Acunetix vs Nuclei

Acunetix, now Invicti Web + API, scans running web applications and APIs for vulnerabilities that could be exploited. Proof-based scanning can validate findings and provide evidence of exploitability to help teams assess false positives. The product says it identifies more than 7,000 issues, including OWASP Top 10 and OWASP API Top 10 risks and business logic flaws. It supports single-page and JavaScript-heavy applications, REST, GraphQL, and SOAP APIs, including authenticated user flows. Its AI-driven risk scoring uses more than 200 signals before scanning begins. Listed issue tracker integrations include Jira, Microsoft TFS (Azure DevOps), GitHub, GitLab, Bugzilla, and Mantis; Acunetix Premium also integrates with Jenkins. The company describes the tool as intended to help small and mid-size organizations manage web security. Pricing for Web + API is on request; a Proof of Concept license is offered to try the complete solution in an organization's environment. Agentic Pentest costs $500, paid once and covers a single application and its API suite, with audit-ready PDF reports and delivery within 24 hours.

Nuclei is a free, open-source vulnerability scanner for applications, infrastructure, cloud platforms, and networks. It uses YAML templates to define checks, drawing on more than 6,500 community-contributed templates; users can also create custom templates. Bulk and parallel scans, multiple target formats, and inclusion and exclusion filters are supported. Modules cover HTTP, DNS, TCP, headless, JavaScript, code, and file scanning, and authentication options include HTTP basic authentication and JWT. Nuclei can run in CI/CD pipelines, including through GitHub Actions, and export SARIF results to GitHub Code Scanning. It is distributed under the MIT License and is primarily a standalone CLI tool, with installation options including Go, Homebrew, Docker, GitHub, downloadable binaries, and Helm. It is actively developed, but has no LTS or stable version, so updates may bring breaking changes. Some templates can fuzz or take actions that risk denial of service; these are tagged and excluded from default scans. The tool is intended for security engineers, analysts, red teams, DevOps teams, bug bounty hunters, and penetration testers.