Top Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) Tools for 2025
When it comes to securing applications and APIs, the top DAST tools are indispensable. These advanced solutions detect vulnerabilities by continuously scanning for weaknesses and simulating real-world attacks.
Modern top DAST tools are transforming application security by overcoming the pitfalls of legacy solutions like Qualys and Rapid7, which burden teams with false positives, manual setups, and limited remediation guidance. Instead, modern tools reduce workloads, minimize false positives, and integrate seamlessly into CI/CD pipelines.
"DAST is not dead, legacy DASTs are. Modern DASTs are changing the industry." - Swan Beaujard, Security Engineer at Escape, at the Elephant in AppSec Conference
What sets the top DAST tools apart is their adaptability and ability to automate manual tasks. They provide real-time feedback, freeing up security teams to focus on strategic priorities and scaling application security with limited resources.
This article explores the top DAST tools, their pros and cons, and how they can help secure your applications and APIs as a critical part of your cybersecurity strategy.
The problems with legacy DAST tools
Legacy DAST tools, such as Qualys and Rapid7, often fall short when it comes to modern application security needs. They introduce challenges that hinder effective vulnerability detection and remediation, including:
- False Positives Overload: Endless false positives waste valuable time and cause critical vulnerabilities to be overlooked, leaving applications exposed.
- Manual Configurations: These tools demand time-consuming manual setups that struggle to integrate with CI/CD pipelines, making them unsuitable for scalable, modern development workflows.
- Developer Frustration: A lack of actionable remediation guidance creates friction with engineering teams, forcing developers to spend excessive time diagnosing and resolving issues instead of building features.
Modern application security demands efficiency and scalability. This is where the top DAST tools excel, addressing these limitations by reducing manual workload, minimizing false positives, and offering seamless CI/CD integration.
If you still don't know enough about Qualys DAST or Rapid7 InsightAppSec DAST, we put a brief recap at the bottom of this article.
Now, you can jump to the top DAST tools below.
Escape
First in the lineup of the top DAST tools - Escape's DAST. It's best if you want to scale your discovery and security testing with the least effort from your AppSec team. It goes beyond just DAST scanning, but also includes agentless API discovery and automated API documentation generation.
Escape's trafficless API discovery process significantly reduces the time and effort it takes to detect vulnerable APIs, since it doesn't require agent installation and discovers APIs by scanning exposed source code.
You can start DAST scanning directly from your API inventory without manually uploading OpenAPI specs or Swagger files, as API schemas are auto-generated. After testing, you can copy remediation code snippets into Jira tickets for your developers. Escape’s proprietary feedback-driven Business Logic Security Testing algorithm customizes DAST scanning to address unique organizational needs, uncovering deeper vulnerabilities beyond surface-level threats.
Features
- Automated schema generation, which optimizes the scanning process, meaning you can get accurate results and compliance reports significantly faster. Your application schema can be programmatically updated to keep Escape synced with your endpoint’s evolving structure. No manual maintenance required.
- Natively secures GraphQL, particularly sending requests that make sense to the business logic of the API, unlike many other DASTs that do not account for Graph-specific features.
"Escape - is the only security scanner for GraphQL that is engine aware and developer friendly." - Aleksandr Krasnov, Former Staff Security Engineer, Thinkific
- Custom-generated remediations with code snippets tailored to a development team's technology stack, massively streamlining workflow. For each vulnerability, security teams can automatically share these code snippets with pre-filled remediation steps in Jira, saving time and ensuring faster resolution.
- Prioritization funnel based on potential impact and exploitation likelihood, with the ability to customize notification rules to suit unique security needs
- Automatic API Detection, Mapping, and Security: Escape automatically detects and maps the APIs consumed by your front-end applications, including both internal and third-party APIs.
- Custom security tests with rules that adapt to the evolution of existing and new APIs, requiring zero maintenance that can also be run directly in the CI/CD
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
|
✅ Addition of agentless API discovery to its DAST scanning ✅ Very low false positive rate ✅ Actionable remediation code snippets, fast-tracking patching and significantly improving efficiency ✅ Ability to prioritize the most critical applications by business context, data sensitivity, and exposure ✅ Accuracy of generated requests and adaptability with the integration of generative AI ✅ Integration with numerous development structures and pipelines |
❌ Advanced feature sets may require specialized knowledge ❌ Number of integrations with some of the operational tools |
Invicti (formerly Netsparker)
Second in the row of the top DAST tools is Invicti. Invicti combines DAST with Interactive Application Security Testing (IAST) and can detect thousands of vulnerabilities, including SQL injections, XSS, misconfigurations, exposed databases, and out-of-band threats. As a web application security solution, its automated crawler can crawl HTML5 and JavaScript websites, web applications, and single-page applications. Geared towards development teams in a fast-paced environment, the platform focuses on automating the crawling and vulnerability detection process. While Invicti's DAST is targeted towards larger-grade enterprises, the security company also has a tool called Acunetix which offers a more simple setup for smaller companies.
