktops."
"It comes equipped with an internal applicator, which automatically identifies and addresses vulnerabilities within the program."
"There is a lot of documentation on their website which makes setting it up and using it quite simple."
"One of the features that I feel is groundbreaking, that I would like to see expanded on, is the IAS feature: The Interactive Application Security Testing module that gets loaded onto an application on a server, for more in-depth, granular findings. I think that is really neat. I haven't seen a lot of competitors doing that."
"The vulnerability scanning option for analyzing the security loopholes on the websites is the most valuable feature of this solution."
"The most important feature is that it's a web-based graphical user interface. That is a great addition. Also, the ability to schedule scans is great."
"Acunetix is the best service in the world. It is easy to manage. It gives a lot of information to the users to see and identify problems in their site or applications. It works very well."
"We use the solution for security testing."
"The vulnerabilities that it finds, because the primary goal is to secure applications and websites."
"The OWASP's tool is free of cost, which gives it a great advantage, especially for smaller companies to make use of the tool."
"It can be used effectively for internal auditing."
"The stability of the solution is very good."
"Two features are valuable. The first one is that the scan gets completed really quickly, and the second one is that even though it searches in a limited scope, what it does in that limited scope is very good. When you use Zap for testing, you're only using it for specific aspects or you're only looking for certain things. It works very well in that limited scope."
"They offer free access to some other tools."
"The product discovers more vulnerabilities compared to other tools."
"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."
"Tools that would allow us to work more efficiently with the mobile environment, with Android and iOS."
"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."
"While we do have it integrated with other solutions, it could still offer more integrations."
"Acunetix needs to include agent analysis."
"Acunetix needs to be dynamic with JavaScript code, unlike Netsparker which can scan complex agents."
"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."
"The only problem that they have is the price. It is a bit expensive, and you cannot change the number of applications for the whole year."
"The product should allow users to customize the report based on their needs."
"Deployment is somewhat complicated."
"The product reporting could be improved."
"I would like to see a version of “repeater” within OWASP ZAP, a tool capable of sending from one to 1000 of the same requests, but with preselected modified fields, changing from a predetermined word list, or manually created."
"The solution is somewhat unreliable because after we get the finding, we have to manually verify each of its findings to see whether it's a false positive or a true finding, and it takes time."
"Zap could improve by providing better reports for security and recommendations for the vulnerabilities."
"Online documentation can be improved to utilize all features of ZAP and API methods to make use in automation."
"Lacks resources where users can internally access a learning module from the tool."
Acunetix is ranked 13th in Static Application Security Testing (SAST) with 26 reviews while OWASP Zap is ranked 7th in Static Application Security Testing (SAST) with 37 reviews. Acunetix is rated 7.6, while OWASP Zap is rated 7.6. The top reviewer of Acunetix writes "Fantastic reporting features hindered by slow scanning ". On the other hand, the top reviewer of OWASP Zap writes "Great for automating and testing and has tightened our security ". Acunetix is most compared with Tenable.io Web Application Scanning, PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional, HCL AppScan, Fortify WebInspect and Veracode, whereas OWASP Zap is most compared with SonarQube, Qualys Web Application Scanning, PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional, Veracode and Checkmarx One. See our Acunetix vs. OWASP Zap report.
See our list of best Static Application Security Testing (SAST) vendors.
We monitor all Static Application Security Testing (SAST) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.