21 Best Penetration Testing Tools 2023 (by Popularity)

The annual cost of cybercrime will be $10.5 trillion for companies worldwide by the year 2025. Add the 125% increment in the global incident volume of cyberattacks to that and the cyber threat landscape starts to look really bleak.

You need security experts at the top of their game, using the best penetration testing tools to find and remove security vulnerabilities in your systems.

21 Best Penetration Testing Tools in 2023

The following is a list of the tools covered in this post. The tools are classified into three categories.  

A Complete Pentest Platform

1. Astra Security
   Free/Open Source Tools for Ethical Hackers
2. NMap
3. Metasploit
4. Wireshark 
5. Nikto
6. W3AF
7. SQLMap
8. Zed Attack Proxy
9. Aircrack-ng
10. BeEF
11. Ettercap
12. Kali Linux
    Penetration Testing Services & Paid Pentest Tools & Scanners
13. Rapid7
14. RedScan
15. Cobalt
16. Intruder
17. Invicti
18. BurpSuite
19. Indusface WAS
20. Acunetix
21. Nessus

What Makes Astra the Best VAPT Solution?

• We’re the only company that combines automated & manual pentest to create a one-of-a-kind pentest platform
• The Astra Vulnerability Scanner Runs 3500+ tests to uncover every single vulnerability
• Vetted scans to ensure zero false positives
• Integrates with your CI/CD tools to help you establish DevSecOps
• A dynamic vulnerability management dashboard to manage, monitor, assign, and update vulnerabilities
• Astra pentest detects business logic errors and payment gateway hacks
• Helps you stay compliant with SOC2, ISO27001, PCI-DSS, HIPAA, etc.
• Trusted by the brands you trust like Agora, Spicejet, Muthoot, Dream11, etc.

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Types of Penetration Testing Tools

1. Open-source tools

These tools are available for free and are developed and managed by developer communities spread across the world. There are open-source tools in all categories. 

2. Web app pentest

Web application penetration testing tools are designed specifically for web apps. They are usually online tools that can run tests on a web application by accessing the website URL. These are primarily DAST tools augmented by a manual pentest.

3. Network pentest

Network pentest is the process of making hacker-style intrusion into a network to uncover security vulnerabilities. This requires a bundle of tools specifically designed for detecting network vulnerabilities. NMap, for instance, is a tool for network mapping.

4. Mobile app pentest

Mobile app pentest differs in its scope and process from web app pentest. The necessity of human intervention is deeper in the case of mobile apps. There is no plug-and-play tool for mobile app pentest. You need expert pentesters to get the job done.

5. Cloud pentest

When we say cloud pentest, what we really mean is a cloud configuration review. Cloud security is governed by the terms of your agreement with your cloud provider. You have to work with some limitations there. Security experts can help you with identifying misconfigurations in your cloud setup, testing your virtual machines, and ensuring the isolation of your workloads.

6. Automated pentest

With certain pentest solutions, you can integrate an automated vulnerability scanner with your SDLC. You can schedule the scans or set it the scanner up so that it runs a test every time some new code is updated.

7. Manual pentest

There are vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and errors that automated vulnerability scanners fail to detect. Manual pentest is the hacker-style invasion of your systems by expert pentesters to detect critical vulnerabilities like business logic errors, payment gateway hacks, etc. 

8. Penetration Testing as a Service

Penetration Testing as a Service or PTaaS refers to companies that offer modular security testing services. They’ll remotely enter your system, run tests, and offer you the results.    

4 Features You Should Look for in a Pentest Tool

CI/CD integration

It helps you shift left in your security testing process if your pentest platform integrates with your CI/CD pipeline.

Actionable reports

Pentest reports are traditionally long, dull, tedious, and difficult to interpret. You need reports that prompt action, contain step-by-step guidelines for your developers, and helps you prioritize vulnerabilities with ease.

Remediation support

Few companies have dedicated security teams. Security engineers carry quite a different skill set from a developer. A little help from security experts during remediation in the form of contextual collaboration can go a long way.

Pentest certificate 

Only a handful of penetration testsing solutions offer publicly verifiable penetration testing certificates. You can use these to increase your credibility as a secure business.

