DASTA-AI vs w3af

DASTA-AI is a dynamic application security testing platform for first-party web, API, and LLM applications. Its scanner crawls endpoints and forms, probes them with non-destructive payloads, and verifies findings with proof of concept. The site lists more than 40 verified checks and three policy tiers. For AI red teaming, it tests chatbots, agents, and RAG apps against OWASP LLM Top 10 attack suites, with references to the NIST AI RMF Measure function and EU AI Act Article 55. Automated risk analysis produces executive summaries and Key Risk Indicators. DASTA-AI says findings are sanitized before AI analysis and credentials are not sent to third-party services. A CLI supports interactive login or a DASTA_API_TOKEN for unattended pipelines, and CI/CD integration is listed. It runs on the web and as an API. The Demo plan is free for one scan; Personal is $100 a month for 30 scans per month. Pro has 300 scans per month and Enterprise lists unlimited scans and BYOK, but neither plan has a listed price. Red-team scans count as one scan, with judge calls capped per organization.

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.