Burp Suite DAST vs Nuclei

Burp Suite DAST is an automated dynamic scanner for web vulnerabilities, built on the scanning engine used in Burp Suite Professional. Its Chromium-based crawler can handle JavaScript single-page applications, dynamic forms, GraphQL endpoints, and asynchronous loads, while crawling and auditing can run in parallel. Session-aware scans maintain authenticated state using username-password pairs or recorded login sequences. The scanner covers APIs described by Postman Collections, OpenAPI, SOAP, and GraphQL, with native support for several authentication methods. Teams can schedule portfolio scans from a dashboard or run them in CI pipelines, including on pull requests and merges. Deployment options include managed cloud and self-hosted software for Windows and Linux, plus Helm deployment for Kubernetes; self-hosted deployments can operate in air-gapped environments. Access controls include role-based permissions, site groups, audit trails, SAML single sign-on, and group-locked scan policies. Findings include captured requests and confirming responses. Pricing depends on the portfolio and requires contacting PortSwigger; a guided proof-of-concept trial follows a tailored demo and discovery call.

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.