Uncover Hidden Vulnerabilities: Best Open-Source DAST Tools for Security Teams

Quick Overview: Explore the best open-source DAST tools for developers and security teams. This guide highlights powerful, flexible solutions to identify vulnerabilities, automate security testing, and enhance your AppSec.

Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) has become a prime security practice in DevSecOps workflows. In fact, it helps developers and security experts identify and fix vulnerabilities in running applications without access to the source code.

While all DAST tools aim to strengthen your application runtime security, some integrate more seamlessly into specific workflows than others. And starting your DAST journey with open-source tools lets you test different options without incurring licensing costs.

While comparing DAST with SAST, DAST tools interact with your apps in their live environment, identifying issues such as SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), and insecure APIs. That’s the reason open source DAST tools are rising fast, especially for teams that want cost-effective, customizable, and community-backed solutions.

In this blog, we are going to highlight 6 open-source DAST tools, which are open source, that protect your applications against all threats. Whether you are a developer, pentester, or security engineer, these tools can evaluate your vulnerability management game.

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Top Open-Source DAST Tools

Let’s look at the most popular open-source, free DAST tools.

1) ZAP

ZAP is one of the most popular open-source DAST tools, with most GitHub stars for finding vulnerabilities in web applications. Backed by the OWASP community, ZAP offers automated scanners and a range of tools for manual testing, making it ideal for both beginners and professionals.

Moreover, ZAP empowers pentesters to perform manual web app pen testing and REST API testing. It acts as a transparent proxy, actively interacting traffic between your browser and web applications for real-time analysis. With features like passive and active scanning, ZAP helps detect issues like XSS, SQL injection, and more—without needing source code access. Its robust community support and frequent updates make it a go-to choice for dynamic security testing.

2) Arachni

Arachni is a powerful web application security testing tool that offers dynamic application security testing. Written in Ruby, Arachni enables auditing and inspection of client-side code through and integrated browser environment, and supports complex web apps built with HTML5, JavaScript, AJAX, and DOM manipulation.

Built with scalability and performance in mind, Arachni supports both CLI and web-based interfaces. Its advanced crawling capabilities efficiently explore complex web applications, revealing hidden functionalities that may contain vulnerabilities. This adaptability makes it suitable for a wide range of testing scenarios.

Arachni remains a top choice for those seeking a reliable, feature-rich open-source DAST solution for dynamic web application security assessment.

3) Nikto

Nikto is an open-source dynamic application security testing (DAST) tool that identifies security issues and misconfigurations. With more than 6700 vulnerability database entries, Nikto scans web servers for vulnerabilities, checking for issues like dangerous files or CGIs, outdated software, misconfigurations, and other security risks.

Nikto identifies issues such as open directories, insecure file permissions, and weak HTTP headers by analyzing dynamic responses. Its plugin support also enables customization to focus on specific vulnerabilities.

4) OpenVAS

OpenVAS is one of the leading open-source application security tools developed by the Grenbone community for comprehensive vulnerability scanning of web applications and network infrastructure. Due to its effective graphic user interface (GUI) and an option for premium customer support, the tool becomes the first for user support primarily.

OpenVAS detects a wide range of security issues, including misconfigurations, outdated software, and exploitable flaws. It offers robust reporting, task scheduling, and integration options, making it suitable for individual testers and enterprise environments.

5) Wapiti

As a powerful open source DAST tool for developers, Wapiti assesses the security of web applications by performing black-box scans. It scans web traffic for threats or vulnerabilities using predefined rules. It allows users to write custom scripts to handle specific threats, extending its scanning capabilities.

Wapiti supports both GET and POST HTTP methods, making it effective for dynamic testing. Its CLI application crawls web pages and searches for scripts that enable user inputs and could be prone to attack. Moreover, it also injects payloads to identify common vulnerabilities such as XSS, SQL injection, file disclosure, and common execution.

It’s a black-box vulnerability scanner that performs a live web application security testing from an attacker’s perspective. It crawls pages, extracts links and forms, and uses fuzzing techniques to access them randomly to uncover potential vulnerabilities.

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6) SQLMap

SQLMap bags its place among top open-source tools with its highly focused yet powerful database vulnerability scanning capabilities. While its scope is limited to SQL injection, it’s essential for sectors like eCommerce and Finance where database security and compliance are critical.

With features like database fingerprinting, data dumping, and password hash retrieval, SQLMap is a go-to tool for penetration testers and security professionals. Its command-line interface and scripting support make it a versatile and essential tool in dynamic application security testing.

Primary Features of Open Source DAST Scanners

With a plethora of DAST tools for open-source components available in the market, every tool has its own unique purpose and shares its common traits. Let’s find out the primary features top DAST scanners must have:

Open-Source Code

A DAST tool must have its source code publicly available for review to be considered open source. While open source doesn't always mean free, each of these top tools offers at least a free version.

Community Support and Documentation

Open-source application security testing tools benefit from active user communities, forums, and contributor networks. This means frequent updates, extensive documentation, and peer support for troubleshooting, making the tools reliable and continuously evolving with new threats.

Customizable Test Payloads

Many DAST tools for security teams support custom payloads and attack configurations. This allows them to tailor scans to specific application logic or business use cases. As a result, its flexibility improves accuracy and allows deeper testing of complex or non-standard inputs and responses.

Automated Crawling

These web app scanners automatically navigate through web applications to discover inputs, forms, and endpoints. This ensures comprehensive test coverage of dynamic content, allowing for thorough security assessments with minimal manual intervention – especially helpful for large and complex applications.

Wide Vulnerability Coverage

While choosing the right open source DAST tools, they are capable of detecting a range of vulnerabilities like SQL injection, XSS, CSRF, command injection, and more. They also perform API security testing to identify security gaps. Many follow OWASP Top 10 standards, making them essential for securing modern web apps against the most common security threats.

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Choose The Right Free DAST Scanner

Free DAST scanners for open-source products are essential for teams looking for flexible, cost-effective ways to detect vulnerabilities in real-world conditions. They simulate external attacks to uncover security gaps.

From automation to customization, these DAST tools empower developers to secure applications early and continuously without access to code. Whether you're just starting out or enhancing an existing pipeline, integrating the right DAST tool can significantly strengthen your overall security posture.