11 Best Free Web Application Penetration Testing Tools 2023

Web Application Pentesting Tools are essential to the penetration testing process for web-based applications. In this article we list some of the free Web Application Pentesting Tools.

We all know very well that in the old days, hacking was quite difficult and required a lot of manual bit manipulation.

However, today, on the internet, we can find a complete set of automated test tools that turns normal hackers or security experts into cyborgs, computer-enhanced humans capable of testing much more than ever.

What is Penetration Testing?

Penetration testing is also known as ethical hacking. Testing a computer system, network, or web application is a practice to find vulnerabilities that attackers or malicious hackers could exploit.

Penetration tests can be automated with software applications, or they can be performed manually. The main objective of penetration tests is to determine security weaknesses. 

Apart from these things, penetration tests can also prove compliance with an organization’s security policy, the safety awareness of its staff and users, and the organization’s ability to identify and combat those security errors or attacks.

Hence, to reinforce the defenses, the security professionals need to build a set of tools, both free and commercial.

Some free Web Application Pentesting Tools are available, and others are not, but they all serve a purpose: the administrator must find the vulnerabilities before hackers do.

Each tool differs in its scanning methods, which security administrators can implement, and the vulnerabilities they are looking for.

Generally, some offer an unlimited number of IP addresses or hosts to exploit, while others don’t. Some are specific to operating systems, and others are agnostic.

We are in a stage where we should work smartly. In short, why use a horse and carriage to cross the country when you can fly in a plane? Hence, here we have created a list of smart penetration testing tools that make the work of a modern pentester faster, better, more efficient, and smarter.

Moreover, penetration tests are sometimes called “white hat attacks,” We all know that in these types of tests, good hackers or white hat hackers try to get into the force.

So, now without wasting much time, let’s explore the list below.

• Cyver Core 
• Zed Attack Proxy
• W3af
• Arachni
• Wapiti
• Metasploit
• Vega
• Grabber
• SQLMap
• Ratproxy
• Wfuzz

1. Cyver Core 

Cyver Core

The tool uses work process automation to automatically generate vulnerability reports from tool outputs, which can then be used to generate the pentest report from a template automatically.  

In addition, you can create and customize workflows, checklists for vulnerability frameworks, and assessment data to better manage work across pentest teams.  

For clients, you can create, manage, and share pentest projects using Kanban-style boards or calendars, with projects fully integrated into automation – so client data auto-populates in relevant reports.  

Features:  

• Pentest report automation  
• Team management 
• Client Portal 
• Jira integration  

2. Zed Attack Proxy

ZAP or Zed Attack Proxy is an open-source, multi-platform free Web Application Pentesting Tool.

ZAP or Zed Attack Proxy is an open-source and multi-platform web application protection testing tool.

It is generally used for obtaining several security vulnerabilities in a web app through the construction and testing phase.

Thanks to its intuitive GUI, Zed Attack Proxy can be handled with equal ease by newbies as that by experts.

Thus this security testing tool supports the command-line path for advanced users. 

Moreover, it has been the most notable OWASP project; it has been awarded as the flagship status.

ZAP is written in Java, which can further be used to prevent a proxy from manually testing a webpage.

ZAP is free to use, and it has a scanner and security vulnerability finder for web statements.

Features:-

• SQL injection
• Private IP disclosure
• Application error disclosure
• Cookie, not HTTP only flag
• XSS injection

3.W3af

W3af is one of the Web Application Attack and Audit Frameworks, which is developed by using Python.

This tool enables testers to find over 200 varieties of security problems in web applications.

W3af has a command-line interface and works on Linux, Apple Mac OS X, and Microsoft Windows. w3af is basically classified into two main parts: the core and plug-ins.

The core part regulates the process and contributes features that the plug-ins apply; hence, it gets vulnerabilities and utilizes them.

Moreover, the plug-ins are correlated and share information using a database.

Features:-

• Blind SQL injection
• Cross-site scripting
• Payloads injection
• CSRF
• Insecure DAV configuration

4. Arachni

Arachni is created to recognize security issues inside a webpage, and it is an open-source security protection testing tool capable of uncovering several vulnerabilities.

Moreover, it helps in examining web application security. It works as a meta-analysis on the HTTP acknowledgments it receives during an audit method and presents several insights and to know how to secure the application.

Features:-

• Local and remote file inclusion
• SQL injection
• XSS injection
• Invalidated redirect

5. Wapiti

Wapiti is one of the leading Web Application Pentesting Tools, and Wapiti is a free-of-cost open-source project from SourceForge.

It performs black-box testing if you want to check web applications for security vulnerabilities.

Hence, it is a command-line application, and most importantly, it knows multiple commands used by Wapiti. It is easy for the experienced, but testing for newcomers is difficult.

But the new users don’t need to worry, as you can easily find all the Wapiti directions on the official documentation.