21 Best Penetration Testing Tools & Software at a Glance

Top 21 Best Pentesting Tools of 2023 [Reviewed]

Let’s learn a bit more about some of the best penetration testing software. We will start with a complete penetration testing platform and throw in an assorted list of tools for penetration testing, network security tools, and penetration testing services.

The Complete Pentest Platform

1. Astra Pentest

A comprehensive penetration testing platform for web applications, mobile applications, APIs, and cloud infrastructures.

Features

• Platform: Online 
• Scanner Capacity: Unlimited continuous scans
• Manual pentest: Available for web app, mobile app, APIs, and cloud infrastructures
• Accuracy: Zero false positives
• Vulnerability management: Comes with dynamic vulnerability management dashboard 
• Compliance: Helps you stay compliant with PCI-DSS, HIPAA, ISO27001, and SOC2
• Price: $75/month

Detailed Review 

Astra Pentest Platform is a unique penetration testing suite that combines the Astra Vulnerability Scanner with manual pentesting capabilities. 
It comes as a plug-n-play SaaS tool that one can start using just by providing the target site URLs and some credentials. 
The company’s efforts towards making the penetration testing platform self-serving are constant and yet they offer 24/7 chat support.
Astra has made visualizing, navigating, and remediating vulnerabilities as simple as running a search on Google.

Astra Vulnerability Scanner

The pentest software can also run 3500+ tests covering OWASP top 10 and SANS 25 vulnerabilities. The scan results are vetted by experts to ensure zero false positives. 

Thanks to Astra’s login recorder plugin, the scanner can run authenticated scans behind login pages without requiring you to reauthenticate it.

The vulnerability management dashboard allows you to stay on top of the vulnerabilities throughout the scanning and remediation process.

The in-depth hacker-style penetration testing by experts reveals business logic errors and other critical vulnerabilities like payment gateway hacks.

Astra Pentest Platform can be used for web app pentest, mobile app pentest, API pentest, and cloud-configuration reviews.

Pentest Reports

The pentest reports by Astra feature video PoCs and step-by-step remediation guidelines to help you take immediate action. The best part is, your developers can engage in contextual collaboration with Astra’s security engineers to resolve difficult issues.

Pentest Certificate

Once the vulnerabilities detected by Astra Pentest are remediated and the same is confirmed by Astra’s security experts, you get a publicly verifiable pentest certificate that stays valid for 6 months or your next major code update, whichever is earlier.

Over the past year, Astra has added names like ICICI, UN, and Dream 11, to their already impressive roster of clients which included Ford, Gillette, and GoDaddy, among others.

Who is it for?
SaaS providers, ECommerce site owners, and public offices, across regions and industries.

What is best?

• Connects with your CI/CD pipeline
• Offers continuous scanning with regularly updated scanner rules
• Ensures zero false positives
• Helps with rapid prioritization and remediation of vulnerabilities

What could have been better?

• Could have had more integration options
• It doesn’t offer a free trial

Verdict 
Astra Security essentially replaces 3 services with one platform – a vulnerability scanner, manual pentest, and vulnerability management. On top of that, security experts go the extra mile to help you remediate issues quickly. It is like having a security team of your own. Also, full points for 24/7 chat support and customer service. Overall, it’s an incredible application penetration testing tool in any price range. 

Free/Open Source Tools for Ethical Hackers

 2. NMAP

Features 

• Platform: Linux, Windows, MacOS
• Scanner Capacity: Usually scans the 1000 most popular ports of each network protocol
• Manual pentest: NMap is actively used for network mapping and port scanning. These are parts of the manual pentest effort.
• Accuracy: Occasionally shows false positives and faulty insights 
• Vulnerability management: No
• Compliance: Indirectly relates to compliance reporting 
• Price: Free

NMAP is short for Network Mapper. It helps you map a network by scanning ports, discovering operating systems, and creating an inventory of devices and the services running on them.

NMAP sends differently structured packets for different transport layer protocols which return with IP addresses and other information. You can use this information for host discovery, OS fingerprinting, service discovery, and security auditing. 

NMAP allows security administrators to create an inventory of all devices, operating systems, and applications connected to a network, it makes it possible for them to point out probable vulnerabilities.

Who is it for?
Network administrators, ethical hackers, and pentesters.

What is best?

• NMAP is a powerful tool 
• Capability of mapping a very large network with thousands of ports connected to it.

What could have been better?

