9 Best Application Security Tools 

In 2025, application security is not optional – it’s essential. With threats growing more sophisticated and software becoming increasingly complex, security and development teams must prioritise identifying software vulnerabilities throughout the entire software development lifecycle (SDLC). Complex issues, such as protecting sensitive data, blocking potential privilege escalation, or preventing SQL injection attempts, require powerful solutions and application security tools to help uncover vulnerabilities, reduce security risks, and ensure a secure ecosystem.

Today, we’re going to explore some of the top solutions in the application security testing space, exploring the key features, types, and modalities on offer to help you choose the right tools to secure your web applications effectively.

What is Application Security?

Application security is a broad topic, but in essence, it refers to the set of processes, practices, and tools designed to identify security issues and protect software applications from those security vulnerabilities and attacks. These security controls are applied at various stages of the development process to ensure that both proprietary code as well as open source components are free from risks that could lead to data breaches, unauthorized access, or loss of sensitive data.

Application security tools are a response to application security, offering practical methods to detect and resolve issues like sensitive data exposure, broken authentication, code injection, insecure access controls, and misconfigured security settings in both web applications and cloud-native environments. While these tools can help you detect potential security risks, what the tool says it can do versus what it can actually do is a prime consideration – you need to make sure that your tooling provides ample solutions that are easy to integrate and are backed by evidence for efficacy.

Key Features of Application Security Tools

Effective application security tools are defined both by what security features they offer and the total comprehensiveness of that toolset. This is very much a balancing game – the critical components of the application on offer must be effective and efficient, but they also can’t be a one-trick pony. Effective processes to secure web applications must be comprehensive, but no one part should stand out above the others. This balance is quite complex, and few tools can hit that balance right on the money.

Effective application security tools typically offer:

• Static and dynamic analysis for code security, enabling greater ecosystem security through higher observability
• Secrets detection, helping to detect vulnerabilities such as API keys in version control systems, which may circumvent security implementations
• Automated scanning for known vulnerabilities and misconfigurations, allowing you to detect issues by leveraging open-source threat tracking
• Custom rules to align with your specific security strategy against production traffic
• Graphical user interface or command line interface options for greater utility across user teams and experience classes
• Integration with CI/CD pipelines for continuous security testing as part of a cohesive software development lifecycle process
• Vulnerability data sourced from comprehensive vulnerability databases

These features help security teams stay ahead of threats while maintaining developer productivity, enabling API security as a common core practice rather than a tack-on afterthought.

Types of Application Security Tools

There are several broad categories of application security testing tools, each serving a unique purpose in securing web pages, web applications, and APIs. It’s important to remember that these tools are not standalone exclusionary products – tools can sometimes straddle two categories, and even when a single category tool exists, it might often be used in concert with other tools for a more comprehensive solution.

Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST)

Testing tools in this category scan running web apps in real-time, detecting issues like cross-site scripting, SQL injection, and broken authentication. This can help identify broken updates to secure cloud configurations and simple misconfigurations arising from day one.

Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

This kind of solution analyzes static source code early in development to identify coding flaws, insecure patterns, and common vulnerabilities. This focuses on pre-deployment code quality, ensuring that the application you release has trusted data flow structures and built-in data privacy.

Interactive Application Security Testing (IAST)

Appsec tools in this category combine elements of SAST and DAST, monitoring applications during runtime to detect complex vulnerabilities. This is a far more complicated kind of tool with appropriate costs and complexities, and as such, is usually an additional service or subset of a service rather than something integrated into a collection of tooling solutions.

Software Composition Analysis (SCA)

SCA tools audit your open source components and third-party libraries to detect known vulnerabilities, license compliance, and vulnerable component usage. This can help mitigate pass-through issues that arise from the use of poorly structured or implemented third-party code.

Secrets Detection Tools

These tools are designed to find hardcoded credentials like API keys, passwords, and tokens accidentally committed to code repositories. These secrets can be used to bypass security implementations, so discovering exposures – and mitigating the exposures – is critical.

Web Application Firewalls (WAFs)

WAFs deploy at the network edge to block malicious traffic and unauthorized access attempts before they reach your app. This is a hugely effective way to block some of the most common attack vectors, but they are limited in application and ability to comprehend complex attacks.

