Rapid7 DAST vs. StackHawk: Complete Application Security Comparison (2025)

If your organization is struggling to keep pace with exponential API growth and AI-accelerated development cycles, the choice between traditional security tools and modern, developer-centric solutions is critical. 

Rapid7 InsightAppSec continues to be a stable, well-established player in the Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) space, with recent updates including Application Vulnerability Grouping features and improved scanning capabilities. Meanwhile, StackHawk has emerged as a leader in shift-left API security, with AI-powered discovery capabilities and source code-based attack surface visibility. 

This article will help you decide if Rapid7 or StackHawk is the right DAST tool for your security and development teams.

Rapid7 vs StackHawk Dynamic Application Security Testing: Key Takeaways

StackHawk is purpose-built for modern DevSecOps environments where security must move at the speed of development, and pay attention to the entire software development lifecycle. It excels at discovering and testing APIs from source code repositories, integrating seamlessly into CI/CD pipelines, and empowering developers to fix vulnerabilities in minutes rather than weeks.

Rapid7 InsightAppSec is an enterprise solution that remains the preferred choice for traditional security practices favoring centralized vulnerability management and periodic production scanning over developer-integrated workflows.

StackHawk as a Rapid7 Alternative: Which Security Solution is Right for Your Organization?

If you’re interested in a Rapid7 alternative, the right choice depends on your organization’s approach to web application security.

Choose StackHawk if you:

• Are committed to shift-left security practices
• Deploy code frequently and have invested in DevOps automation
• Need comprehensive API security testing (REST, GraphQL, SOAP, gRPC)
• Want developers to own and fix security risks within their existing workflows
• Require visibility into shadow APIs and complete attack surface discovery
• Value security that becomes an enabler of innovation rather than a constraint

Choose Rapid7 if you:

• Prefer centralized security team control over vulnerability management
• Deploy code infrequently or are not heavily invested in CI/CD automation
• Are satisfied with periodic production scanning
• Have regulatory requirements for on-premise deployment
• Want simple point-and-click configuration through a web interface

Rapid7 vs StackHawk: Web Application Security Feature Comparison

Feature	StackHawk	Rapid7 InsightAppSec
API Discovery	AI-powered source code analysis discovers all APIs including shadow APIs	Manual URL configuration only
API Testing	Native REST, GraphQL, SOAP, gRPC support	Basic support requiring traffic recording
CI/CD Integration	Containerized scanner runs anywhere	Hosted scanner with limited CI/CD options
Developer Experience	Immediate feedback with clear remediation guidance	Security team creates tickets for developers
Shadow API Detection	Automatically discovers hidden APIs from source code	Cannot detect unexposed APIs
Scan Speed	Optimized for modern applications	Slower scans due to network traversal
Deployment Model	Docker container runs on any infrastructure	Hosted model or on-premise options
False Positives	Technology-aware testing reduces noise	Generic testing can lead to false positives

Core Architectural Differences

Discovery and Attack Surface Visibility

StackHawk’s Source-Based Approach: StackHawk starts at your source code repositories to reveal your complete API landscape, including shadow APIs and sensitive data flows. This source-based approach provides unprecedented visibility by discovering APIs the moment they’re created and tracking development activity.

Rapid7’s Traditional Method: Rapid7 requires manual configuration of target URLs and relies on recorded traffic between clients and APIs to understand methods and inputs. This approach only reveals publicly accessible endpoints and misses internal APIs and services.

Deployment Model

StackHawk: Containerized scanner that runs anywhere—developer machines, CI/CD pipelines, or scheduled environments. This enables testing of internal APIs and services not publicly accessible, with significantly faster scan times.

Rapid7: Hosted scanner model where scans run on Rapid7’s infrastructure, though on-premise options are available. This limits testing to publicly accessible applications and can result in slower scan times due to network traversal.

Developer Experience and Workflow Integration

StackHawk: Developer-Centric Security Platform

StackHawk transforms security from a bottleneck into a seamless part of the development process:

• Immediate feedback. Developers receive actionable security findings directly in their workflow—broken builds, pull request comments, or Slack notifications.
• Clear remediation. Precise reproduction steps, request/response data, and framework-specific guidance enable fixes in minutes.
• State management. The platform remembers triage decisions, preventing alert fatigue on future scans.
• CI/CD Integration. Native integration with popular CI/CD tools ensures security testing happens automatically with every code change.

