Security Monitoring

The Top 11 Vulnerability Scanning Software Solutions

Discover the top vulnerability scanning software with features like automated scans and threat intelligence feeds.

Last updated on Mar 05, 2025

Written by Alex Zawalnyski

Technical review by Laura Iannini

The Top 11 Vulnerability Scanning Software Solutions include:

1. RapidFireTools VulScan
2. Intruder
3. ManageEngine Vulnerability Manager Plus
4. Wiz Vulnerability Management
5. Acunetix Vulnerability Scanner
6. HCL AppScan
7. Invicti
8. PortSwigger Burp Scanner
9. Qualys VMDR
10. Rapid7 InsightVM
11. Tenable Nessus

Vulnerability scanning plays a critical role in the development lifecycle. These scanners detect, evaluate, and report potential security vulnerabilities within your code during development, allowing development teams to proactively search for and remediate weaknesses before they are exploited or deployed. This improves overall security posture, minimizing the potential for data breaches and cyberattacks.

Vulnerability scanning tools automatically search code repositories, container images, dependencies, and Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) assets for vulnerabilities. This process is more efficient than deploying patches later in the cycle as it ensures that vulnerabilities do not become entrenched in the design. It also allows developers to make fixes before software goes live, reducing the opportunity for attack.

This shortlist will cover the top vulnerability scanning tools that can be incorporated as part of the CI/CD process. We will assess their key features, ease of use, scalability, and overall effectiveness. We have considered user experience alongside technical capabilities to give you a comprehensive and holistic account of each platform.

RapidFireTools VulScan

RapidFireTools is an automated IT Risk Management platform that provides products for network scanning, critical IT change detection, IT governance risk and compliance, and network vulnerability management.

The platform’s vulnerability management solution, VulScan, enables teams to discover, prioritize, and manage both internal and external vulnerabilities with comprehensive scanning.

RapidFireTools uses a combination of on-prem internal network scanning, computer-based discovery agents, remote proxy-based internal scanning, and hosted external scanners to build a comprehensive picture of network weaknesses. The platform then presents comprehensive data and actionable remediation plans.

In our demo of the solution, we found the admin console to be clean, fast, and easy-to-use. The portal presents a detailed overview of scan results, including vulnerabilities by device, your risk score over time, a list of high-risk users, and the number of critical and high-risk CVEs found. The platform also provides email alerts for scan results and high-risk vulnerabilities.

The solution is ideal for MSPs as it offers multi-tenant management with no limit to the number of scanners used for each environment. The solution can be fully rebranded and white-labeled for partners. You can also set up multiple additional RapidFireTools products via the same admin interface (such as their comprehensive GRC solution) to streamline workflows.

Overall, we recommend RapidFireTools VulScan as a comprehensive vulnerability scanning platform, especially for MSPs prioritizing detailed reports, alerting, actionable remediation, and scalable multi-tenant support. RapidFireTools is a Kaseya brand.

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Intruder

Intruder is a proactive security monitoring and vulnerability scanning platform. Intruder provides a user-friendly and straightforward cloud-based solution for finding and resolving software vulnerabilities. The platform continuously scans your internet facing assets, identifies weaknesses, and provides clear advice to rectify security gaps.

The Intruder platform ensures that your attack surface is consistently monitored, including web infrastructure and APIs. It provides real-time alerts for potential vulnerabilities, allowing you to understand and track areas of concern. Alerts are prioritized and false positives automatically removed so teams can focus on critical issues. Intruder’s online vulnerability scanner is designed with simplicity in mind, and can be set up and operated in just a few minutes.

Intruder provides a realistic perspective of your attack surface by successfully integrating network surveillance, automated vulnerability scans, and proactive threat response in one platform. Crucially, findings are always action-oriented and the results are indexed by context, with detailed reporting for compliance purposes. The platform is equipped to undertake regular vulnerability and emerging proactive threat monitoring that minimizes exposure. This can be easily integrated into your CI/CD pipeline for efficient DevOps functioning

Intruder ensures adherence to compliance requirements. It offers compliant audit-ready reports, which can be readily presented to auditors, stakeholders, and customers. Expert Insights recommends Intruder as an easy to deploy and manage vulnerability scanning solution, with external, internal and cloud vulnerability scanning, as well as detailed reporting and compliance capabilities.

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ManageEngine Vulnerability Manager Plus

ManageEngine Vulnerability Manager Plus is a vulnerability scanning, compliance and remediation tool designed to provide comprehensive visibility into security risks such as security misconfigurations, web server misconfigurations, and harmful software. The solution also supports remediation and mitigation of detected vulnerabilities. The platform supports Windows, Mac and Linux operating systems.

