Acunetix vs Contrast Security Protect comparison

Invicti and Contrast Security are both solutions in the Application Security Tools category. Invicti is ranked #14 with an average rating of 7.9, while Contrast Security is ranked #30. Invicti holds a 2.1% mindshare in AS, compared to Contrast Security’s 1.0% mindshare. Additionally, 88% of Invicti users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Contrast Security users who would recommend it.

Acunetix

Read 36 Acunetix reviews

6,676 Views
3,138 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

Contrast Security Protect

Read 3 Contrast Security Protect reviews

1,187 Views
1,140 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Acunetix

Contrast Security Protect

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 8, 2024

Acunetix and Contrast Security Protect compete in application security testing. While Acunetix is known for usability and pricing, Contrast Security Protect wins favor for advanced security features.

Features: Acunetix is valued for its comprehensive vulnerability scanning, automation abilities, and detailed reporting tools. Contrast Security Protect is noted for runtime application self-protection, dynamic analysis, and real-time threat detection.

Room for Improvement: Acunetix can enhance integration with development workflows, reporting details, and speed in processing. Contrast Security Protect could improve usability, reduce performance impact, and streamline its feature complexity.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Acunetix is praised for its straightforward setup and responsive support. Contrast Security Protect requires more deployment time due to its complexity but offers comprehensive customer service.

Pricing and ROI: Acunetix is competitively priced, attractive to small and medium businesses, offering a solid ROI. Contrast Security Protect has a higher initial cost but suggests greater ROI for large enterprises due to its extensive features.

To learn more, read our detailed Acunetix vs. Contrast Security Protect Report (Updated: March 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Acunetix vs. Contrast Security Protect

March 2026

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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

Acunetix

Ranking in Application Security Tools

14th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (10th), Vulnerability Management (28th), DevSecOps (6th)

Contrast Security Protect

Ranking in Application Security Tools

30th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

5.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Application Security Tools category, the mindshare of Acunetix is 2.1%, down from 2.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Contrast Security Protect is 1.0%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Security Tools Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Acunetix	2.1%
Contrast Security Protect	1.0%
Other	96.9%

Application Security Tools

Featured Reviews

Rahul Kumar

Senior Engineer - Penetration Tester at a government with 10,001+ employees

Identifies vulnerabilities across bulk web applications but needs better support and cleaner reports

The best feature Acunetix offers is the centralized dashboard and the quality of reports it generates, which includes various options for selecting reports and developer options for directly sharing the reports with developers. The centralized dashboard of Acunetix gives visibility into the security aspects of mass applications; for instance, with more than 200 applications, it provides a valuable overview of findings and necessary fixes, along with a high-level summary that helps us achieve compliance through monthly and sometimes weekly scanning. In terms of reporting, Acunetix is excellent because it can generate different types of reports, such as an executive summary report, detailed reports, and developer reports that can be shared directly with developers. Acunetix positively impacts my organization by helping identify outdated libraries and applications, including legacy applications vulnerable to old attacks based on OWASP Top 10, thus aiding in compliance checks for PCI DSS and OWASP. Acunetix provides a centralized report with compliance-related aspects and a vulnerability timeline, effectively helping reduce vulnerabilities and save time.

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ToddMcAlister

Lead Application and Data Security Engineer at a insurance company with 5,001-10,000 employees

It provides us with more in-depth visibility into ongoing attacks.

I rate Contrast Security Protect eight out of 10. Overall, it's a solid product, but I deduct a couple of points because of the interface and some shortcomings in the reporting. If you have a large enterprise where you're dealing with a lot of servers, then it makes sense not to use the internal MySQL database. You should use something like Oracle or Microsoft SQL, but if you don't have many transactions, the embedded MySQL database works great.

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Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"The solution is paying for itself, as our applications are more secure."

"We are happy, we're not unhappy with Acunetix, but we are very impressed by some of the things that it has been doing."

"The solution is comprehensive and easy to use."

"I find it to be one of the most comprehensive tools, with support for manual intervention."

"The scalability is more than good because it can operate both as a standalone and it can be integrated as part of applications, so that really makes it a very, very versatile solution to have."

"It can operate both as a standalone and it can be integrated with other applications, which makes it a very versatile solution to have."

"If an organization has 100 plus applications and wants to use an automated scanner, they should definitely go ahead with Acunetix because it is very cost-effective and will save time compared to focusing on other solutions and performing manual security assessments."

"It has been able to find some vulnerabilities, and we've been able to remediate our websites and vulnerabilities, thanks to Acunetix."

More Acunetix pros

"Contrast Security's support is great. They're willing to spend a lot of time on your problem."

"The product gives a few false positives. We get 99 percent true positives."

"The Protect solution allows applications to continue to run, even with known vulnerabilities, but will report or block attempts to exploit the vulnerabilities."

