How We Evaluate AppSec Tools: Our Methodology
How AppSec Santa selects, evaluates, and updates 129+ application security tools across 10 categories. Our process, criteria, and conflict of interest policy.
Why this page exists
Most tool comparison sites never explain how they decide what to include or how they evaluate products. That makes it hard to trust anything they say.
This page lays out how AppSec Santa works: how tools get selected, what I look at when evaluating them, how information stays current, and where my biases are.
If you are making purchasing decisions based on what you read here, you deserve to know how the sausage gets made.
How tools get selected
AppSec Santa covers 10 categories of application security tools: SAST, SCA, DAST, IAST, RASP, AI Security, API Security, IaC Security, ASPM, and Mobile Security.
A tool gets included if it meets all of the following:
It is an application security tool. Network scanners, endpoint protection, and SIEM tools are out of scope. The tool must directly help secure application code, dependencies, or runtime behavior.
It is publicly available. The tool must be downloadable or accessible through a public signup process. Private beta products are excluded until they launch publicly.
It is actively maintained. The tool must have had a meaningful update (feature release, security patch, or documentation update) within the last 18 months. Abandoned projects are listed with a “deprecated” label rather than removed entirely, since some teams still use them.
It serves the target audience. Our readers are developers, security engineers, and engineering managers. Tools that are only usable by a narrow specialist audience (e.g., hardware security modules) are excluded.
Tools that have been acquired, renamed, or deprecated are kept on the site with appropriate labels. This matters because teams searching for the old name need to find out what happened.
Evaluation dimensions
I evaluate every tool across six dimensions. These are not weighted scores or star ratings. They are qualitative assessments based on hands-on experience, vendor docs, community feedback, and public benchmarks.
Core detection capability
What does the tool actually find, and how well does it find it? For SAST, that means data flow analysis depth and rule coverage. For DAST, crawl completeness and attack payload coverage. For SCA, vulnerability database freshness and reachability analysis.
Where public benchmarks exist, I reference them: the OWASP Benchmark for SAST and IAST, the DAST Benchmark project for dynamic scanners, and Gartner Magic Quadrant placements.
Language and framework support
Which languages, frameworks, and package managers does the tool support? This seems straightforward, but the differences between tools are huge. A SAST tool claiming “Java support” might mean basic rule matching, or it might mean deep inter-procedural data flow analysis with Spring framework awareness. I try to clarify the depth, not just the breadth.
CI/CD and developer integration
How easily does the tool fit into existing development workflows? IDE plugins, CLI tools, GitHub Actions and GitLab CI support, PR commenting, quality gate configuration. A tool that developers never see the output from is a tool that does not get used.
Pricing and licensing
I list the license type (open-source, freemium, commercial) and provide pricing context where publicly available. Many enterprise tools do not publish pricing, so I note what is available and recommend contacting the vendor for a quote.
There are no affiliate commissions or negotiated pricing deals on this site. Pricing information comes from public sources and vendor documentation.
Community and ecosystem
For open-source tools, I look at GitHub stars, contributor count, release frequency, and issue response times. For commercial tools, I look at Gartner, Forrester, and peer review sites like G2 and PeerSpot. An active community matters because it means bugs get reported and fixed faster.
Enterprise readiness
Does the tool scale? What compliance certifications does it hold? SSO, RBAC, audit logging? These features matter for teams operating at scale, even if they are irrelevant for a five-person startup.
Our research process
For each tool, the process looks roughly the same.
I start with the vendor’s own documentation: product pages, release notes, technical docs. That is the baseline for understanding what the tool claims to do.
For open-source tools and tools with free tiers, I install and run the tool against test applications. There is no substitute for actually using the thing. Setup complexity, scan speed, finding quality, and how it feels in a developer’s workflow all become clear pretty quickly.
I also read what real users are saying. GitHub issues, community forums, G2, PeerSpot, Gartner Peer Insights, Reddit. Vendor docs tell you what a tool is supposed to do. User feedback tells you what it actually does.
Where Gartner Magic Quadrant, Forrester Wave, or other analyst reports exist, I reference those too. They are not gospel, but they provide an independent data point on market position.
Occasionally I reach out to vendors directly for clarification on specific features or roadmap items. When I do, I note it.
I do not run comprehensive benchmarks of every tool in every configuration. That is not feasible for a site covering 129+ tools. What I can offer is informed, experience-based assessments that help readers narrow their shortlist.
Update cadence
Information about security tools goes stale fast. Vendors ship updates, change pricing, get acquired, or deprecate features. A comparison article from 18 months ago can be meaningfully wrong today.
Every tool page gets reviewed at least once per quarter. I check for new versions, feature changes, and pricing updates.
Major changes trigger immediate updates. When Synopsys sold its software integrity group and Black Duck became its own company, those pages got updated right away. Same for product launches, Gartner/Forrester report releases, and significant pricing changes.
Every page shows its “last updated” date. If you see a page that has not been updated in more than six months, treat its information with appropriate skepticism.
When content changes affect recommendations, I note it in the page body (e.g., “Note: ZAP is now maintained by Checkmarx as of September 2024”).
About the author
AppSec Santa is written and maintained by Suphi Cankurt.
I have spent over 10 years working in application security, including time at Invicti Security (formerly Netsparker). My experience spans DAST, SAST, SCA, and broader application security program design.
I have worked directly with many of the tools reviewed on this site, both as a user and in collaboration with vendors on product feedback. That hands-on experience is the foundation for the assessments published here.
I am not collecting certifications to pad a resume. I have spent years in the trenches of application security, and I built this site because I kept wishing something like it existed when I was evaluating tools myself.
Conflict of interest policy
Claiming perfect objectivity would be dishonest. What I can do is be transparent about where my biases might be.
I work at Invicti Security. That is a potential bias, and I want to be upfront about it. Invicti’s review on this site follows the same criteria as every other tool. If I thought Invicti was bad at what it does, I would not work there. But that does not mean it is the right tool for every situation. I try to be clear about where it is strong and where alternatives do the job better.
AppSec Santa does not accept payment from any vendor for reviews, placement, or favorable coverage. No tool has ever paid to appear on this site.
Links to vendor websites are direct links. No affiliate tracking, no referral commissions.
I do not accept free commercial licenses in exchange for reviews. When I test commercial tools, I use publicly available free tiers, trial accounts, or my own purchased licenses.
If a vendor believes their product is described inaccurately, they can contact me. I will verify and correct factual errors. I will not change opinions or assessments based on vendor pressure.
If you spot an error, a bias I have not disclosed, or a conflict I have missed, please get in touch.
FAQ
Suphi Cankurt works at Invicti Security and has spent over 10 years in application security. He reviews and compares AppSec tools across 10 categories on AppSec Santa. Learn more.