Vulnerability Manager Plus works by continuously scanning all local and remote endpoints, discovering new devices as they are added. It scans for and detects vulnerabilities based on ongoing assessment of software, configurations and more. The solution can then support teams in mitigating security and compliance gaps.

Vulnerabilities are prioritized based on several factors, including severity, age and ease-of-remediation. Compliance objectives can be set in line with industry benches, and patches can be automatically sent out using ManageEngine’s patch management capabilities. This can be automated using pre-build patching scripts for instant remediation of vulnerabilities where possible.

Overall, ManageEngine offers a comprehensive solution for vulnerability scanning, assessment and remediation. It has been used by leading brands and is available in three editions – a free version for up to 20 wordstations, a Professional version, and an Enterprise version which includes automated patch deployment.

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Wiz Vulnerability Management

Wiz vulnerability management is designed to uncover vulnerabilities across various clouds and workloads, including virtual machines, serverless functions, containers, and appliances, without the need for agents or external scans. Through its one-time cloud-native API deployment, the platform continuously assesses workloads and manages potential risks. The solution eliminates the need for endless agent enforcement, reduces blind spots, and prioritizes vulnerabilities based on environmental risk.

The platform delivers a deep assessment feature that detects hidden nested log4j dependencies and CISA KEV exploitable vulnerabilities across a wide range of technologies. Additionally, the platform aids in prioritizing remediation efforts by focusing on exposed resources or those with the largest blast radius.

Wiz’s agentless scanning technology offers a single cloud-native API connector for vulnerability assessment across multiple cloud platforms and technologies. It supports more than 70,000 vulnerabilities spanning over 30 operating systems and thousands of applications. The Threat Center enables users to identify workload exposure to the latest vulnerabilities and take remediation action swiftly. The solution can also be integrated into the CI/CD pipeline, scanning VM and container images to prevent vulnerable resources from entering production.

Overall, this vulnerability management solution provides comprehensive, agentless, and cloud-native management for a wide range of workloads and platforms. It focuses on reducing alert fatigue by prioritizing vulnerabilities based on contextual risk and offers continuous operating system and application configuration monitoring according to CIS benchmarks.

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Acunetix Vulnerability Scanner

Acunetix Vulnerability Scanner is a comprehensive web application security testing solution that provides built-in vulnerability assessment and management tools. It can be used as a standalone application or integrated with market-leading software development tools. By incorporating Acunetix into your security infrastructure, you can significantly enhance your cybersecurity posture and reduce security risks, while conserving resources.

Enterprises can use Acunetix to automate and integrate their vulnerability management, incorporating web vulnerability tests into their SecDevOps processes. Acunetix integrates easily with CI/CD pipeline tools like Jenkins as well as third-party issue trackers like Jira, GitLab, GitHub, TFS, Bugzilla, and Mantis. Acunetix also offers an API for connecting with other security controls and third-party or in-house developed software.

Acunetix is an efficient and quick vulnerability scanning tool that has undergone continuous improvement since 2005. The scanning engine, written in C++, enables comprehensive scanning of complex web applications, especially those using significant amounts of JavaScript code. Acunetix is known for its low false-positive rate, which saves resources during further penetration testing. To increase scanning efficiency, you can deploy multiple scanning engines locally.

Acunetix can be installed locally on Linux, macOS, and Windows operating systems or used as a cloud product. It detects web application vulnerabilities, web server configuration issues, malware, and other security threats. Acunetix also integrates with OpenVAS, an open-source network security scanner that allows you to manage your web and network vulnerabilities together using a single dashboard.

HCL AppScan

HCL AppScan is a comprehensive security suite that offers application security solutions tailored for developers, DevOps, security teams, and CISOs. It helps businesses protect their applications by detecting vulnerabilities and offering remediation solutions throughout the software development lifecycle. With a variety of deployment options (including on-premises, on-cloud, and hybrid), HCL AppScan accommodates various business needs.

The software supports over 30 code languages and integrates seamlessly into IDEs and CI/CD pipelines, encouraging developers to write secure code from the start. By employing machine learning techniques, HCL AppScan reduces false positives and auto-fix capabilities, making it easier to prioritize remediation tasks. The customizable sliders in the software provide a balance between speed and accuracy, allowing for continuous security in the SDLC.

HCL AppScan delivers real-time security monitoring through aggregated scan results, centralized dashboards, and customizable lenses for risk posture and compliance. The software also includes cloud security features, scanning dockers containers, and container images to ensure no vulnerabilities are introduced by third-party components. API testing is available to secure vulnerable third-party components and detect issues in the IDE. With these advanced features, HCL AppScan bolsters application security and helps organizations around the world protect their data.