Features
- Fast scans with the ability to access reports while the scan is still underway
- Highlights the lines of code that need fixing
- Can be integrated with CI/CD pipelines and other development tools like trackers and WAFs
- Basic scans can be completed in minutes
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
|
✅ Supports various types of applications, including REST, SOAP, and GraphQL (to an extent) APIs, as well as traditional web applications ✅ Provides detailed vulnerability reports ✅ Includes custom security checks templates that help to customize security testing but might require a lot of maintenance ✅ Part of the overall vulnerability scanning platform with IAST and SCA |
❌ Limited number of tests for GraphQL, which are mostly focused on common vulnerabilities ❌ Centered on web application security, leaving other areas exposed ❌ Does not automatically generate API specifications, limiting flexibility in dynamic environments ❌ High starting cost |
StackHawk
StackHawk has a developer-friendly approach to DAST that is designed primarily for technical users to detect issues before they reach production. Their prioritization is based on the OWASP Risk Rating Methodology, meaning they focus on technical aspects such as the impact and exploitability of security issues. Its API testing covers REST, GraphQL, SOAP and gRPC-based APIs, and developers can integrate their tooling into continuous delivery processes.
Features
- Can create custom test scripts for scenario's unique to the business that fall outside the scope of StackHawk's scanner, which is built on the ZAP library
- Runs multiple scans in parallel and can run in various environments, including local development setups, servers, Kubernetes, or within software delivery pipelines
- Offers automated and authenticated scanning, which can detect vulnerabilities that require user authentication for more thorough coverage
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
|
✅ Focuses on empowering developers ✅ Custom attack templates that help to customize security testing ✅ Offers scalable pricing plans suitable for startups and growing teams without significant infrastructure investment |
❌ Reliance on ZAP & Limited coverage for business logic vulnerabilities ❌ API schema uploads and configuration may require manual effort, especially for larger or complex applications ❌ Lack of detailed remediation support for developers ❌ While could be good for small to mid-sized teams, larger enterprises might find its capabilities insufficient for extensive or highly customized needs |
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🚀 Get started nowBright Security
Bright Security stands out as one of the top DAST tools, empowering developers with automated security testing directly within their workflows. Its focus on early-stage testing—starting in the IDE—sets it apart, ensuring vulnerabilities are caught early without slowing down development. Designed for seamless integration into CI/CD pipelines, Bright enables efficient, developer-friendly security testing.
Features
- Developer-Focused Security in the IDE: Bright allows developers to run attack simulations directly in their IDE to validate new code and prevent exposing potential vulnerabilities.
- CI/CD Integration: Integrates well with popular tools like GitHub, CircleCI, Jenkins, TravisCI, GitLab, and JFrog to automate security testing within development pipelines.
- Interactive Testing: Covers common vulnerabilities such as SQL injection, CSRF, XSS, and XXE, with some coverage for business logic vulnerabilities.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
|
✅ Quick to set up and start testing ✅ Developer-centric, with integrations directly in IDEs ✅ Easy CI/CD integration with multiple platforms |
❌ Requires manual API schema uploads for each scan ❌ Remediation suggestions lack specificity for different development frameworks ❌ Limited reporting features make it hard to prioritize business-relevant risks in a consolidated view |
Aikido
Aikido Security offers a transparent and practical DAST solution built on top of the widely known and open-source ZAP (Zed Attack Proxy). It's a DAST tool that's the most suited for smaller and some of the medium-size companies, Aikido is part of a broader security platform, making it a versatile option for teams seeking comprehensive application security.
Features:
- Transparent ZAP Foundation: Built on ZAP, Aikido provides basic scanning with added features tailored to modern needs. (Check out the comparison of Escape and ZAP performance)
- Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM): Evaluates and mitigates risks within cloud infrastructures for enhanced security.
- Open-Source Dependency Scanning (SCA): Monitors code dependencies for vulnerabilities and ensures license compliance.
