Bright Security DAST vs w3af

Bright Security DAST is a dynamic application security testing tool offered as SaaS. It tests websites, web applications, APIs including REST, SOAP, and GraphQL, servers, and network devices; it also tests mobile applications on the server side. Checks include SQL injection, CSRF, XSS, XXE, and business logic vulnerabilities. Bright says it validates findings in real time and does not report issues it cannot validate, with less than 3% false positives among its verified findings. Target discovery can use a crawler, HAR recording, or GraphQL and OpenAPI schemas. Authentication objects let scans reach login-protected application and API resources. Teams can initiate scans from CI/CD pipelines and control them through the CLI or REST API without using the interface. The CLI's Repeater mode routes requests to local targets without exposing them to the internet. Bright lists SaaS, private cloud, and Repeater proxy deployment options. Scan quantity is unlimited, but the number of concurrent scans depends on the organization's engine count. Bright says scan data is held in memory temporarily and deleted after scanning. The tool cannot handle CAPTCHA during scans. Pricing is available on request, with a demo offered.

w3af is a free, open-source web application security scanner for vulnerability assessments and penetration tests. It can identify more than 200 vulnerabilities, including cross-site scripting, SQL injection, and OS command injection. Its workflow starts with crawler plugins that find URLs and injection points, continues with audit plugins that check for vulnerabilities, and can use attack plugins to exploit findings. Other plugin types cover infrastructure detection, request and response analysis, output, brute force, request modification, and evasion.

Users can scan and analyze results in a GTK graphical interface or a console. Web application payloads can interact with Metasploit when an exploit provides exec() capability. Developers can use the REST API from development languages and run it in Docker; scripts and the API also support automation. The project documents Linux and macOS installation, including running in Docker without installing w3af dependencies. It is available for Linux, macOS, web, API, and self-hosted deployment. REST API traffic over HTTP is unencrypted, so the documentation recommends added protection such as an SSL proxy for publicly reachable deployments.