Caido vs w3af
Caido
caido.iow3af
w3af.orgSide by side
| Figure | Caido | w3af |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | — |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 5 | 1 |
| Spec score · Penetration Testing Software | 8.2 (#9) | 8.2 (#11) |
| Automation | Its node-based workflows support ad-hoc automation, and its core feature page describes automated attacks using custom payloads and placeholders. | The guide includes automation using scripts and a REST API. |
| Integrations | Caido's homepage says AI agents can access Caido programmatically through its Client SDK. | The documentation describes Metasploit integration and suggests sending vulnerabilities to an internal issue tracker through its REST API. |
| Platforms | The download page offers desktop apps for macOS, Windows, and Linux, and says its CLI can deploy Caido remotely on any platform. | The installation guide says w3af has been tested on Linux distributions, Mac OS X, FreeBSD, and OpenBSD; it does not recommend or support Windows installation. |
| Support | The pricing page lists public Discord support for Basic and Individual, and a dedicated support channel for Team. | For installation issues, the guide directs users to create a ticket and include their Linux distribution, dependency-install script, pip freeze output, and Python version. |
Plans
Caido
- BasicFree
- Education PlanFree
- EnterprisePriced on request
- IndividualPrice not published
- TeamPrice not published
In their own words
Caido
Caido is a web security auditing toolkit for scaling manual testing through AI and teamwork. Its proxy intercepts and monitors HTTP and WebSocket traffic, with history for intercepted traffic and WebSocket messages. HTTPQL filtering lets users search requests and responses. Node-based workflows support ad-hoc automation, and automated attacks can use custom payloads and placeholders. Users can connect existing LLM providers, including Anthropic, Google, OpenAI, and providers available through OpenRouter. AI agents can access Caido programmatically through its Client SDK. Community plugins and custom extensions are supported; the Basic plan allows three plugins. Basic is free forever and includes two projects, seven workflows, five filter presets, and one pipeline session at a time. The pricing note lists paid access from $20/user/mo, while the opened pricing page did not display prices for Individual, Team, or Enterprise. Caido lists Linux, macOS, Windows, web, API, and self-hosted platforms, and presents the product for pentesters, security engineers, and bug bounty hunters.
w3af
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.