Hence, for checking if a script is vulnerable, Wapiti injects payloads and the open-source security testing tool grants support for GET and POST HTTP attack techniques.

Features:-

• CRLF injection
• Database injection
• Shellshock or bash bug
• XSS injection
• XXE injection
• File disclosure

Metasploit is one of the most advanced and popular frameworks in the Web Application Pentesting Tools list that can be used for penetration testing.

It was based on ‘exploit,’ a code that can exceed the security rules and enter a reliable system.

Hence, if entered, it runs a ‘payload,’ a code that executes operations on a target machine, thus forming a perfect framework for penetration testing.

Moreover, it can be practiced on web apps, networks, servers, etc. It has a command line and a GUI clickable interface that flawlessly works on all the major platforms like Linux, Apple Mac OS X, and Microsoft Windows.

However, some free limited trials might be available, as it’s a commercial product.

You can take the Mastering in Metasploit online course to enhance your skills in Metasploit.

Features:-

• Gather and reuse credentials
• Automate every step of a penetration test
• Next-level pen tester
• Manual exploitation
• Nexpose scan integration
• Proxy pivot
• Evidence collection
• Anti-virus evasion

7. Vega

Vega is a free open-source web vulnerability scanner and a penetration testing platform. With this tool, you can perform different security testing of a web application written in Java that offers a GUI-based environment.

It is accessible for OS X, Linux, and Windows. It can be used to obtain SQL injection, data inclusion, shell injection, cross-site scripting, header injection, directory listing, and other web app vulnerabilities.

This application can also be utilized using a powerful API written in JavaScript.

It lets you make a few decisions like the number of way descendants.

Features:-

• Automated scanner
• Intercepting proxy
• Proxy scanner
• GUI-based
• Multi-platform

8. Grabber

Grabber is a web protection application scanner that primarily recognizes some vulnerabilities on your website.

Grabber is simple, not quick, but manageable and flexible. This web software is created to scan small sites such as personal blogs, forums, etc., admittedly not big applications, as it would take a too long to drown your network.

Its main motive is to have a “minimum bar” scanner for the Same Tool Evaluation Program at NIST.

Features:-

• File inclusion
• Backup file check
• Cross-site scripting
• Hybrid analyze
• Javascript source code analyzer

9. SQLMap

SQLMap is a user-friendly, open-source penetration testing tool. This tool is mainly used for identifying and exploiting SQL injection problems in an application and hacking over different database servers.

It has a command-line interface and works on different platforms like Linux, Apple Mac OS X, and Microsoft Windows.

Moreover, we can also say that it allows recognizing and utilizing SQL injection vulnerability in a webpage database. The most interesting thing is that the SQLMap is entirely free to use.

This security testing tool has a great testing engine capable of sustaining six types of SQL injection.

Features:-

• Stacked queries
• Time-based blind
• Boolean-based blind
• Robust detection engine

10. Ratproxy

Ratproxy is also one of the well-known and open-source web application security audit proxy tools which can be used to find security vulnerabilities in webpage applications.

Generally, this Web Application Pentesting Tool was created to defeat the problems that users regularly face while using other proxy tools for security audits.

Even it can also distinguish between CSS stylesheets and JavaScript codes. Moreover, it has potential difficulties and security-relevant design patterns based on measuring existing, user-initiated businesses in complex Web 2.0 environments.

Features:-

• XSS injection
• XSRF defenses
• Optional component
• Adobe-flash content
• A Broad set of other security problems
• HTTP and META redirectors

11. Wfuzz

Wfuzz is also a freely accessible open-source tool for webpage application penetration testing.

Wfuzz can be used to brute-strength GET and POST parameters for measuring various injections like SQL, XSS, LDAP, and many more.

Generally, It supports cookie fuzzing, multi-threading, SOCK, Proxy, Authentication, parameters brute-forcing, multiple proxies, and many more things.

A payload is a source of data in Wfuzz, and its simple idea allows any input to be injected in any required field of an HTTP request, enabling to perform multiple web security attacks in various webpage application elements like parameters, authentication, forms, directories, headers, etc.

Features:-

• Output to HTML
• Colored output
• Cookies fuzzing
• Multiple injection points
• Multiple threading
• Recursion
• Proxy support 
• SOCK support

Conclusion

We believe these are the best Web Application Pentesting Tools in the open-source and internet world.

However, we have chosen all of them because they are easy-to-use and user-friendly applications.

So here, we have given all the information regarding the 10 best open-source Web Application Pentesting Tools. 

What you have to do now is, try them out and see which one better suits your needs. However, if you have any other open-source Web Application Pentesting Tools you have used and think are most suitable, please let us know in the comment section below.

We hope that you liked this post and it must have been useful to you; if so, then do not forget to share this post with your friends, family, and on your social profiles as well.

Related Read