- Robust Integrations: Supports AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, Docker Hub, Jira, GitHub, and more, making it highly versatile.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
|
✅ Accessible for startups and smaller companies ✅ Broad integration options with popular tools ✅ Additional features like CSPM and SCA enhance value |
❌ Limited advanced enterprise-level features ❌ Dependent on ZAP's base for core functionality ❌ May not scale as well for larger organizations |
Intruder
Intruder offers a simple web based DAST scanner that is strong at enumerating infrastructure details, and good for both web app and infrastructure scanning types. The tool checks for thousands of infrastructure weaknesses and over 75 application vulnerabilities through various scanning methods, including external, internal, cloud, web application, and API scanning. It also has manual web-app pen testing focused on black box techniques.
Features
- Cyber Hygiene Score that reflects the organization's overall security health, to show compliance and assess how effectively vulnerabilities are addressed
- Wide range of integrations, including AWS, Azure, Cloudflare, Google Cloud, Jira, GitHub, GitLab, Teams, and Vanta
- Real-time alerts when vulnerabilities are detected
- Creates audit-ready reports
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
|
✅ Can integrate into CI/CD pipeline to streamline DevOps ✅ Affordable for individual users or teams ✅ Continuous vulnerability scanning |
❌ Requires manual testing expertise ❌ Does not extend into areas such as Kubernetes, Azure DevOps or others for aspects such as code scanning ❌ Inability to customize scans means scans are slower and less efficient, as you cannot limit scanning to the vulnerabilities relevant to the organization's software |
CheckMarx
CheckMarx unifies both Static and Dynamic Application Security Testing (SAST and DAST) in its reporting, offering a holistic approach by testing an application both in the development stage (SAST) as well as from an external user's perspective when it is running (DAST).
CheckMarx tests APIs and endpoints in their live environments, including REST, SOAP, and gRPC APIs. Primarily it is a platform suited to larger companies with more complex and extensive security needs.
Features
- Can integrate into the CI/CD pipeline and automate testing before deployment
- Correlates findings from different security assessments
- Comes with training resources for developers
- Targets risk reduction across proprietary code, open source code, APIs, and infrastructure as code
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
|
✅ Combines SAST, DAST and Software Composition Analysis (SCA) ✅ Scalable and customizable ✅ Can integrate with preferred development tools |
❌ Requires heavy investment in expertise and resources ❌ Lack of support for GraphQL ❌ Complex user interface ❌ High false positives rate ❌ Rule customisation can be challenging to leverage |
OpenText Fortify WebInspect
Fortify's OpenText WebInspect implements functional application security testing, expanding on IAST to capture vulnerabilities that IAST functional tests may miss. Using horizontal scaling, OpenText employs Kubernetes for parallel JavaScript scanning, increasing scan speed. There are pre-configured policies and accounts of application security compliance regulations you can access within the platform, and it also offers flexible deployment options, including on-premise, SaaS, and AppSec-as-a-Service.
Features
- Detects redundant pages
- Automatedly generates macros for greater efficiency
- Containerized delivery
- Scans APIs including SOAP, REST, Swagger, OpenAPI, Postman, GraphQL, and gRPC
- Can integrate with OpenText Application Lifecycle Management, Quality Center, and other security systems
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
|
✅ Can simultaneously crawl and audit applications ✅ Option to customize reporting ✅ Flexibility in deployment |
❌ Requires technical expertise to operate effectively ❌ Steep learning curve in optimising use of the platform ❌ Challenges with integrating into CI/CD pipelines or other development environments |
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🚀 Get started nowWhat you need to know about DAST
DAST security tools have become an indispensable facet of an organization's application security testing arsenal over the last decade. While this article has run you through the top DAST tools that can optimize your application security, below is an overview of what DAST actually is and the key things you need to look out for when evaluating a DAST.
What is DAST, and how do DAST tools work?
If you're new to DAST, Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) is a powerful security measure that identifies vulnerabilities in live applications, by simulating attacks on the application in real-time. Unlike static testing, DAST operates while the application is running by mimicking how a hacker would interact with the app in real life, meaning it does not require access to the source code. DAST security tools can therefore detect runtime issues like cross-site scripting (XSS), SQL injection, and authentication weaknesses. This real-time assessment helps developers find and fix security flaws before they are exploited, improving both application security and compliance with industry standards.
DAST tools work by continuously scanning applications from the front end to see if there are any vulnerabilities that could be exploited. This involves sending automated requests and payloads to the application, as a black-hat hacker would, and then seeing if there are any misconfigurations or weaknesses in the application's response. Most DAST scanners comprise a crawler and an analyzer, where the crawler goes over every page and looks at its links, files, and buttons, and the analyzer then sends requests with incorrect information based on the information from the crawler, to see how the application responds in order to uncover vulnerabilities.