Invicti

Invicti is a web vulnerability management solution that emphasizes automation, scalability, and integration. The platform is powered by a cutting-edge web vulnerability scanner that utilizes Proof-Based Scanning technology to accurately identify and verify vulnerabilities, whilst reducing false positives. The platform is effective when integrated within the SDLC or employed as a standalone solution.

Invicti can seamlessly integrate with prominent CI/CD solutions and issue trackers to be used in DevSecOps environments. Such integration allows users to eliminate security vulnerabilities early in the development process, saving time and resources. The platform’s Proof-Based Scanning technology enables fully scalable vulnerability scanning processes by automatically exploiting detected security vulnerabilities safely, and providing proof of exploitability.

The platform uses black-box scanning technology, with on-premises and hosted deployments allowing it to detect a wide range of security vulnerabilities. The scanner is capable of handling complex JavaScript/Ajax-based applications and can identify thousands of OWASP Top 10 vulnerabilities in web pages, web applications, web services, and APIs. Additionally, Invicti checks web server configurations on commercial and open-source web servers such as Apache, Nginx, and IIS to ensure there are no misconfigurations that might lead to security issues. With Invicti, users can incorporate security automation at every step of the SDLC, achieving improved security with less manual effort.

PortSwigger Burp Scanner

Burp Scanner is a web vulnerability scanner (developed by PortSwigger), which is integrated into both Burp Suite Enterprise Edition and Burp Suite Professional. It is a reliable solution trusted by over 70,000 users spread across more than 16,000 organizations, and offers automatic vulnerability detection in web applications, including JavaScript-heavy applications that other scanners may struggle with.

The advanced crawling algorithm employed by Burp Scanner enables it to successfully navigate obstacles such as CSRF tokens, deliver stateful functionality, and manage volatile URLs. It is specifically designed to handle dynamic content, unstable internet connections, and diverse API definitions. This results in fewer failed scans and more discovered attack surfaces. Burp Scanner’s location fingerprinting techniques significantly reduce the number of requests made during testing, resulting in time and effort savings.

PortSwigger’s security research team are continually improving the capabilities of Burp Scanner to detect a wide range of existing vulnerabilities. Users can customize scan configurations and focus on specific issues (including those listed in the OWASP Top 10). Burp Scanner also includes an automated OAST (out-of-band application security testing) feature which reveals issues like asynchronous SQL injection and blind SSRF that are often missed by traditional scanners.

Burp Scanner is known for its excellent signal-to-noise ratio, providing maximum coverage with minimal false positives. This reliable and versatile web vulnerability scanner is a valuable tool for web application security, trusted by numerous organizations across the globe.

Qualys VMDR

Qualys Vulnerability Management (VMDR) is a comprehensive solution for managing cyber risk in businesses. It provides businesses with increased visibility and insight into their cyber risk exposure. This results in efficient and effective prioritization of vulnerabilities, assets, and risk. With Qualys, organizations are able to proactively mitigate risk and track their risk reduction progress over time. VMDR addresses the needs of modern IT, OT, and IoT environments, providing asset discovery, vulnerability assessment, and prioritization.

VMDR offers a single solution for risk-based vulnerability management that seamlessly integrates with configuration management databases and patch management solutions. This allows for quick discovery, prioritization, and automatic remediation of vulnerabilities at scale, reducing overall risk. The platform also integrates with ITSM solutions (like ServiceNow) to automate and operationalize end-to-end vulnerability management.

Qualys Cloud Platform, combined with its lightweight Cloud Agent, Virtual Scanners, and Network Analysis capabilities, brings together the essential elements of effective vulnerability management into a single, unified application that is backed by powerful orchestration workflows. This enables organizations to automatically discover all assets in their environment, continuously assess them for vulnerabilities, and apply the latest threat intelligence analysis to prioritize and remediate risks. By offering all these capabilities in a single, streamlined workflow, Qualys VMDR significantly accelerates an organization’s ability to respond to threats and prevent potential exploitation.

Rapid7 InsightVM

InsightVM is a comprehensive vulnerability management solution designed to help businesses identify, prioritize, and remediate risks in their network infrastructure and endpoints. The platform provides complete network scanning capabilities to discover risks across all endpoints and on-premises infrastructure, enabling IT and DevOps teams to efficiently address vulnerabilities with detailed remediation guidance.

InsightVM includes a lightweight endpoint agent, live dashboards for real-time risk tracking and visualization, and an active risk scoring system. The platform also offers integrated remediation projects, attack surface monitoring (with Project Sonar), integrated threat feeds, as well as goals and SLAs for proactive security management. It has easy-to-use RESTful API and policy assessment tools for greater flexibility and compliance.

