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

Invicti vs Qualys Web Application Scanning comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 8, 2024

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

Invicti
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
10th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
Container Security (24th), Software Composition Analysis (SCA) (8th), API Security (9th), Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) (4th), Application Security Posture Management (ASPM) (5th)
Qualys Web Application Scan...
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
11th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (16th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of Invicti is 1.7%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Qualys Web Application Scanning is 1.9%, down from 2.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Static Application Security Testing (SAST) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Invicti1.7%
Qualys Web Application Scanning1.9%
Other96.4%
Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
 

Featured Reviews

Valavan Sivgalingam - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager, Security Engineering at ESS
Dynamic testing regularly identifies web vulnerabilities and has strong false positive confirmations
It has good false positive confirmations, confirmed issues identification, and proof of exploit-related features as part of it. We use Invicti for these things in our portfolios. The solution includes Proof-Based Scanning technology. Invicti is part of our SSDLC portfolio, and DAST dynamic testing is very important for our web applications and portfolios. For both the API endpoints and web applications, we do regular testing on a monthly basis for all our releases. Invicti does a good job. The only concern is on the performance side, but other than that, we find it really helpful in identifying web vulnerabilities. A full scan takes more time based on your website and other factors, but for us, it takes more than two to three days. The scan performance can be improved upon. When we check with them, they discuss proof-based scanning and related aspects. However, there could be intermittent results that could help us.
AnkitSharma13 - PeerSpot reviewer
Security Officer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Web scanning needs improvement but offers good vulnerability detection
The downside of Qualys Web Application Scanning is that it cannot crawl automatically. If I provide an IP address and a login form, it does basic testing, but it doesn't go deep as IBM AppScan does. If Qualys Web Application Scanning could improve its crawling capability, it would be more user-friendly. Qualys Web Application Scanning does IP-level testing, requiring direct input of credentials, and can only scan a few pages to provide known generic vulnerabilities, which isn't as beneficial from my point of view. The Vulnerability Management also relies heavily on version numbers and will flag vulnerabilities based on the component version, but it doesn't check if a real fix exists, leading to flags on components that actually have workarounds available.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It has improved the security of our code by scanning it and finding security defects."
"Invicti's best feature is the ability to identify vulnerabilities and manually verify them."
"I would rate the stability as ten out of ten."
"The scanner is light on the network and does not impact the network when scans are running."
"OWASP Zap is free and it has live updates, so that's a big plus."
"It has very good integration with the CI/CD pipeline."
"The platform is stable."
"I would definitely recommend it to those who really want to know in-depth details of their applications/products regarding security."
"Qualys Web Application Scanning has multiple features like threat protection and container security scanning in one box."
"​We have experienced quick customer support. They have a complete list of our previous issues along with our history, which makes it faster for them to solve issues.​"
"By using QualysGuard, we are able to finish external scans with assured results in half the time."
"The most valuable features are scanning analysis and reporting."
"By using QualysGuard, we are able to finish external scans with assured results in half the time.​"
"I recommend Qualys Web Application Scanning as it is easy to set up scans and is affordable from a cost perspective."
"Qualys WAS' most valuable features are the navigation flow of the UI and the option for a different layer of security (identification and operation through email and mobile)."
"Qualys Web Application Scanning is accurate and provides minimal false positives."
 