Choosing the Right Tools for Your Application

Selecting the best application security tools depends on a variety of considerations. You’ll need to consider:

• Your development process, aligning tools to your stages of development (e.g., are you agile, DevOps, CI/CD, etc.)
• The technology stack the tool will sit within (e.g., language, cloud provider)
• The overall security posture and maturity of your product, as this will determine somewhat the intensity of the tooling needed
• Regulatory needs (e.g., HIPAA, GDPR), which may define what tools you can select based upon qualifications and regulatory clearances
• Team roles – for instance, whether your security and development teams are integrated or siloed

The right tool is the tool that is right for your org, not just for a perceived use case or intention. Accordingly, consider your tools within the confines of your team and your focus at the application and service level.

Open Source vs. Commercial Tools

When considering your specific tool of choice, it’s important to draw a line between two broad categories – open source and commercial tools. While neither is inherently better than the other, with both tools offering major benefits, they do tend to have some drawbacks and considerations that set them apart.

Open Source Tools

Open source tools are referred to as such because their code is open for review and iteration. This tends to be a more cost-effective way of developing software, as these tools allow for free or minimally licensed use, and this nature means the tools tend to go through more significant iterations and development in the community. That being said, their support is not as guaranteed as with commercial tooling that tends to make its bread and butter from selling support and iteration, and the internet is littered with open source projects that have stopped development or gone cold in favor of a different fork or iteration.

Benefits

• Free to use – reduces licensing and upfront costs.
• Transparent – public code enables audits and trust, and you can see everything the app does by inspecting the code.
• Community-supported – bugs tend to be reported and fixed more quickly as there are more eyes looking at the code.
• Customizable – open source thrives on being more easily modified to fit specific needs.
• No vendor lock-in – open source means full control over usage, hosting, and updates.
• Drives innovation – rapid evolution, especially in modern domains, is largely facilitated by the open and collaborative nature of open source software (e.g., cloud native, DevSecOps).

Drawbacks

• Limited support – since these services are open source and not often supported by commercial sales, they may lack dedicated maintenance or enterprise SLAs.
• Security risks – open source software puts everything public, warts and all – public vulnerabilities may exist visibly for longer, and these services may have slower patch cycles.
• Integration overhead – open source solutions can require more effort to configure and scale without dedicated solutions teams.
• License complexity – there is a significant risk of non-compliance with restrictive OSS licenses, and while most licenses are pretty easy to follow, navigating this can be a bit much.
• Inconsistent documentation – open source means that the quality and availability of documentation can vary widely.

Commercial Tools

Commercial tools are those that are backed by commercial development teams and companies. They tend to be much more expensive, but come with better support. These tools tend to be closed source, though this is not always the case – in many cases, commercial tools can either be open source with paid support or a blend of closed and open source with dedicated sales, support, and solutions teams.

Benefits

• Professional support – as this is a commercial tool, it typically includes more professional support, including SLAs, onboarding, and customer success teams.
• Fully maintained – commercial tools are ultimately products, so you tend to see more frequent updates, patches, and long-term support.
• Integrated features – these tools tend to have polished UI/UX, built-in connectors, dashboards, and reporting
• Security assurance – commercial tooling often goes through formal audits, certifications, and compliance certifications (e.g., SOC 2, ISO 27001).
• Predictable performance – enterprise-grade scaling, monitoring, and uptime guarantees are more common with commercial tools, as they are directly controlled by a singular enterprise.
• Clear licensing – Commercial tools don’t suffer from licensing complexities the same way open source does, with defined usage rights and minimal legal ambiguity.

Drawbacks

• Higher cost – commercial software typically comes with licensing fees, user-based pricing, and renewals, all of which can add up quickly on your infrastructure and software bill
• Vendor lock-in – it is far harder to switch away from commercial solutions due to proprietary formats, data structures, or ecosystem dependencies.
• Limited flexibility – these solutions have restricted access to source code, which means less customization.
• Slower innovation – innovation in commercial applications tends to be slower, with new features depending entirely on the vendor roadmap and customer demands of the highest tiers.
• Opaque internals – you can’t audit code in a closed-source commercial project, meaning you need to trust the vendor’s security claims rather than verifying it yourself.

Top Application Security Tools

Now that we have a firm understanding of what the tool landscape looks like, let’s evaluate the top ten tools on the market today.

#1 – StackHawk

A modern dynamic application security testing (DAST) tool built for developers. StackHawk integrates into CI/CD pipelines to automate security testing for web applications and APIs, providing fast feedback on issues like XSS, SQLi, and security misconfigurations. Designed for shift-left security with developer-first usability, it is the premier solution for teams looking for effective and efficient testing regimens.