"The solution has excellent real-time capabilities."

"Protect provides us with more in-depth visibility into ongoing attacks."

Cons

"It should be easier to recreate something manually, with the manual tool, because Acunetix is an automatic tool. If it finds something, it should be easier to manually replicate it. Sometimes you don't get the raw data from the input and output, so that could be improved."

"When monitoring the traffic we always have issues with the bandwidth consumption and the throttling of traffic."

"Acunetix needs to include agent analysis."

"Our experience with Acunetix has not been good, so we are in the process of switching solutions."

"I had some issues with the JSON parameters where it found some strange vulnerabilities, but it didn't alert the person using it or me about these vulnerabilities, e.g., an error for SQL injection."

"It is difficult to create a proxy connection."

"Improving the handling of false positives would be beneficial because it can be challenging to trust the findings flagged by Acunetix, and those findings must be manually validated."

"In terms of what needs improvement, the way the licensing model is currently is not very convenient for us because initially, when we bought it, the licensing model was very flexible, but now it restricts us."

More Acunetix cons

"There's room for improvement in the initial setup."

"Contrast Security Protect needs to improve integration."

"There's room for improvement in the initial setup."

"Protect's reporting GUI is very basic. To get all statuses from the APIs, we needed to write our own KPI dashboard to provide reports."

"We're not using it much anymore because we had some performance issues."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"All things considered, I think it has a good price/value ratio."

"The pricing is a little high, and moreover, it's kind of domain-based."

"The pricing and licensing are reasonable to a point. In order to run multiple scans at a time, we are going to have to purchase a 100 count license, which is an overkill. Though, compared to what we were paying for, the cost seems reasonable."

"Acunetix was around the same price as all the other vendors we looked at, nothing special."

"The solution is expensive."

"Implementing Acunetix needs a medium or larger business agency, because you need some money to get Acunetix. It is costly, but if you care about your agency's security, then maybe it's a cost that might help you in the future."

"When compared with other products, the pricing is a little bit high. But it gives value for the price. It serves the purpose and is worthwhile for the price we pay."

"When we looked at all other vendors and what they were asking for, to provide a third of what Acunetix was capable of doing, it was an easy decision... But now that it's coming to a cost where it's line with market value, it becomes more of a competition... Acunetix is raising the cost of licensing. It's 3.5 times what we were initially quoted."

More Acunetix pricing and cost advice

Information not available

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

12%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Financial Services Firm

22%

Manufacturing Company

14%

Computer Software Company

Construction Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	15
Midsize Enterprise	7
Large Enterprise	18

No data available

Questions from the Community

What is your primary use case for Acunetix Vulnerability Scanner?

I'm using Acunetix to automate security checks. Acunetix helped me catch common vulnerability issues early and improved the overall security posture of the application before development, specifica...

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What advice do you have for others considering Acunetix Vulnerability Scanner?

I would advise anyone or any startup looking to engage in the security part to directly use Acunetix, as this will help in most aspects. I would rate this product a nine out of ten.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Acunetix?

The experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing has been that the setup cost and pricing need to be reconsidered.

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Comparisons

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Compared 8% of the time

Invicti vs Acunetix

Compared 6% of the time

Veracode vs Acunetix

Compared 5% of the time

HCL AppScan vs Acunetix

Compared 4% of the time

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Compared 10% of the time

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Compared 9% of the time

SonarQube vs Contrast Security Protect

Compared 8% of the time

OpenText Core Application Security vs Contrast Security Protect

Compared 7% of the time

Snyk vs Contrast Security Protect

Compared 4% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Acunetix

March 2026

Download Acunetix product report

Buyer's Guide

Application Security Tools

February 2026

Download Contrast Security Protect product report

Also Known As

AcuSensor

Contrast Protect

Overview

Acunetix Web Vulnerability Scanner is an automated web application security testing tool that audits your web applications by checking for vulnerabilities like SQL Injection, Cross site scripting, and other exploitable vulnerabilities.

Invicti

Contrast Security is the world’s leading provider of security technology that enables software applications to protect themselves against cyberattacks, heralding the new era of self-protecting software. Contrast's patented deep security instrumentation is the breakthrough technology that enables highly accurate assessment and always-on protection of an entire application portfolio, without disruptive scanning or expensive security experts. Only Contrast has sensors that work actively inside applications to uncover vulnerabilities, prevent data breaches, and secure the entire enterprise from development, to operations, to production.

Contrast Security

Sample Customers

Joomla!, Digicure, Team Random, Credit Suisse, Samsung, Air New Zealand

Williams-Sonoma, Autodesk, HUAWEI, Chromeriver, RingCentral, Demandware.

Buyer's Guide

Acunetix vs. Contrast Security Protect

March 2026

Free Report: Acunetix vs. Contrast Security Protect

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