Cons

"The scannings are not sufficiently updated."
"Improvement could be made in the area of production."
"They need to improve their support in the documentation. Their support mechanism is missing. Their responsiveness, technical staff, and these types of things need to be improved, and comprehensive documentation is required. They should have good self-service portal enhancement"
"Asset scanning could be better. Once, it couldn't scan assets, and the issue was strange. The price doesn't fit the budget of small and medium-sized businesses."
"Maybe the ability to make a good reporting format is needed."
"The license could be better. It would help if they could allow us to scan multiple URLs on the same license. It's a major hindrance that we are facing while scanning applications, and we have to be sure that the URLs are the same and not different so that we do not end up consuming another license for it. Netsparker is one of the costliest products in the market. The licensing is tied to the URL, and it's restricted. If you have a URL that you scanned once, like a website, you cannot retry that same license. If you are scanning the same website but in a different domain or different URL, you might end up paying for a second license. It would also be better if they provided proper support for multi-factor authentications. In the next release, I would like them to include good multi-factor authentication support."
"The solution needs to make a more specific report."
"Perhaps the custom attack preparation screen might be improved."
"We receive false positives sometimes when using a solution that could be improved. However, the technical team provides us with the exact explanation why it was giving us that kind of error."
"The pricing of Qualys is quite expensive in comparison with the other products in this category that are offering pretty much the same thing."
"The tool should have a live HTTP editor and more configuration options for some situations, such as handling applications that have URL rewriting enabled."
"In certain cases, this product does have false positives, which the company should work on."
"The UI is not user-friendly and you don't have a yearly reporting facility where you can slice and dice in different jobs."
"It should have better automatic reporting."
"The authenticated scanning feature could be improved by adding support for real-time scanning tokens and authorization tokens."
"The downside of Qualys Web Application Scanning is that it cannot crawl automatically. If I provide an IP address and a login form, it does basic testing, but it doesn't go deep as IBM AppScan does."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We never had any issues with the licensing; the price was within our assigned limits."
"We are using an NFR license and I do not know the exact price of the NFR license. I think 20 FQDN for three years would cost around 35,000 US Dollars."
"Invicti is best suited for large enterprises. I don't think small and medium-sized businesses can afford it. Maintenance costs aren't that great."
"The solution is very expensive. It comes with a yearly subscription. We were paying 6000 dollars yearly for unlimited scans. We have three licenses; basic, business, and ultimate. We need ultimate because it has unlimited scan numbers."
"Netsparker is one of the costliest products in the market. It would help if they could allow us to scan multiple URLs on the same license."
"OWASP Zap is free and it has live updates, so that's a big plus."
"I think that price it too high, like other Security applications such as Acunetix, WebInspect, and so on."
"It is competitive in the security market."
"Qualys has an IT-based licensing based on a yearly license, which is a good way of handling it. However, in some cases, when we do the PCI scanning, the host will not like the scanning and we lose the IT license. So, this could be improved."
"There are different options available with respect to licensing."
"We are on an annual license for the solution and the pricing could be more affordable."
"The product is expensive, at least initially, in comparison to other products in this category."
"We normally purchase an annual license."
"​It is best to be an institutional buyer and directly contact the sales team, as they can provide over-the-top discounts for bulk orders​."
"The cost is $30,000 USD for one year to cover WAS (Web Application Security) and the VM (Virtual Machine) security in a company with 200 employees."
"From my perspective, it is a budget-friendly option."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Static Application Security Testing (SAST) solutions are best for your needs.
894,668 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise13
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise27
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Netsparker Web Application Security Scanner?
The setup cost is pretty competitive. For example, if you want to talk about the SAST license, it comes to about $150 or sometimes less than $100, depending on the conversion or the number of licen...
What needs improvement with Invicti?
At this time, there is nothing that comes to mind. However, most of the products in the market are pretty much neck-to-neck competitors. Speaking about it, there are a couple of factors which they ...
What is your primary use case for Invicti?
I have worked on a couple of products, specifically in web application security. I have worked on Invicti, and with respect to PAM, I have worked with BeyondTrust. I have not worked specifically fo...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Qualys Web Application Scanning?
Regarding pricing, I think for personal use, it is costly, but if organizations are ready to pay, then it is fine as they are using it.
What needs improvement with Qualys Web Application Scanning?
The downside of Qualys Web Application Scanning is that it cannot crawl automatically. If I provide an IP address and a login form, it does basic testing, but it doesn't go deep as IBM AppScan does...
What is your primary use case for Qualys Web Application Scanning?
I use Qualys Web Application Scanning, and we are using Vulnerability Management. By Vulnerability Management, I mean not TotalCloud; they have some on-premises solutions also. Patch Management and...
 

Also Known As

Netsparker
Qualys WAS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Samsung, The Walt Disney Company, T-Systems, ING Bank
BskyB, Cartagena, ClearPoint Learning Systems, Connect Group, du, Fortrex Technologies, HBOR, HDI, Highlights for Children, The Lithuanian State Enterprise Centre of Registers, City of Miami Beach, Microsoft, MidlandHR, MSCI Inc., Northern Arizona University, Ofgem, Olympus Europa, PhoneFactor, RTL Nederland, ThousandEyes, VGZ Organisatie B.V.
Find out what your peers are saying about Invicti vs. Qualys Web Application Scanning and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
894,668 professionals have used our research since 2012.