Rapid7: Security Team-Controlled Vulnerability Management Process

Rapid7 follows a traditional security workflow where security teams run scans, review findings, and create tickets for engineering teams through systems like Jira. While this provides centralized control, it creates bottlenecks and slows down the development process.

API Security Testing: A Critical Differentiator

StackHawk: Built for Modern API Security

Modern web applications are API-first, and StackHawk was built specifically for this reality:

• Comprehensive coverage, including native support for REST, GraphQL, SOAP, and gRPC APIs
• Smart configuration with automated policy selection based on API technology and intelligent request type detection
• Advanced features such as path parameter recognition that prevents redundant testing, while optimized payloads reduce false positives
• AI-powered discovery that promptly identifies and prioritizes APIs from source code repositories
• Sensitive data identification that automatically identifies APIs handling PII, cardholder data, and health information

Rapid7 Application Security: Limited API Support

Rapid7’s API scanning functionality appears to be an add-on to their traditional web application scanner, requiring recorded traffic to understand API methods and inputs. This legacy DAST approach is poorly suited for modern API-first applications and microservices architectures.

Addressing Modern Security Challenges

The AI-Accelerated Development Problem

Organizations are facing an exponential increase in API development, rapid adoption of AI coding tools, and resources stretched too thin to safeguard applications effectively.

StackHawk’s Solution: By integrating security testing directly into the development process and providing complete visibility into security concerns, StackHawk ensures that security scales with development velocity.

Rapid7’s Limitations: Traditional scheduled scanning approaches cannot keep pace with AI-accelerated development cycles, leaving organizations vulnerable to expanding security risks.

Shadow API Discovery

According to Enterprise Strategy Group research, 87% of respondents are concerned about shadow and undiscovered APIs, with 38% considering it a significant concern.

StackHawk’s Advantage: StackHawk’s source code-based discovery automatically uncovers APIs directly from repositories, including shadow APIs that have emerged outside of governance.

Rapid7’s Blind Spots: Without source code visibility, Rapid7 can only test known, publicly accessible endpoints, missing internal APIs and services.

Enterprise Features and Scalability

StackHawk Enterprise Capabilities

StackHawk offers enterprise customers advanced optimization, scalability, and governance controls with visibility across multiple teams and applications:

• Teams and role-based permissions to ensure secure provisioning across organizations
• Advanced integrations, such as native support for Windows and Azure ecosystems
• Sensitive data identification that automatically identifies APIs handling PII, cardholder data, and health information
• Program oversight for complete visibility into security testing coverage and remediation progress

Rapid7 Enterprise Features

Rapid7 has enhanced its enterprise features with Application Vulnerability Grouping, allowing teams to visualize attacks across single applications or entire inventories. The platform offers mature compliance reporting and established enterprise integrations.

The Future of Application Security Testing & DAST

StackHawk’s Vision

StackHawk envisions a future where security is built directly into the development process: where every API is discovered from source code the moment it’s created, testing is prioritized based on actual business risk, and vulnerabilities are found and fixed before reaching production.

The Shift-Left Imperative

Traditional API monitoring only shows traffic, alerting too late to risks that already exist. With today’s speed of development, API sprawl is accelerated, leading to unknown or undiscovered “shadow” or “zombie” APIs that can be a goldmine for attackers.

Choosing the Best Alternative: Rapid7 versus StackHawk

The decision between Rapid7 and StackHawk ultimately depends on your organization’s security maturity and development practices.

For Organizations Embracing Digital Transformation: StackHawk aligns security with modern development practices, enabling security to become an enabler of innovation rather than a constraint. Its source-based discovery, AI-powered prioritization, and developer-centric approach make it the clear choice for organizations committed to shift-left security.

For Traditional Security Operations: Rapid7 remains a solid enterprise solution for organizations that prefer centralized security control and are satisfied with periodic production scanning. Its established enterprise features and compliance reporting make it suitable for environments with less frequent deployments.

Getting Started with StackHawk

Prefer traditional DAST? Rapid7 InsightAppSec offers a mature, feature-rich platform with strong enterprise support and established compliance capabilities.

Ready to experience modern API security? StackHawk has been recognized as the outstanding API security platform by the Global Infosec Awards at RSA 2025. 

The choice is clear: embrace the future of web application security with StackHawk’s shift-left approach, or continue with traditional security practices using Rapid7’s proven but dated methodology. 

Schedule a demo today to see StackHawk in action, or sign up for a free trial to experience firsthand security testing that moves at the speed of development.