• Need extensive knowledge to use.
• Used by malicious hackers as well as security experts.

Verdict 
NMap has been around for 26 years and it is still the gold standard when it comes to network penetration testing tools. It is something every ethical hacker needs in their arsenal.

3. Metasploit

Features

• Platform: Unix (including Linux and MacOS), Windows
• Scanner Capacity: N/A
• Manual pentest: Metasploit contains an assortment of tools that can be used for pentesting
• Accuracy: N/A
• Vulnerability management: No
• Compliance: Indirectly relates to compliance reporting 
• Price: Free

Metasploit is a framework used by both hackers and security professionals to detect systematic vulnerabilities. It is a powerful tool that also contains portions of fuzzing, anti-forensic, and evasion tools.

Metasploit is easy to install, works on a range of platforms and is quite popular among hackers. That is part of the reason why it is an important tool for pentesters as well.

Metasploit currently includes nearly 1677 exploits along with almost 500 payloads that include Command shell payloads, Dynamic payloads, Meterpreter payloads, and Static payloads.

Who is it for?
Ethical hackers, pentesters, and malicious actors.

What is best?

• It is a powerful framework.
• An assortment of penetration testing capabilities.

What could have been better?

• Has a steep learning curve
• Used by hackers 

Verdict 
With listeners, encoders, and post-exploit code, Metasploit is a very powerful tool for ethical hacking.

4. WireShark

Features

• Platform: Unix, Windows. Needs libraries like Qt, GLib, & libpcap to run 
• Scanner Capacity: Captures live packet data from a network interface
• Manual pentest: Useful tool for pentesting
• Accuracy: Fairly accurate
• Vulnerability management: No
• Compliance: Indirectly relates to compliance reporting 
• Price: Free

WireShark is a famous open-source penetration testing tool primarily used for protocol analysis and microscopic monitoring of network activities. What makes it one of the network penetration test tools is the fact that thousands of security engineers across the world contribute to its improvement.

WireShark allows you to capture and analyze network traffic, inspect protocols and troubleshoot network performance issues. Other features provided include the decryption of protocols, and capturing of live data from ethernet, LAN, USB, and more. 

It can also export output to XML, PostScript, CSV, or plain text. It is important to note that WireShark is not an Intrusion Detection System or IDS. As a protocol analyzer, it can help you visualize malformed packets but it cannot raise an alarm if there is any malicious activity on the network.

Who is it for?
Government agencies, cybersecurity professionals, network administrators, and ethical hackers.

What is best?

• Capture live data packet from network interfaces and analyzes it in real-time
• Available for free

What could have been better?

• It does not run from outside a network
• Cannot perform packet injection

Verdict
The tool is easily one of the gold standards for an open-source network protocol analyzer. 

5. Nikto

Features: 

• Platform: Linux
• Scanner Capacity: Web applications, servers 
• Manual pentest: No
• Accuracy: False positives possible
• Vulnerability management: No 
• Compliance: No
• Price: Open-source

Nikto, an open-source penetration testing software is capable of conducting detailed tests on web servers with a capacity to identify nearly 7000 malicious files and applications.

This includes over 6700 potentially dangerous files/programs, checks for outdated server versions, and version-specific problems on over 270 server versions. 

Server versions like Apache, MySQL, FTP, ProFTPd, Courier, Netscape, iPlanet, Lotus, BIND, MyDoom, and more. Key features include scans for 6000+ vulnerabilities and the detection of version-specific problems. 

Who is it for?
Mid-sized companies, security testing beginners who want to learn more about SQL injection execution. 

What is best?

• It is freely available to the public for use.
• Available in Kali Linux.

What could have been better?

• Does not have a community platform.
• Does not have a GUI.

Verdict
Yet another open-source penetration testing tool, Nikto is a must-have with its extensive vulnerability detection for various server-specific flaws. 

6. W3af

Features: 

• Platform: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD
• Scanner Capacity: Web applications
• Manual pentest: No
• Accuracy: False positives possibles
• Vulnerability management: No
• Compliance: No
• Price: Open-source

W3AF is a tool and is a Web Application Attack and Audit Framework that is ideal for web application pentesting and auditing. The framework is extensible with modules designed to be easy to configure and extend. 

The framework can either be used in a manual or automated way by using the API in the Python language. The tool can identify nearly 200 different web app flaws. 

