WS-Attacker vs Caido: 2026 Comparison
WS-Attacker is a free penetration testing tool. Caido is a free penetration testing tool. Compare features, ratings, integrations, and community reviews side by side to find the best penetration testing fit for your security stack.
CST VerdictBased on our analysis of available product data, here is our conclusion:
Penetration testers focusing on SOAP and REST API security will get the most from WS-Attacker because its modular attack library lets you chain custom payloads against web service implementations that standard HTTP proxies miss. The framework supports 15+ distinct attack types including XML signature wrapping and WSDL manipulation, and its 491 GitHub stars reflect active community maintenance. Skip it if your team needs a commercial support contract or a clickable UI; this is a command-line framework that rewards practitioners who read the documentation and write their own modules.
Solo penetration testers and small AppSec teams will move faster with Caido because it strips away the UI bloat that slows down manual web testing; you get request interception, fuzzing, and scanning without the enterprise overhead that makes Burp Suite feel like piloting a cargo ship. The free pricing eliminates procurement friction entirely, which matters when you're justifying tooling spend to finance. Skip this if you need SAST integration, collaborative workspace management for large teams, or NIST Respond capabilities like automated remediation workflows; Caido is built for hands-on auditing, not orchestrated enterprise remediation.
