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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)
14th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
API Security (6th), Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) (4th)
Qualys Web Application Scan...
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
8th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
38
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (12th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of Invicti is 1.5%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Qualys Web Application Scanning is 2.1%, down from 2.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
 

Featured Reviews

Kunal M - PeerSpot reviewer
Proactive scanning measures and realistic audit recommendations enhance development focus
Invicti's proactive scanning measures vulnerabilities each time we deploy or push code to a new environment. This feature helps us focus on priorities and prioritize the development team's effort, integrating seamlessly with DevOps to facilitate proactive scans of environments. Invicti also provides audit recommendations that are quite realistic, making it easy to discuss plans with developers.
Kelvin Oladipo - PeerSpot reviewer
User-friendly scanning provides valuable vulnerability insights, but pricing improvements are needed
Qualys Web Application Scanning ( /products/qualys-web-application-scanning-reviews ) is user-friendly, easy to understand, easy to use, and easy to deploy. Credential scanning is very effective because it goes in-depth into the system, crawling the pages, and reporting on vulnerabilities. The product helps by providing options for remediating vulnerabilities it finds, making it really useful.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I would rate the stability as ten out of ten."
"It has a comprehensive resulting mechanism. It is a one-stop solution for all your security testing mechanisms."
"The scanner and the result generator are valuable features for us."
"Invicti is a good product, and its API testing is also good."
"Attacking feature: Actually, attacking is not a solo feature. It contains many attack engines, Hawk, and many properties. But Netsparker's attacking mechanism is very flexible. This increases the vulnerability detection rate. Also, Netsparker made the Hawk for real-time interactive command-line-based exploit testing. It's very valuable for a vulnerability scanner."
"It correctly parses DOM and JS and has really good support for URL Rewrite rules, which is important for today's websites."
"I am impressed by the whole technology that they are using in this solution. It is really fast. When using netscan, the confirmation that it gives on the vulnerabilities is pretty cool. It is really easy to configure a scan in Netsparker Web Application Security Scanner. It is also really easy to deploy."
"High level of accuracy and quick scanning."
"Qualys Web Application Scanning is accurate and provides minimal false positives."
"The most valuable feature of Qualys Web Application Scanning is the effective scanning that can be done."
"It is a good product for website penetration testing to detect vulnerabilities."
"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)."
"​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.​"
"​QualysGuard web-based scanner is very useful for performing external penetration and PCI scans from remote locations.​"
"Qualys Web Application Scanning has multiple features like threat protection and container security scanning in one box."
"The interface is user-friendly and easy to understand."
 

Cons

"They don't really provide the proof of concept up to the level that we need in our organization. We are a consultancy firm, and we provide consultancy for the implementation and deployment solutions to our customers. When you run the scans and the scan is completed, it only shows the proof of exploit, which really doesn't work because the tool is running the scan and exploiting on the read-only form. You don't really know whether it is actually giving the proof of exploit. We cannot prove it manually to a customer that the exploit is genuine. It is really hard to perform it manually and prove it to the concerned development, remediation, and security teams. It is currently missing the static application security part of the application security, especially web application security. It would be really cool if they can integrate a SAS tool with their dynamic one."
"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."
"The proxy review, the use report views, the current use tool and the subset requests need some improvement. It was hard to understand how to use them."
"Invicti takes too long with big applications, and there are issues with the login portal."
"Invicti's reporting capabilities need enhancement."
"It would be better for listing and attacking Java-based web applications to exploit vulnerabilities."
"I think that it freezes without any specific reason at times. This needs to be looked into."
"Reporting should be improved. The reporting options should be made better for end-users. Currently, it is possible, but it's not the best. Being able to choose what I want to see in my reports rather than being given prefixed information would make my life easier. I had to depend on the API for getting the content that I wanted. If they could fix the reporting feature to make it more comprehensive and user-friendly, it would help a lot of end-users. Everything else was good about this product."
"The UI is not user-friendly and you don't have a yearly reporting facility where you can slice and dice in different jobs."
"The product should allow users to upload their payloads."
"The scanner reports a lot of false positives, which is something that needs to be improved."
"We have many websites. We don't force scanning on all of them at once because it's taking some time."
"One area for improvement is the user interface. The new UI, which was recently upgraded, feels more complex and less user-friendly than the old version."
"There should be better visibility into the application."
"It is unclear how to build automation on Qualys. We do some automation, but not fully, because working is difficult."
"The support could be faster."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We never had any issues with the licensing; the price was within our assigned limits."
"It is competitive in the security market."
"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."
"I think that price it too high, like other Security applications such as Acunetix, WebInspect, and so on."
"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."
"The price should be 20% lower"
"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."
"The product has a very good licensing model."
"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."
"​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​."
"It is an expensive platform."
"Qualys Web Application Scanning's pricing is a bit expensive compared to other solutions available in the 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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
36%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Netsparker Web Application Security Scanner?
As a technical user, I do not handle pricing or licensing, but I am aware that Invicti offers flexible licensing models based on organizational needs.
What do you like most about Invicti?
The most valuable feature of Invicti is getting baseline scanning and incremental scan.
What needs improvement with Invicti?
Invicti's reporting capabilities need enhancement. We need enterprise-level information instead of repo-level details. Unlike Appiro, Invicti does not provide portfolio-level insights into vulnerab...
What do you like most about Qualys Web Application Scanning?
The vulnerability management feature is a strong one. And also the patch management feature.
What needs improvement with Qualys Web Application Scanning?
I would like it to be cheaper because it is a bit expensive compared to competitors like Tenable Nessus ( /products/tenable-nessus-reviews ). After using the product for a year, I might have more s...
 

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: June 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.