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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)
11th
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 (8th), Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) (4th), Application Security Posture Management (ASPM) (5th)
Qualys Web Application Scan...
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
13th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (15th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of Invicti is 1.5%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Qualys Web Application Scanning is 1.8%, 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 (%)
Invicti1.5%
Qualys Web Application Scanning1.8%
Other96.7%
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

"I would tell potential users that it's really one of the best products in the market for web application security or Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST)."
"Invicti has done a commendable job with respect to ROI, and with respect to being a cost-effective solution and one of the market leaders as an effective solution for SAST and DAST, Invicti has performed very well."
"The dashboard is really cool, and the features are really good. It tells you about the software version you're using in your web application. It gives you the entire technology stack, and that really helps. Both web and desktop apps are good in terms of application scanning. It has a lot of security checks that are easily customizable as per your requirements. It also has good customer support."
"Invicti's best feature is the ability to identify vulnerabilities and manually verify them."
"Invicti's proactive scanning measures vulnerabilities each time we deploy or push code to a new environment."
"It correctly parses DOM and JS and has really good support for URL Rewrite rules, which is important for today's websites."
"Invicti is part of our SSDLC portfolio, and DAST dynamic testing is very important for our web applications and portfolios."
"Netsparker has done an awesome job with its crawler, as it has found all of the links (also thanks to its good DOM parser)."
"The advantage of Qualys Web Application Scanning lies in its user-friendly dashboard and appealing reports, which are useful for presentation to leadership."
"​This product is designed for easy scalability and can easily scale up ​without major challenges."
"Qualys Web Application Scanning is very stable and reliable."
"​QualysGuard web-based scanner is very useful for performing external penetration and PCI scans from remote locations.​"
"Licensing is the most valuable. Qualys provides the best licensing for companies. It is the best product for the development purposes of web applications. The product has a lot of integrations."
"I recommend Qualys Web Application Scanning as it is easy to set up scans and is affordable from a cost perspective."
"It combines both web application vulnerability management and internal vulnerability management on one platform and dashboard."
"​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.​"
 

Cons

"They could enhance the support for data swap testing for the platform."
"The higher level vulnerabilities like Cross-Site Scripting, SQL Injection, and other higher level injection attacks are difficult to highlight using Netsparker."
"The solution's false positive analysis and vulnerability analysis libraries could be improved."
"It is a good tool, as we found out with the Community Edition trial, but the price point is quite expensive for a startup or average-sized company."
"The scanning time, complexity, and authentication features of Invicti could be improved."
"The higher level vulnerabilities like Cross-Site Scripting, SQL Injection, and other higher level injection attacks are difficult to highlight using Netsparker."
"Invicti takes too long with big applications, and there are issues with the login portal."
"When scanning a large web-based application, it tends to process slow and takes a long time especially on crawling and attacking part."
"It should have better automatic reporting."
"We procured around 110 licenses for Web Application Scanning, but we have issues running concurrent scans. I don't currently have the option to trigger scans for all 100-plus websites. The default limit is around 10 conference scans. It's not very scalable, to be honest, because of the limitation that they put on concurrent scans."
"The area of false positives could be improved. There are quite a number of false positives as compared to other solutions."
"Sometimes the response time is low because the handshake fails, and then you have to re-login and start again."
"The GUI could be a little less complicated as it opens a lot of new windows for creating search lists, templates, reports, or for scanning purposes."
"It's missing some zero-day patches."
"They should improve the performance of the security scanning. It should have better performance."
"The support could be faster."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We never had any issues with the licensing; the price was within our assigned limits."
"The price should be 20% lower"
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"It is competitive in the security market."
"​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 product has a very good licensing model."
"There are different options available with respect to licensing."
"From my perspective, it is a budget-friendly option."
"Qualys WAS' pricing is competitive."
"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."
"Pricing was reasonable and competitive. It was not too far above the other products."
"The product pricing is fair and reasonably priced."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
9%
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: March 2026.
885,667 professionals have used our research since 2012.