Key features include ease of expansion, Cookie handling, and Proxy support.  It helps enhance any pentesting platform with its given guidelines.

Who is it for?
Beginners to ethical hacking, and other small to medium-sized organizations. 

What is best?

• Easy-to-use for beginners
• Available freely.
• Can also scan session-protected pages
• Comes with a graphical interface

What could be better?

• False positives are a possibility.
• GUI can be difficult to navigate.

Verdict
W3af is more of a framework for pentesting rather than a tool, however, it is very beneficial for beginners to cybersecurity with its ability to identify over 200 web app flaws. 

7. SQLmap

Features: 

• Platform: Windows, Linux
• Scanner Capacity: Web applications
• Manual pentest: No
• Accuracy: False positives possible
• Vulnerability management: No 
• Compliance: No
• Price: Open source 

Yet another freely available pentesting tool, SQLmap automates the process of finding threats and attacks associated with SQL injections. 

Among all web application pentesting tools, SQLmap comes with a powerful testing engine, and multiple injection attacks, and supports various servers like MySQL, Microsoft Access, IBM DB2, and SQLite. 

Who is it for?
Ethical hackers, beginners looking to learn more about web application pentesting tools. 

What is best?

• Open-source pentesting tool.
• Finds SQL injections of various types using automated methods

What could be better?

• No GUI.

Verdict
SQLmap comes with a powerful testing engine equipped with multiple modes of injection attacks making it an ideal choice for injection flaws. However, the tool can be limited in detecting other forms of vulnerabilities. 

8. Zed Attack Proxy

Features: 

• Platform: Windows, Linux, MacOS
• Scanner Capacity: Web application security testing, network ports, and API testing
• Manual pentest: Yes (Used by experts to carry it out) 
• Accuracy: False positives possible
• Vulnerability management: No 
• Compliance: OWASP
• Price: Open-source

Zed Attack Proxy or else known as ZAP is an open-source penetration testing software offered by OWASP that can detect a variety of vulnerabilities within web apps.

It can be used for Linux, Microsoft, and Mac systems to run penetration tests on web apps to detect a variety of flaws.

One of the best open-source penetration testing tools out there, ZAP supports a lot of pentesting activities that make it ideal for users.

Who is it for?
Ethical hackers, cybersecurity professionals 

What is best?

• Easy-to-navigate user interface
• Maintained by OWASP and is freely available.
• Easy to learn.
• Eligible for beginner and security experts alike.

What could be better?

• Hard to set up the tool.
• Not convenient compared to other tools.
• Some features require extra plugins.

Verdict
ZAP by OWASP was built specifically with web application vulnerability detection in mind. This makes it an excellent choice for open-source web application pentesting. 

9. Aircrack-ng

Features: 

• Platform: Linux, Windows, macOS, FreeBSD
• Scanner Capacity: Wifi network security
• Manual pentest: No
• Accuracy: False positives possible
• Vulnerability management: No
• Compliance: No
• Price: Open-source

Aircrack-ng provides a complete suite of network penetration testing tools for the assessment of WiFi network security. The tools are command lines thus allowing heavy scripting.

The tool is primarily Linux based but works for Windows, macOS, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and others.
Aircrack-ng monitors data packets to text files for processing by third-party tools. Attacks like replay attacks, de-authentication, and fake access points are also facilitated.

The pentest software can also check other WiFi cards and packet injections for Linux drivers. 

Who is it for?
Network security teams, SMEs, and network administrators. 

What is best?

• Works for Linux, Windows, macOS, and other operating systems.
• Available in Kali Linux
• Ability to crack wireless network encryption
• Free of cost

What could be better?

• Difficult to install
• No GUI
• Excels at outdated WEP encryption

Verdict
With its suite of network penetration testing tools, Aircrack-ng comes as a close third to the likes of Nmap and Wireshark. 

10. BeEF

Features: 

• Platform: Linux, Windows
• Scanner Capacity: Web browsers, network perimeters
• Manual pentest: No
• Accuracy: False positives possible
• Vulnerability management: No
• Compliance: No
• Price: Open-source

BeEF or Browser Exploitation Framework is one of the best open-source penetration testing tools but with a better interface and additional features to the tool considered to be its predecessor, Autopwn2.