InsightVM promotes unified endpoint assessment with its universal Insight Agent. This collects data for InsightVM, InsightIDR, and InsightOps, providing live intelligence on network and user risks across multiple solutions. By integrating with other security tools, InsightVM maximizes the value of existing technology investments, ensuring holistic security management for organizations. InsightVM empowers businesses to better understand and address risks within on-premises environments and remote endpoints. This fosters alignment across traditionally siloed teams for more impactful and proactive vulnerability management.

Tenable Nessus

Tenable Nessus is a widely trusted vulnerability assessment solution for businesses looking to secure their modern attack surfaces. By extending beyond traditional IT assets, Nessus allows organizations to fortify web applications, gain visibility into their internet-connected attack surfaces, and secure their cloud infrastructure.

Nessus delivers unlimited IT vulnerability assessments, configuration, compliance, and security audits, with the flexibility to be used anywhere. Users benefit from configurable reports, community support, web application scans, external attack surface scans, cloud infrastructure scans, and over 500 prebuilt scanning policies. The platform also offers advanced support and on-demand training.

Designed with security practitioners in mind, Nessus offers features such as multi- platform deployment, dynamic plugin compilation (for increased efficiency and accuracy), web application scanning, internet-facing attack surface visibility, and secure cloud infrastructure insights before deployment. The solution’s customizable reporting, troubleshooting, and grouping capabilities enhance the user experience and make assessing, prioritizing, and remediation of issues more manageable and efficient.

The Top 11 Vulnerability Scanning Software Solutions

Everything You Need To Know About Vulnerability Scanning Software (FAQs)

What Is Vulnerability Scanning Software?

Vulnerability scanning software allows development organizations to detect, identify, and diagnose security and configuration errors within the software they’re producing. They carry out thorough monitoring and analysis to identify anomalies or areas where your technologies are not working as they should.

Not only do vulnerability scanners enable you to identify what and where an issue is, but they also provide valuable insights into how the threat can be best addressed and resolved. This allows you to quickly isolate the specific code issue and carry out the necessary work to remediate it.

Vulnerability scanning can identify a range of threats across your development area. Common areas include:

Coding errors: Vulnerabilities associated with SQL injection and web apps that are at risk of cross-site scripting
Open ports: Any access area that an attacker could use to spread malicious code
Misconfigurations: These vulnerabilities tend to be caused by errors in access permissions

How Does Vulnerability Scanning Software Work?

Vulnerability scanning software works by going through your code and checking it for known vulnerabilities. By cross-referencing it with known issues, you are able to gain a good insight into what your vulnerabilities are. As the scanning happens at the code level, it is easy to identify where the error is, thereby making the resolution process easier.

Vulnerability scanning tools are able to categories the issue and indicate the level of severity. This allows developers to use their time appropriately and respond to the most critical or fundamental issues first.

This technique can result in a large number of false positives, so it is best used as a tool for addressing vulnerabilities, rather than being the only check and balance.

What Features Should You Look For In Vulnerability Scanning Software?

Vulnerability scanning tools are important parts of your CI/CD process as they allow you to identify vulnerabilities early on, preventing issues down the line. When looking for the best solution, Expert Insights recommends considering the following features:

Language compatibility– This may seem like an obvious point, but it is essential that the code you are writing and the way you are scanning are compatible. This will ensure that issues can be identified accurately.
Consistent updates – As most vulnerability scanners work by checking code with a database of known threats, it’s important that the database is regularly updated. This will ensure that your code is as safe as it can be, based on all the information that is available to it.
Detailed reports – When a scan is complete, you will need a swift and accurate way of passing the information onto developers who can address the issues. This information should include where the vulnerability was identified, alongside contextual information and suggested remediation methods.
Automated remediation – You can streamline processes drastically though automation. Rather than relaying critical information to developers who can then enact changes, automation cuts out the middleman, allowing issues to be resolved faster and more efficiently.

Alex Zawalnyski

Journalist & Content Editor

Alex is an experienced journalist and content editor. He researches, writes, factchecks and edits articles relating to B2B cyber security and technology solutions, working alongside software experts. Alex was awarded a First Class MA (Hons) in English and Scottish Literature by the University of Edinburgh.

Laura Iannini

Cybersecurity Analyst

Laura Iannini is an Information Security Engineer. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Cybersecurity from the University of West Florida. Laura has experience with a variety of cybersecurity platforms and leads technical reviews of leading solutions. She conducts thorough product tests to ensure that Expert Insights’ reviews are definitive and insightful.