Features

• Modern DAST platform designed for developers
• Integrates into CI/CD pipelines for continuous security testing
• Highlights actionable findings like cross-site scripting, SQL injection, and security misconfigurations
• Built for fast feedback loops and improving developer productivity

#2 – Snyk

Snyk helps you find and fix known vulnerabilities in your open source dependencies, containers, and IaC configs. It integrates directly into Git workflows, so you get visibility into your security posture right where you work. It’s especially good at license issues and transitive dependency tracking, and its CLI is great for teams that want to automate SCA at scale.

Features

• Focuses on open source component security and container scanning
• Offers SCA, SAST, and license compliance
• Integrates well into CI/CD and supports automated security testing

#3 – Veracode

Veracode is a heavyweight platform that covers SAST, DAST, and SCA in a centralized, cloud-based environment. It focuses on governance and policy enforcement, so it’s a good fit for larger orgs that need centralized control over their AppSec program. It’s less DIY and more managed service, which some security teams prefer.

Features

• Known for its cloud-based SAST and DAST
• Provides strong governance and vulnerability management
• Supports code quality and policy compliance

#4 – Burp Suite

Burp is the go-to for hands-on security testing. If you’re doing manual testing or want to dig into something weird in a web app, Burp has tools for it: proxying, fuzzing, scanning, and more. It’s not automated-first like other tools here, but it’s incredibly powerful in the right hands.

Features

• Widely used for manual and automated penetration testing
• Excellent for finding web application vulnerabilities like XSS and SQLi
• Supports both community and enterprise versions

Checkmarx

Checkmarx is a static analysis tool with strong coverage across languages and frameworks. It integrates into the SDLC and offers good policy customization. Teams that need deep control over how static scanning runs – and want to shift left – will get a lot out of it.

Features

• Offers extensive static application security testing
• Useful for both proprietary code and open source
• Integrates deeply into the software development lifecycle

OWASP ZAP

ZAP is an open-source DAST tool from OWASP. It’s lightweight, scriptable, and great for catching web vulnerabilities like XSS or CSRF. It doesn’t have the polish of a commercial scanner, but for teams that want to add low-cost dynamic testing to their CI pipeline, it gets the job done.

Features

• Free and open-source DAST tool
• Great for scanning web apps and APIs
• Supports custom scripting and automated scanning

GitGuardian

GitGuardian is all about secrets detection. It watches your Git repos for things like hardcoded API keys, tokens, and passwords. It works across public and private repos and integrates well with GitHub and GitLab. If you want to avoid sensitive data exposure before it ever ships, this is a great one to have in your stack.

Features

• Specializes in secrets detection in version control systems.
• Excellent for teams using GitHub, GitLab, or Bitbucket.
• Finds api keys, tokens, and other sensitive credentials

AppSpider (Rapid7)

AppSpider is Rapid7’s DAST tool. It’s good at crawling complex modern apps and finding issues in dynamic flows, like broken auth or misconfigurations. It pairs well with the rest of Rapid7’s security tooling, especially if you’re already using InsightVM or InsightAppSec.

Features

• Dynamic scanner with powerful web application firewall simulation
• Focus on identifying security misconfigurations and authentication mechanisms

SonarQube

SonarQube blends SAST with code quality. It scans your codebase for bugs, vulnerabilities, and code smells and gives clear remediation guidance. It’s developer-friendly and works with a ton of languages. Great fit if you want static scanning that doesn’t feel bolted on.

Features

• Provides SAST and code quality insights
• Strong support for static source code analysis in multiple languages

Aqua Trivy

Trivy is a lightweight scanner for containers, Kubernetes, and IaC. It’s open source, fast, and easy to run. You can use it in CI to catch known vulnerabilities, misconfigs, and license issues before anything gets deployed. If you’re building cloud-native, Trivy should be on your radar.

Features

• Open source container and cloud security scanner
• Identifies vulnerabilities in the software supply chain
• Ideal for cloud native environments

Conclusion

With application-layer attacks on the rise and code-centered vulnerabilities growing almost daily, choosing the right application security tools is critical to protect your systems, sensitive data, and users. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution – only a security strategy tailored to your stack and risk profile. What is important here is to find a tool, like StackHawk, that has provable value, trust, and integrity, providing a solid basis for your entire security stack.

By leveraging the right mix of tools, open source or commercial, you can uncover vulnerabilities, safeguard your software supply chain, and implement continuous security testing without compromising developer productivity. To get started on your application security journey with modern DAST, sign up for a free trial of StackHawk today and quickly improve your security posture by shifting left.