PortSwigger vs Arachni: 2026 Comparison
PortSwigger is a free dynamic application security testing tool by PortSwigger Ltd.. Arachni is a free dynamic application security testing tool. Compare features, ratings, integrations, and community reviews side by side to find the best dynamic application security testing fit for your security stack.
CST VerdictBased on our analysis of available product data, here is our conclusion:
AppSec teams running web application penetration tests or building secure development practices will get the most from Burp Suite Professional; its active scanning engine catches logic flaws and business logic vulnerabilities that static analysis misses entirely. The free Community edition has trained a generation of security practitioners and remains the de facto standard in security certifications like OSCP, so you're buying into an ecosystem with real staying power. Skip this if your priority is automated scanning at scale across hundreds of applications without manual tuning; Burp rewards hands-on operators more than it rewards fire-and-forget deployment models.
Security teams evaluating open-source DAST tools for regression testing in CI/CD pipelines will find Arachni's low operational overhead and zero licensing friction valuable, especially when scanning your own applications repeatedly. The framework's modular architecture and scripting capabilities let you customize checks for legacy systems that commercial scanners often ignore. Skip this if you need managed scanning, compliance reporting templates, or a vendor to call when false positives spike; Arachni requires in-house expertise to tune effectively and produces raw vulnerability data you'll need to contextualize yourself.