Examples of the legacy DAST tools
Qualys
Qualys' Web Application Scanning (WAS) is a cloud-based service with integrated API testing, focusing on identifying the OWASP API Top 10 vulnerabilities. Its test suite spans legacy systems and cloud applications, and natively, Qualys only handles REST and SOAP APIs. The platform mostly addresses common issues such as authorization and authentication flaws, rate limiting, and injection vulnerabilities.
Features
- Can integrate with CI/CD pipelines and ITSM tools like Jira
- Has its own TruRisk scoring system to prioritize risks for your organization
- Can consolidate manual third-party pen testing data within the platform's automated scans
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
|
✅ Qualys WAS and API security can be bundled with other Qualys platform offerings ✅ Cost-effective if your organisation is already using Qualys |
❌ Qualys requires accurate Swagger/OpenAPI files, which can drain time to maintain ❌ Have to manually upload schemas for API scans ❌ Scans are slow - can take up to 12 hours - and noisy, sometimes generating a high number of false positives ❌ No developer-friendly code snippets to remediate issues, slowing down the patching process ❌ UI offers limited insights, making it harder for larger-scale enterprises to manage vulnerabilities. |
Rapid7 InsightAppSec
Rapid7's InsightAppSec is a legacy DAST scanner that scans applications hosted on a closed network with an optional on-premise engine that scans applications cloud engines cannot reach. Its "Universal Translator" technology means the tool can handle a range of protocols and application formats, and identifies vulnerabilities including SQL injections, XSS and CRSF. Rapid7 tests both applications and APIs, but it treats them the same, not considering the unique needs of API security.
Features
- Has crawl maps and scan logs, which detect authentication or access failures early in the scan
- Offers advanced scan settings
- Attack Replay allows teams to validate vulnerabilities
- Comes with pre-built default attack templates and custom attack templates
- Can leverage both cloud and on-prem scanning engines
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
|
✅ Comprehensive platform with dashboard customisation ✅ Covers various applications and supports Swagger files ✅ Can create custom attack templates |
❌ Have to manually upload API schemas when they change; no automatic detection ❌ No actionable guidance on custom attack templates so there is a steep learning curve ❌ The Universal Translator can generate a high volume of logs, with duplicate content and extensive crawling that leads to longer scan times and excessive irrelevant data |
Veracode
Veracode is a cloud-native platform that encompasses SAST, DAST, SCA and manual penetration testing, focusing on targeting web applications and APIs. Veracode automates security tasks and workflows throughout the Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) and is a platform targeted toward teams who are looking to scan multiple applications simultaneously in their DAST.
Features
- Combines crawling and auditing
- Can integrate the platform with popular ticketing systems
- Veracode provides remediation guidance to interpret scan results
- Can schedule and automate scans, and the platform supports browser limitation and authentication
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
|
✅ SSO integration, though requires setup of additional profiles ✅ Wide scope of scans ✅ Scalable and has multiple features in one place |
❌ Resource intensive - requires constant upkeep and maintenance by the security team ❌ Process oriented - has limited developer enablement capabilities ❌ Steep learning curve with its use ❌ Remediation guidance only highlights flaw sources not suggested code patches |
Why should you have a DAST tool?
DAST tools are crucial to a proactive security strategy in identifying application weakness from a front-end "outside-in" perspective. They are most often combined with static testing (SAST) as well as Software Composition Analysis (SCA) to ensure comprehensive security monitoring across all stages of the SDLC. Having a DAST means that vulnerabilities can be remediated before an application goes live to the public - and to cybercriminals, lowering the risk of a breach but also making vulnerabilities cheaper to mend. Equally, DASTs can also help developers uncover general problems with the end-user experience, and crucially facilitate regulatory compliance.
Key Features a top DAST tool should have
- Continuous automated scanning: a DAST should be continuously scanning all exposed applications in order to uncover all vulnerabilities that may arise
- Real-time alerts and insights: as the DAST uncovers weaknesses, security teams should be immediately informed and provided with recommended remediations in order to optimize risk mitigation
- Be comprehensive and prioritized: DAST tools should uncover those vulnerabilities security teams may not even be aware of and be tailored to a business's specific needs with limited to no false positives and prioritized testing and alerts
- Integration into workflow pipelines: as a security tool a DAST should integrate seamlessly into a DevSecOps pipeline to streamline security testing
💡 Want to discover more about DASTs? Check out the following links:
- DAST is dead, why Business Logic Security Testing takes center stage
- We benchmarked DAST products, and this is what we learned
- The Elephant in AppSec Podcast⎥ Lack of effective DAST tools⎥ Aleksandr Krasnov (Meta, Thinkific, Dropbox)
- Reinventing API security: Why Escape is better than traditional DAST tools