Best Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) Tools

All the security tools we used were slow, confusing, overpriced and noisy. So we built better ones.

Black Duck (formerly Synopsys Software Integrity Group) provides a comprehensive application security platform focusing on Software Composition Analysis (SCA) and static/dynamic testing. It enables organizations to manage open-source risks, identify vulnerabilities in proprietary code, and ensure license compliance across the SDLC. The platform complements DevSecOps workflows by integrating security gates into CI/CD pipelines and providing deep visibility into software supply chain risks.

Bright Security (formerly NeuraLegion) provides an AI-powered Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) and API security platform built for developer-centric workflows. It focuses on identifying business logic vulnerabilities and security flaws early in the SDLC with low false positive rates. The platform integrates seamlessly into CI/CD pipelines, allowing security teams to empower developers to fix vulnerabilities before production without slowing down release cycles.

Burp Suite is PortSwigger’s web application DAST platform, used to crawl running applications, map attack surface, and run active and passive vulnerability scans without source-code instrumentation. It is best known in application security teams for black-box testing of HTTP/HTTPS applications, with enterprise options for scheduled scanning and centralized management. Burp Suite Professional is aimed at manual testers and pentesters, while Burp Suite DAST serves teams that need repeatable scanning across many web apps and CI/CD workflows. The product is focused on discovering runtime flaws such as injection, authentication, access-control, and client-side issues.

Only Cobalt brings together the four critical elements of modern offensive security: elite human expertise, a context-aware platform, AI-powered orchestration, and the industry's largest dataset of real-world pentest results.

CodeWall is an autonomous application security testing vendor that focuses on black-box assessment of live applications and APIs rather than source-code analysis. Based on available public material, its core fit is organizations that want continuous validation of web apps, REST/GraphQL APIs, and internal tooling in CI/CD-driven release cycles. The company appears to be a 2026-founded startup and positions itself as an offensive security platform with verified exploit evidence rather than a traditional point-in-time scanner. Public sources do not show a separate SAST product, so its profile is strongest on DAST-style runtime testing.

Contrast Security provides an IAST platform that embeds agents into running applications, instrumenting code with sensors for real-time vulnerability detection and attack telemetry. Unlike external DAST scans or static SAST analysis, it analyzes data flows, application logic, and runtime behavior across development, CI/CD pipelines, and production. This reduces false positives by validating vulnerabilities in context, supports DevSecOps integration, and offers continuous monitoring for web apps, APIs, and microservices. Best for organizations prioritizing accurate, low-noise AppSec in agile environments over traditional black-box or white-box tools.

Detectify is the application security platform that gives modern security teams ultimate control over their actual attack surface, delivering proprietary vulnerability data designed for both humans and agents.

Ermetic provides a CIEM platform that discovers and analyzes human and machine identities, entitlements, and access risks across AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud. Acquired by Tenable in 2023 and rebranded as Tenable CIEM, it combines CIEM with CSPM for contextual visibility into IAM policies, network configurations, storage, and secrets. It exposes overprivileged entitlements, toxic combinations, and enforces least privilege via automated remediation and anomaly detection. Best for multi-cloud enterprises needing unified CNAPP capabilities to manage complex entitlement sprawl without agents.

Since 2001, Fluid Attacks has been committed to growing as a team and developing its own technology to contribute to global cybersecurity.

HCL AppScan is an application security testing platform focused on DAST and SAST, delivered through products such as AppScan Standard, AppScan Source, AppScan Enterprise, and AppScan on Cloud. In this category, it is used to test source code and running applications for vulnerabilities across web apps, APIs, mobile apps, and enterprise software development pipelines. It is best suited for security teams, AppSec program managers, developers, and penetration testers that need both static analysis in the build process and dynamic testing of deployed applications. Adjacent IAST and SCA capabilities exist in the platform but are secondary here.

