Cairn vs w3af
Cairn
cairnsecurity.comw3af
w3af.orgSide by side
| Figure | Cairn | w3af |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $99/mo | Free |
| Free plan | — | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | — | Yes |
| Linux | — | Yes |
| API | — | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 4 | 1 |
| Spec score · Penetration Testing Software | 7.8 (#15) | 8.2 (#11) |
| Deployment | Cairn is offered as hosted multi-tenant SaaS or self-hosted using Docker, Kubernetes, or bare metal, with an air-gapped option. | The installation guide documents running w3af in Docker and provides installation instructions for Mac OS X. |
| Integrations | Listed connectors include Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive, ConnectWise, Monday, Jira, ServiceNow, GitHub, Azure DevOps, Linear, DocuSign, and Dropbox Sign. | The documentation describes Metasploit integration and suggests sending vulnerabilities to an internal issue tracker through its REST API. |
| Purpose | Cairn combines pentest scoping, statements of work, reporting, and a client portal in one platform. | w3af is an open-source web application security scanner for developers and penetration testers to identify and exploit vulnerabilities. |
| Support | Cairn lists community support for Starter, priority support for Team, and priority support plus SLA for Business; its contact page says it usually answers within a business day. | 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
Cairn
- Starter$99 a month
- Team$149 a month
- Business$249 a month
- On-prem & air-gapped$30,000 a year
In their own words
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.