No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Acunetix vs w3af comparison

Why PeerSpot?
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
16th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (11th), Vulnerability Management (28th), DevSecOps (8th)
w3af
Ranking in Application Security Tools
44th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Application Security Tools category, the mindshare of Acunetix is 2.4%, down from 2.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of w3af is 0.7%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Security Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Acunetix2.4%
w3af0.7%
Other96.9%
Application Security Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Rahul Kumar - PeerSpot reviewer
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 Acunetix positively impacts my organization by helping identify outdated libraries and applications, including legacy applications vulnerable to old attacks based on OWASP Top 10, thus aiding in compliance checks for PCI DSS and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.
OS
Information Security Advisor, CISO & CIO, Docutek Services at Docutek Services
It's buggy and seems to try to do too many things, but having this on a USB drive has been valuable.
I tried to install this on numerous systems and eventually, with help, I got it running. It needs far too many dependencies installed and there's too much messing about to be of much use. Once running, it's buggy and begs the question can it be relied upon? Even within Kali it reports website time-outs, yet Zap or Burp are able to do a successful scan. I wanted this to work so much and be able to use it as an additional check of my results but have now binned it.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Overall, the tool is efficient enough to identify and track your vulnerabilities and it's good for intelligence scanning purposes."
"The features of Acunetix have proved most effective in identifying vulnerabilities."
"It's very user-friendly for the testing teams. It's very easy for them to understand things and to fix vulnerabilities."
"I haven't seen reporting of that level in any other tool."
"By integrating with CI/CD tools, it enables a shift-left approach in the development process."
"The product is really easy to use."
"With Acunetix, we cut the time to make infrastructures and web applications for our colleagues more secure, and for one application with two or three critical vulnerabilities and some other vulnerabilities, it took about a week to remediate issues because the scan and findings were really fast."
"For us, the most valuable aspect of the solution is the log-sequence feature."
"The best free software for pen testing web applications."
 

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."
"Acunetix needs to improve its cost."
"I believe Acunetix can improve customer support, as the dedicated support staff are often unfamiliar with problems and troubleshooting, leading to communication gaps that delay issue resolution."
"We want to see how much bandwidth usage it consumes. When we monitor traffic we have issues with the consumption and throttling of the traffic."
"There's a clear need for a reduction in pricing to make the service more accessible."
"When monitoring the traffic we always have issues with the bandwidth consumption and the throttling of traffic."
"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."
"The solution's pricing could be better."
"Unfortunately, once you get around the seemingly strict set of pre-requisites to install it, it is incredibly buggy."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is a bit expensive. If you need to check five applications, you have to pay almost 14,000. It is an agreement for two years at 7,000 per year for only five applications. You cannot change the applications in the license. So, you are stuck with the same license for the five applications for one full year."
"I would say that Acunetix is expensive because there are products on the market with similar features that are equally or better-priced."
"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."
"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."
"The price is exceptionally high."
"All things considered, I think it has a good price/value ratio."
"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."
"The costs aren't very expensive. It costs around $3000 or $4000."
Information not available
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Security Tools solutions are best for your needs.
914,262 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business18
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise19
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your primary use case for Acunetix Vulnerability Scanner?
In a typical enterprise environment, Acunetix is mainly used for visibility, detection, and investigation across network traffic. The main use cases usually fall into a few core areas, with primary...
What advice do you have for others considering Acunetix Vulnerability Scanner?
I advise that Acunetix is the best option. Invest time in proper initial configuration and scope definitions. The tool is powerful, but its effectiveness depends heavily on how the authenticated ar...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Acunetix?
Everything is perfect and good, including the pricing and all related aspects.
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

AcuSensor
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Joomla!, Digicure, Team Random, Credit Suisse, Samsung, Air New Zealand
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about SonarSource Sàrl, Checkmarx, Veracode and others in Application Security Tools. Updated: September 2026.
914,262 professionals have used our research since 2012.