Invicti Security combines DAST leaders Netsparker and Acunetix into a DAST-first ASPM platform for enterprise web application and API security. It uses proof-based validation via AcuSensor technology to confirm vulnerabilities like SQL injection and XSS with near-zero false positives. The platform correlates SAST, IAST, DAST, and SCA findings, providing runtime exploitability validation, code-level mapping to exact file/line, predictive risk scoring, and unified dashboards across testing tools. Best for DevSecOps teams needing accurate, automated scanning integrated with CI/CD workflows and compliance reporting for PCI DSS and SOC 2.

Mend.io is the security platform built for every risk, across application security and AI security, securing the code layer, the AI layer, and the attack surface between them. Continuous protection across the full AI application lifecycle.

Nullify is an application security platform centered on SAST and DAST workflows, with continuous code scanning and live endpoint testing aimed at finding exploitable issues before merge or release. Its code analysis covers 16 languages plus Terraform, CloudFormation, and Kubernetes manifests, while its dynamic testing API and CLI target running web apps and APIs. It is positioned for small security teams and developer-first organizations that want vulnerability discovery and remediation in one workflow rather than separate scanners and manual triage.

Qualys provides Vulnerability Management, Detection and Response (VMDR), a cloud-based platform that automatically discovers assets across on-premises, cloud, and mobile environments, including unmanaged devices. It scans for vulnerabilities using over 20,000 checks from its Vulnerability KnowledgeBase, correlates findings with threat intelligence and machine learning to prioritize risks on critical assets, and detects indicators of compromise. VMDR supports hybrid IT scanning from a single console, generates role-based reports for compliance, and integrates with ticketing systems for automated remediation workflows. Best for enterprises needing continuous visibility and prioritization in complex, distributed networks.

Rapid7 is a global leader in AI-powered managed cybersecurity operations, trusted to advance organizations' cyber resilience. Open and extensible, the Rapid7 Command Platform integrates security data, enriching it with AI, threat intelligence, and 25 years of expertise and innovation to reduce risk and disrupt attackers.

Snyk is an application security platform providing SAST (static code analysis), DAST (runtime testing), and SCA (software composition analysis) capabilities integrated into CI/CD pipelines. The vendor targets development teams seeking to embed security early in the SDLC, from first commit through production deployment. Snyk's AI-native approach uses machine learning to reduce false positives while detecting complex vulnerabilities across proprietary code, open-source dependencies, containers, and infrastructure.

Sonar helps developers deliver high quality and secure software by analyzing code they write, AI-generated code, and code leveraged from third parties (like open source libraries). Sonar's integrated approach to improving code quality and code security catches these issues before they make it into production, helping developers reduce technical debt and code complexity over time.

Datadog is the leading observability and security platform for the AI era, providing businesses with unified visibility across the technology stack to manage complexity at scale.

We built StackHawk out of a need for a more agile, developer-friendly approach to software security. Recognizing that traditional, periodic security checks were falling short in a world of rapid software updates, we aimed to integrate security seamlessly into the daily workflow of developers.

Synopsys is the leader in engineering solutions from silicon to systems, enabling customers to rapidly innovate AI-powered products.

Veracode is a cloud-native application security platform providing SAST, DAST, SCA, and runtime analysis capabilities. The vendor targets enterprise DevSecOps teams seeking to shift-left vulnerability detection into CI/CD pipelines. Veracode is positioned as the only native SaaS application security solution with industry-leading 1% false positive rates. Best suited for organizations requiring comprehensive code coverage across custom and third-party components with centralized policy management and developer-focused remediation workflows.

Wapiti is an open-source black-box web application vulnerability scanner used in penetration testing to probe live sites for common flaws without source-code access. It targets deployed HTTP applications and is best suited for testers who need lightweight, repeatable web attack surface validation rather than full red-team adversary emulation. Its market position is that of a classic web pentest utility, not a broad red-team platform. It is especially useful for security researchers, consultants, and administrators auditing public-facing web apps.