Open Source Tools · Alternatives

Open-source alternatives to Acunetix

Acunetix is a commercial dynamic application security testing (DAST) scanner for websites and APIs. Open-source options cover the same ground with an automated proxy scanner (ZAP), template-driven checks (Nuclei) and web server scanners.

Acunetix is a commercial product by Invicti (official site). Category: Web application testing.

Comparison

Tool	Licence	Stars	Last commit	Best for
Nuclei	MITOpen source	32k	today	Template-based vulnerability scanner
ZAP	Apache-2.0Open source	16k	4 days ago	Intercepting proxy and DAST scanner for web apps
Nikto	GPL-3.0-onlyOpen source	11k	2 months ago	Web server scanner for dangerous files and misconfigurations

Open-source options

Nuclei
Template-based vulnerability scanner
Fast vulnerability scanner driven by YAML templates, with thousands of community templates for CVEs, misconfigurations and exposures across many protocols.
Stars
32k
Forks
4k
Last commit
today
MITOpen sourceVulnerability scanning
Alternative toTenable Nessus Qualys VMDR+1
ZAP
Intercepting proxy and DAST scanner for web apps
Web application security scanner and intercepting proxy, formerly OWASP ZAP, with automated scans, a desktop UI, an API and a large add-on marketplace.
Stars
16k
Forks
2.7k
Last commit
4 days ago
Apache-2.0Open sourceWeb application testing
Alternative toBurp Suite Professional Acunetix
Nikto
Web server scanner for dangerous files and misconfigurations
Long-running open-source web server scanner that checks for dangerous files, outdated server software and common misconfigurations.
Stars
11k
Forks
1.5k
Last commit
2 months ago
GPL-3.0-onlyOpen sourceVulnerability scanning
Alternative toAcunetix

Product names are trademarks of their owners. ThreatWire is not affiliated with Invicti. The comparison covers what each tool is designed to do, not a feature-by-feature equivalence.