BeEF is mainly designed to launch client-side attacks against a victim’s browser in order to successfully hook it. Once this is done, BeEF offers a variety of options for exploitation.

Key features of this tool penetration testing tool include looking past hardened network perimeters and examining the exploitability in the context of an open door.

Who is it for?
Beginners in ethical hacking and professional ethical hackers. 

What is best?

• Easy to set up and use.
• Easy for beginners and professionals alike.
• Powerful features as well as offering penetration testing.

What could be better?

• The user interface isn’t interactive enough.
• Configuration can be confusing.
• The support team is not responsive.

Verdict
BeEF’s key features are mainly for web application and network perimeter vulnerability detection. However its UI and support team leaves more to be desired. 

11. Ettercap

Features: 

• Platform: Linux, MacOS, Windows except Windows 10, Solaris
• Scanner Capacity: Web applications, network security
• Manual pentest: No
• Accuracy: False positives possible
• Vulnerability management: No
• Compliance: No
• Price: Open-source

Ettercap is designed for the testing of web security. The tool mainly helps with man-in-the-middle attacks.
Ettercap’s GUI environment runs through its console. It allows DNS spoofing as well as DoS attacks to be launched against specific devices within a network.

Other features of Ettercap include DNS Spoofing, DoS Attacks, Man-in-the-Middle Attacks and are available in the Kali Linux bundle.

Who is it for?
Pentesters and cybersecurity professionals. 

What is best?

• Widely used penetration testing tool.
• Available on Kali Linux.
• Completely free of use.
• Creates an excellent Man-in-the-Middle.

What could be better?

• Not enough budget so the software isn’t up to date.
• Cannot run on Windows 10.
• The interface is a little dated.

Verdict
The tool is great to launch man-in-the-middle attacks and is available on Kali Linux making it widely available. However, the software is not up to date. 

12. Kali Linux

Features: 

• Platform: Linux
• Scanner Capacity: Web applications, networks, APIs
• Manual pentest: No
• Accuracy: False positives possible
• Vulnerability management: No
• Compliance: No
• Price: Open-source

Kali Linux is a Debian-based platform designed for penetration testing provided by Offensive Security. Kali Linux offers a collection of tools that can be used for penetration testing.

Kali offers multi-language support, allows for the complete customization of Kali ISO, and has over 600 penetration testing tools available within it.

It has a trustworthy operating system, with various accessibility features, and supports various single-board systems like Raspberry Pi.

The platform comes with the latest patches and works with any number of wireless devices. It offers a forensic mode to disable features that can change data in the system that is analyzed.

Who is it for?
Ethical hacker, pentester and cybersecurity professional. 

What is best?

• Open source tool.
• A large collection of online pentest tools.
• High-level stability.

What could be better?

• Not recommended for beginners.
• Installation can be tedious.
• Difficult user-interface.

Verdict
Kali Linux is a perfect and must-have suite for any skilled pentester and its numerous pros certainly outweigh the cons with ease due to the wide, veritable range of tools available with it. 

Penetration Testing Services & Paid Pentest Tools & Scanners

13. Rapid7 

Features: 

• Platform: Linux, Windows, macOS
• Scanner Capacity: Cloud and Web Applications
• Manual pentest: Yes
• Accuracy: False positives possible
• Vulnerability management: Yes
• Compliance: CIS, ISO 27001
• Price: $175/month

Rapid7 is one of the top penetration testing firms with their resources focused on empowering protectors to build solid and sustainable security.

Their pentest services are based on a deep understanding of methods applied by hackers to attack your systems. 

They collaborate with the global security community to bring about better, more prolific security solutions, faster. Their services include detection and response, security scanning, and vulnerability management.

Who is it for?
Security teams of large organizations and other organizations in need of penetration testing services. 

What is best?

• Great for finding hidden vulnerabilities
• They maintain top-notch threat intelligence
• Scalable security solution.

What could be better?

• Users have reported issues with functionality and customer support
• The devices that are scanned have to be removed manually

Verdict
Rapid7’s pentesting services are just the icing on the cake along with its vulnerability management services. They have a great threat intelligence program. 

14. RedScan

Features: 

• Platform: Linux, Windows, macOS
• Scanner Capacity: Networks, Web and Mobile applications, Cloud
• Manual pentest: Yes 
• Accuracy: False positives possible
• Vulnerability management: Yes
• Compliance: GDPR, PCI-DSS, ISO 27001
• Price: Quote on request

RedScan is a cybersecurity services provider that provides extensive penetration tests as well as social engineering for mobile, web applications, networks, and cloud platforms. 

