SecuDAST vs w3af

SecuDAST is a self-hosted dynamic application security testing engine for running applications inside a customer’s network. It scans authenticated flows, APIs, single-page applications, and traditional form-based sites, including internal, staging, and pre-production targets reachable from that network. The engine runs beside applications without cloud scanning infrastructure or sending traffic outside the network. Scans start in safe mode, avoiding destructive payloads and rate-limiting probes; teams can enable more aggressive checks and exclude paths. Every finding includes the request and response that demonstrated it, and results flow to the SecuNexa dashboard with evidence and standard reports for pipelines and ticketing. Scoped, repeatable profiles support CI stages and nightly schedules, with named integrations for GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Jenkins, Azure DevOps, and self-hosted runners. The dashboard offers seven project-scoped roles, immutable audit logging, local accounts, MFA, and optional LDAP or SSO. SecuNexa says engines run offline, do not phone home, and receive vulnerability data through signed offline bundles. Pricing is on request.

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.