The Top 10 DAST Tools for DevSecOps in 2025

Sanjana Iyer -

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.

What Is a DAST Tool?

Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) is a black-box testing approach that simulates real-world attacks on running APIs, SPAs, and web applications to detect vulnerabilities - without needing access to source code.

Modern DAST goes beyond surface-level checks. It identifies business logic flaws, broken authentication, and other issues that only emerge through actual interaction with an application’s exposed interfaces and workflows.

By focusing on how attackers could exploit intended functionality, modern DAST reduces false positives and adds critical security coverage - especially for teams adopting CI/CD pipelines and developer-first security programs.

Modern 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 for DevSecOps, their pros and cons, and how they can help secure your applications and APIs as a critical part of your cybersecurity strategy.

TL;DR: Quick Overview of the Top 5 DAST Tools

Most explored in demos for replacing legacy DAST or integrating new DAST into your AppSec program:
Security Testing DAST scanner using fuzzing techniques. Good support for web apps via provided domains and connectors. Doesn't cover API testing. Full API and web app scanning (internal & external) using proprietary AI-powered DAST with thousands of business-logic–aware attack scenarios. Native GraphQL support. DAST scanner with a focus on AI-powered automated testing. Pre-defined endpoints & web apps only. Supports internal API testing via spec upload. DAST scanner built around ZAP. Support for pre-defined web apps and APIs discovered from source code. Native DAST engine, with AI-enhanced fuzzing explored through experimental tools. Good support for web apps and basic support for APIs.
Authentification Supports authentication like recorded login, Basic Access Authentication, and Session cookie, and does not support complex authentication flows Supports authentication mechanisms (OAuth, API keys, JWT, multi-factor auth, Playwright, custom auth workflows.. ). and its proprietary AI agent detects login fields and fills them in automatically, and pinpoints any failures during the process. Supports authentication mechanisms (OAuth, API keys, JWT, session-based auth) Supports authenticated scanning with flexible methods including session cookies, API tokens, and OAuth flows Supports authentication flows like OAuth 2.0, TOTP recording of a login sequence, and includes an automated mechanism that detects and handles standard login forms. No ability to debug and see where the authentication went wrong during scanning.
Testing in CI/CD No native integration in CI/CD. Integrations with GitHub, GitLab, Azure DevOps are available via Zapier Easy native integration with multiple CI/CD pipelines Easy native integration with multiple CI/CD pipelines Easy native integration with multiple CI/CD pipelines Integration with multiple CI/CD pipelines exists, but not always easy to implement
Testing via CLI Very lightweight, primarily designed for quick web app scans with simple authentication support. Open-source, single-binary CLI that enables managing app configs, integrations, scan locations, and running scans. Easy CI/CD integration. Focused on automated scan execution with API spec handling and simple setup. Easy CI/CD integration is available. CLI with strong support for local development, IDE integration, and CI/CD pipelines. Emphasizes developer workflows and detailed scan controls. CLI focused on enterprise-grade scanning automation with rich authentication, reporting, and customizable scan profiles. Integrations with major CI/CD tools. Windows-based CLI can be less flexible.
Application & API discovery Continuously discovers and monitors all of your Internet-facing assets and domains available through connectors. Internal assets (ex. behind VPN), and APIs are not supported External discovery and internal discovery from code and through various connectors (Wiz, Akamai, AWS, Postman and others..) Web apps discovered via crawling, a list of APIs is built through uploading API specs Web app discovery via base spider. Internal API discovery from source code. No external API discovery. Through network, existing cloud targets or integrations — dependent on existing documentation and visible endpoints. Multiple steps are required to achieve implementation.
Custom security tests, including from pentest results / incidents Doesn't support custom tests Supports custom security tests that require no manual maintenance (support for both discovery and security testing) Doesn't support custom tests Supports custom test scripts (require manual maintenance) Supports custom tests (require manual maintenance)
Triaging & Reporting Former users have reported difficulties managing false positives. Absence of a structured vulnerability prioritization framework and limited reporting. AI-based classification to reduce false positives, with severity scoring based on business context and exploitability. Advanced Jira integration, dashboards, reporting for compliance, available separately or in a unified view. Promises < 3% of false positives. According to documentation, business logic tests may lead to false positive findings. Prioritization is limited to 4 severity levels, discovery type - archive, crawler, OAS. Reporting - multiple PDF export options. No unified compliance view. Emphasizes grouping and tagging, integrates well with issue trackers, and provides detailed vulnerability metadata. Supports multiple reporting formats and compliance dashboards, though unified compliance views may require additional configuration. Offers customizable risk scoring and prioritization, but the single list of all critical alerts can be overwhelming. Provides rich reporting including executive summaries, compliance reports, and tight integration with ticketing systems.
Remediation Guidance Provides generic recommendations on vulnerabilities Delivers ready-to-merge code fixes tailored to each development framework Delivers ready-to-merge code fixes Provides generic recommendations on vulnerabilities Provides generic recommendations on vulnerabilities

