Acunetix vs OWASP ZAP

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.

OWASP ZAP is a web application scanner and proxy for security testing. Its tools include active and passive scanning, a spider, alerts, and scan policies. ZAP’s Automation Framework uses YAML plans to coordinate jobs such as scanning, spidering, API imports, and report generation. It can import OpenAPI, GraphQL, SOAP, and Postman definitions through jobs or add-ons. GitHub Actions are available for baseline, full, and API scans via Docker-packaged scans, and the project publishes Docker images, including a minimal image for CI. Add-ons come from an online Marketplace and are generally installed or removed without restarting ZAP. The software is free and open source, with a free plan at free. It supports Linux, macOS, Windows, API use, and self-hosted deployment. Windows and Linux installers require Java 17 or later; the macOS installer includes Java 17. ZAP says it can support only its latest full release, and current releases are unsigned, though checksums are provided.