It looks for open ports, weak password credentials, and unsafe user privileges among other flaws and vulnerabilities. The pentest tool also provides active scanning and vulnerability analysis.

Who is it for? 
SMEs, and government offices. 

What is best?

• CREST-certified penetration testing services
• Reliable pentesting tool
• Easy to set up

What could be better?

• Requires integration with network equipment
• Access to information from different devices

Verdict

Redscans CREST certified services make it a highly reliable pentesting service with some room for improvement. 

15. Cobalt

Features: 

• Platform: Linux, Windows
• Scanner Capacity: Web and mobile applications, APIs, Networks, and Cloud
• Manual pentest: Yes
• Accuracy: False positives possible
• Vulnerability management: Yes
• Compliance: SOC2, PCI-DSS, HIPAA, CREST 
• Price: $ 1650/Credit (8 pentesting hours)

Cobalt.io is one of the top manual penetration testing tools that help you connect with pen-testers according to your security testing needs. They have programs that allow you to get a pentest done in a short time. 

This tool is automated and generally availed for web applications. It provides management service for an organization’s infrastructure.

Cobalt’s SaaS platform helps you gather real-time insights so that your teams can get on with the remediation quickly. It helps you with cloud scanning and other forms of pentesting.

Who is it for?
Pen testers, SaaS application providers and other cybersecurity professionals. 

What is best?

• Impressive existing clientele including Nissan and Vodafone.
• 14-day trial period.
• Accelerated find to fix cycles

What could be better?

• The retest often takes too much time
• Complex pricing structure
• Reported false positives

Verdict
Cobalt is the ideal tool for manual penetration testing services, it also comes with a 14-day trial period for its automated scanning and pentest services. 

16. Intruder

Features: 

• Platform: Windows, Linux, macOS
• Scanner Capacity: Websites, servers, and cloud
• Manual pentest: No
• Accuracy:  False Positive Present
• Vulnerability management: No
• Compliance: SOC2, and ISO 27001 
• Price: $163/month

Intruder is an automated pentest tool efficient in finding the loopholes and vulnerabilities that lie within web applications. 

It is a great tool to find misconfigurations, encryption errors, SQL injections, and CSS, along with a wide range of CVEs.

It offers continuous vulnerability management, compliance reporting, and monitoring as well as attack surface monitoring. 

Intruder is one of the scalable penetration testing applications that are flexible enough to scan websites for vulnerabilities, no matter the size or the industry your company belongs to.

Who is it for?
Code developers, and any organization with internet-facing assets like banks or government offices.

What is best?

• Easy to navigate.
• Readily manageable alerts.
• Automated pentesting platform

What could be better?

• No zero false positive assurance.
• Only has automated penetration testing service and not manual.
• Difficult to understand reports.

Verdict
Intruder’s automated pentesting services helps you save time and money by scouring for vulnerabilities diligently. 

17. Invicti (previously Netsparker)

Features:

• Scanner Capacity: Linux, Windows
• Manual pentest: No
• Accuracy: False positives possible
• Vulnerability Management: Yes 
• Compliance: PCI-DSS, HIPAA, OWASP, ISO 27001
• Price: Quote on Request

Invicti is a powerful, highly accurate, automated web app vulnerability scanner. It is the de-facto standard for detecting, locating, and reporting application security risks.

Invicti or as it was previously known as Netsparker can be used to scan any web application regardless of the technology stack or development framework used. 

The penetration testing software can discover and crawl every inch of the app with its wider scan coverage and provides continuous security.

Who is it for?
Developers, auditors, testers and security professionals to improve the security of web applications.

What is best?

• Lot of options to select security policies from
• IAST enabled scans
• Multiple integration options.

What could be better?

• No support for 2FA and MFA apps
• Slows down while scanning large applications

Verdict
Invicti comes with an excellent web vulnerability scanner and automated pentesting that is ideal for anyone who needs a quick security check. 