Why legacy DAST tools don't work for DevSecOps

Legacy DAST tools 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 applications are built around Single-Page Apps (SPAs) and APIs, which bring great flexibility but also introduce new challenges. Today's security threats include issues like Insecure Direct Object References (IDORs), Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF), and Access Control vulnerabilities. Security needs to be efficient and scalable to stay ahead of these risks. With the fast-paced nature of agile development, security teams can no longer afford to work in isolation or reactively. Instead, they must automate security processes and integrate them seamlessly into a DevSecOps pipeline, making security a continuous, proactive part of development.

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 best DAST tools below.

Escape

First in the lineup of the top DAST tools - the Escape 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 doesn't require agent installation and discovers APIs by scanning exposed source code.

Escape supports natively Single Page Apps and APIs. It excels at findings IDORS, SSRFs, and Access Control issues in modern web applications.

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.
Escape's automated, custom-generated remediations
  • 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
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Why Escape DAST is a better match for securing Single Page Applications and APIs

Invicti DAST (formerly Netsparker DAST)

Second in the row of the top DAST tools is Invicti DAST. 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
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Click here to see an in-depth comparison between Escape and Invicti DAST (formerly Netsparker).
Invicti's dashboard
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.

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Find a full comparison between Escape and StackHawk here.

Features

  • Can create custom test scripts for scenarios 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
StackHawk scans page
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

Bright Security

Overview of the Bright Security DAST

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

  1. 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.
  2. CI/CD Integration: Integrates well with popular tools like GitHub, CircleCI, Jenkins, TravisCI, GitLab, and JFrog to automate security testing within development pipelines.
  3. 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:

  1. 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)
  2. Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM): Evaluates and mitigates risks within cloud infrastructures for enhanced security.
  3. Open-Source Dependency Scanning (SCA): Monitors code dependencies for vulnerabilities and ensures license compliance.
  4. 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
Intruder dashboard
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).

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Read more about SAST vs DAST and how to combine them here.

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
CheckMarx's projects page in dashboard
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
  • Automatically 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
Fortify's dashboard
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

Preparing a list of DAST tools to evaluate on your modern applications?

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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.

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Discover more about the benefits of DAST from Escape's DevSecOps engineer.
Infographic on uses of a DAST

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.

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Explore a comprehensive comparison of Escape vs Qualys here.

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
Qualys API inventory
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.

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Find a complete comparison between Escape and Rapid7 here

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
Rapid7 InsightAppSec Dashboard
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
Veracode scanner status page
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

So, what makes a DAST Tool stand out? Key features to look for:

  1. Continuous automated scanning: A DAST should be continuously scanning all exposed applications in order to uncover all vulnerabilities that may arise
  2. 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
  3. 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
  4. Integration into workflow pipelines: As a security tool, a DAST should integrate seamlessly into a DevSecOps pipeline to streamline security testing

Choosing the Right DAST Tool for 2025

If you’re evaluating DAST tools for modern stacks especially APIs, SPAs, and CI/CD-native workflowsyour priorities are clear: low false positives, real coverage of business logic flaws, and seamless integration into developer pipelines.

Legacy scanners fall short. Tools like Escape are built from the ground up for today’s AppSec challenges - offering advanced detection, instant feedback in CI/CD, and real-world testing that matches how attackers operate.

See how Escape compares to traditional tools - book a live demo with a product expert who understands your architecture and security needs.

Learn more about what makes Escape's modern DAST stand out

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💡 Want to discover more about DAST? Check out the following links: