SAST tools › SAST vs DAST

SAST vs DAST: what each finds, and which to buy first

SAST reads your source code without running it and points at the line with the flaw, so it can run on every pull request. DAST attacks the running application from outside, so it finds what only shows up at runtime, such as a bad header or a broken login flow, but can't say which line to fix. A small team should start with SAST, which is free to begin, and add DAST once it has a staging site to test.

Prices read from each vendor's own page on November 13, 2026, in US dollars.

The difference in one table

How the two kinds of testing differ in practice.
	SAST (static)	DAST (dynamic)
Looks at	Source code, bytecode or binaries	The running app: pages, APIs, responses
Needs	Access to the repository	A deployed app, ideally staging, plus test logins
Runs	In the IDE, on each pull request, in CI	After deploy; a scan takes minutes to hours
Good at	Injection, unsafe calls, hardcoded values, code paths no crawler reaches	Missing security headers, server and TLS settings, session and auth flaws that need a live request
Blind to	Configuration and anything decided at runtime	Code it can't reach: admin pages without a login, background jobs, migrations
Tells you	The file and line	The URL and the request that broke it
Free options	Semgrep (up to 10 contributors), CodeQL on public repos, Bandit, Brakeman	OWASP ZAP

Three real bugs, and which test would catch them

These come from two Discourse pull requests in IonWarp's public security benchmark, which Winding AI ran Semgrep's free rules against on November 13, 2026 (the full test is on the home page).

A request header written into JavaScript. The embed layout put request.referer inside a <script> tag. Semgrep's default rules flagged the line. A DAST scanner could also find it, but only if it sends a crafted Referer header to that embed page. SAST wins: it saw the pattern without a running app.
Clickjacking protection turned off. The same change set X-Frame-Options: ALLOWALL. Semgrep's default rules said nothing. Any DAST scanner, ZAP included, checks response headers on every page it visits, so this is a DAST win.
SQL built with string interpolation in a migration. A database migration in a related pull request inserted host names with '#{h}'. Semgrep's free rules missed it, but it is SAST's kind of bug. DAST can never see it: a migration runs once at deploy, not behind a URL.

One of each, which is the point. Each kind of test misses bugs the other finds, and the same is true of SAST's other neighbours: SCA checks the packages you depend on, which neither SAST nor DAST does well.

Which to buy first

For a team of 5 to 25 developers that ships a web app, this order costs the least for the most coverage:

SAST and SCA on every pull request. Both have free tiers (Semgrep's Free plan includes Code and Supply Chain for up to 10 contributors), and both point at what to change before merge.
Secret scanning with push protection. Leaked keys are the cheapest breach to prevent. GitHub's Secret Protection is $19 per active committer a month; Gitleaks is free.
DAST against staging, weekly and before releases. Start with ZAP's baseline scan, which only looks, before running active attacks. Give it a test login so it reaches past the sign-in page.
A human penetration test once a year or before a large customer's security review. No scanner finds what a person chaining three small bugs finds.

Teams with an API but no web front end can treat DAST as an API scan instead: ZAP's API scan, for example, takes an OpenAPI, SOAP or GraphQL definition.

DAST tools and what they cost

List prices read November 13, 2026. "Quote" means no public price.
Tool	What it is	Price
OWASP ZAP	Open-source web app scanner; proxy, spider, passive and active scans, Docker images for CI	Free
Burp Suite Professional	The standard manual testing kit, with an automated scanner	$499 per user for a year
Burp Suite DAST	PortSwigger's scheduled, multi-app scanner	Quote
StackHawk	DAST run by developers and coding agents before a pull request	Wingman $10 per user a month, 50 scans each; Scale by quote
Aikido	DAST inside a SAST and SCA platform	On the free plan for 1 domain; Basic $350 a month for 10 users, 3 domains
Snyk API & Web	Snyk's DAST, Enterprise only	3 credits ($3) per target per day
Checkmarx DAST	Part of the Checkmarx One Professional package	Quote
Invicti	Enterprise DAST and API scanning	Quote
Qualys WAS	Cloud DAST and API scanning	Quote

Snyk's rate works out to about $91 a month for each app you keep under test. GitLab includes DAST in Ultimate, priced by quote. For SAST prices, see the comparison of ten SAST tools.

Where an AI pull-request reviewer sits

AI reviewers such as IonWarp, CodeRabbit or Qodo read the diff, so they are on the static side: no running app, no live requests. IonWarp's Security Review reads the GitHub pull requests that touch auth, input, data access or secrets, looking for missing auth checks, injection and secrets added in the change, and names who could abuse each one. It doesn't run your app, so it is no replacement for DAST, and it has no dependency scanning, so it is no replacement for SCA either. IonWarp's security benchmark covers 13 pull requests, which is small, so treat it as an extra reader on each change rather than your scanner.

Questions

Is DAST better than SAST?

Neither is better; they find different bugs. SAST points at the line of code and runs on every pull request, but can't see how the deployed app behaves. DAST proves a flaw is reachable in the running app, but only covers the pages and endpoints it can crawl, and can't tell you which line to fix.

Is Qualys SAST or DAST?

Qualys Web Application Scanning (WAS) is DAST: it scans running web applications and APIs from the outside.

What is IAST?

Interactive application security testing puts an agent inside the running application, so it sees both the request (like DAST) and the code path it took (like SAST). It needs the app to run with the agent installed, usually in a test environment, and fewer tools offer it.

SAST vs SCA Your code or your dependencies: which scanner finds what.
Open-source SAST tools Free scanners to pair with ZAP.

About this page

Published by Winding AI, Inc., the company that makes IonWarp, an AI pull-request reviewer. We earn nothing from links to other tools; links to IonWarp carry a tag so IonWarp can count visits from this site. Visits are counted with Google Analytics. If a price or fact here is wrong, write to support@winding.ai.