18. Burp Suite

Features: 

• Platform: Windows, macOS
• Scanner Capacity: Web applications
• Manual pentest: Yes
• Accuracy: False positives possible
• Vulnerability management: No
• Compliance:  PCI-DSS, OWASP Top 10, HIPAA, GDPR
• Price:  $449/per user/per year

Burp Suite is one of the popular manual penetration testing tools that is very useful for ethical hackers, pentesters, and security engineers. Let us explore some of the tools included in Burp Suite.

• Spider: It is a web crawler used for mapping the target application. You can create an inventory of all the endpoints, monitor their functionalities, and look for vulnerabilities with Spider.
• Proxy: A proxy is placed between the browser and the internet to monitor, and modify the in-transit requests and responses.
• Intruder: It runs a set of values through an input point and lets you analyze the output for success, failure, and content length.

These aside the suite includes Repeater, Sequencer, Decoder, Extender, and some other add-on tools.

Burp Suite has both a free community edition and a commercial edition.

Who is it for?
Beginners, professional ethical hackers, and also security professionals. 

What is best?

• Has both open-source and commercial editions.
• User-friendly interface.
• Best internal penetration testing tools. 

What could be better?

• Requires better integrations.
• The commercial product is pricey.
• The free version has lesser features.

Verdict
BurpSuite is undeniably a gold standard in terms of penetration testing tools and it comes in both a free and commercial plan making it very accessible. 

19. Indusface WAS

Features: 

• Platform: Windows, macOS
• Scanner Capacity:  Web and mobile applications, APIs
• Manual pentest: Yes 
• Accuracy: Zero false positives
• Vulnerability management: Yes
• Compliance: PCI-DSS, ISO 27001
• Price: $ 199/app/month

Indusface combines automated scanning and manual pentesting.  This top-notch manual pentesting tool with its automated features can help you detect all OWASP top 10 vulnerabilities and business logic errors. 

It also promises zero false positives and provides remediation assistance. The scanner built by Indusface is focused on scanning single-page applications and they offer intelligent crawling.

Who is it for?
Perfect for SMEs.
 
What is best?

• Assured zero false positives through zero-day protection. 
• Helps achieve compliance with regulations like PCI-DSS and ISO 27001. 
• Vulnerability detection is not limited to OWASP Top 10. 
• It has an executive dashboard that provides necessary information.
• Perfect application penetration testing tool

What could be better? 

• Reports are difficult to understand.

Verdict
The tool provides comprehensive scans for websites, mobile applications and APIs. It also provides manual pentesting with a focus on compliance, ideal for meeting compliance requirements. 

20. Acunetix

Features: 

• Platform: Windows, macOS
• Scanner Capacity: Web applications
• Manual pentest: No
• Accuracy: False positives possible
• Vulnerability management: Yes
• Compliance: OWASP, ISO 27001, PCI-DSS, NIST
• Price: $4,495/website

This is a vulnerability scanner that was designed for efficiency promising 90% scan results by the time the scan is halfway completed. It also allows the scanning of multiple environments as well as the prioritization of vulnerabilities.

Its key features include the ability to pinpoint vulnerability locations, and optimization for script-heavy sites among others. Acunetix is a good choice among the best pentest tools for windows. 

One of the best parts of its service offerings is that it shows you the exact lines of code that need to be fixed in order to get rid of a vulnerability.

Other key features include minimal false positives ensured and deployable on-premise or in the cloud. 
Who is it for?
Large organizations in any industry.
What is better?

• Time release of updates
• Can find a wide array of vulnerabilities.
• Agile testing with detailed reports

What could be better?

• Does not provide expert remediation assistance with professionals.
• Does not ensure zero false positives.
• Pricing is not mentioned.
• Dated user interface with scope for improvement.

Verdict
Acunetix is a very scalable solution that is ideal for large organizations owing to its quick and accurate scans and pentests. 

21. Nessus

Features: 

• Platform: Windows, macOS
• Scanner Capacity: Web applications
• Manual pentest: No
• Accuracy: False positives possible
• Vulnerability management: Yes (Additional Cost)
• Compliance: HIPAA, ISO, NIST, PCI-DSS
• Price:  $5,880.20/ year

Nessus aims to simplify vulnerability assessments and make remediation more efficient.

Tenable Nessus helps you extend your security assessment from traditional IT assets to cloud infrastructures. It keeps the zero false positives low while also covering a wide range of vulnerabilities.

Out of all the best-automated penetration testing tools, Nessus can test your systems for 65k vulnerabilities and allows efficient vulnerability assessment.
Who is it for?
Cybersecurity professionals, and security teams of enterprises. 
What is best?

• Has a free version.
• Accurate identification of vulnerabilities.
• Good automated penetration testing tool. 

What could be better?

• The free version does not have a lot of features.
• The commercialized version can be expensive.

Verdict
Nessus by Tenable is one of the most commonly used website vulnerability scanning tools however does not come with manual pentesting. 

This is the complete and comprehensive list of the best pentest tools for 2023.

Pentest Tools Categories

Each step of the pentest process requires a specific category of tools. Be it gathering information about the target website, scanning for vulnerabilities, or exploiting those vulnerabilities, every task requires certain capabilities. Here are the most important ones.

Port Scanners

Ports help you distinguish between different sources of traffic on a network. Port scanners send packets to identify open ports and thus uncover vulnerabilities.

Vulnerability Scanners

A vulnerability scanner, as we have already discussed, is usually an automated penetration testing tool that searches your website, application, or network for known vulnerabilities. The scanner reports the vulnerabilities along with their CVSS score.

Network Sniffers

Network administrators can use Network sniffers to monitor network traffic and find vulnerabilities. It is used by hackers too in a similar capacity.

Intercept Proxy

An intercepting proxy lies between the client-side browser and the internet and intercepts the traffic. It can monitor, modify, or alter the requests and responses.

Reasons Why Penetration Testing Is a Necessity

With the right pentesting team and the best penetration testing tools, the process can be an incredible measure to assess and strengthen an organization’s security posture.

What Makes Penetration Testing Important?

• You get a comprehensive understanding of your organization’s security posture which is simply not possible with just a vulnerability scan.
• You come to truly understand the risk posed by the vulnerabilities. It helps you appreciate the ROI of security exercises.
• Security experts who conduct a pen test of your systems are the best people to help you fix the vulnerabilities.
• It becomes easier for the management to spend on security when they have a clearer understanding of the threat scenario.
• The hacker-like approach of a pen tester helps you understand how your current security measures would fare against a potent threat.
• There are multiple security regulations that require you to conduct frequent penetration testing, so the matter of compliance is always there.

Penetration testing is a repetitive procedure. You have to make it a practice, ideally, a part of your software development life cycle if that is part of your business. A pentest certificate is only valid until your next feature update, or a new vulnerability is found. It is frustrating in that way, but with the right people wielding good pentesting software, it becomes a breeze.

How Are Penetration Testing And Vulnerability Assessments Different?

Vulnerability Assessment is an essential part of penetration testing. It is usually an automated procedure that unearths the possible vulnerabilities in a website, network, or application. It is a fast, accurate, and machine learning-driven exercise, that gives you a surface-level understanding of your security posture.

Penetration testing takes it further. Pen testers use a hacker-like approach to manually find hidden vulnerabilities and exploit certain vulnerabilities to learn more about them – how easy it was to exploit, whether the attacker was able to attain a privilege escalation, whether it allows a persistent backdoor, etc.

Now, that you have a fair understanding of the various kinds of tools used by pentesters and also an idea of the best penetration testing tools, let us look back at the top of our list for a bit.

To Conclude

It is time for you to act. You have browsed through a list of the pentest tools that listed some of the top tools like Astra Pentest, Burp Suite, Rapid7, and other open-source penetration testing tools such as OWASP ZAP, Wireshark, and more. 

Choosing Astra Pentest for your penetration testing needs means you are a step closer to creating a secure environment for your business as well as your customers. Take this forward. Talk to a security expert. Learn what your organization lacks in terms of cyber security and take the necessary measures.

FAQs

This post is part of a series on penetration testing, you can also check out other articles below.

Chapter 1. What is Penetration Testing
Chapter 2. Different Types of Penetration Testing?
Chapter 3. Top 5 Penetration Testing Methodology to Follow in 2023
Chapter 4. Ten Best Penetration Testing Companies and Providers
Chapter 5. Best Penetration Testing Tools Pros Use – Top List
Chapter 6. A Super Easy Guide on Penetration Testing Compliance
Chapter 7. Average Penetration Testing Cost in 2023
Chapter 8. Penetration Testing Services – Top Rated
Chapter 9. Penetration Testing Report

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