- Burp Suite Open Source Alternative Download
- Burp Suite Tools
- Burp Suite Open Source Alternative To Illustrator
- Burp Suite Open Source Alternative To Tableau
- Burp Suite Open Source Alternative For Adobe After Effects
- What Is Burp Suite
In most of these examples, I have Burp Suite listening on localhost:8080 and am running the CLI tools from the same machine. If Burp is running on a different host or interface, you should be able to just replace localhost with the IP of Burp. Example 1 - Proxying curl and wget.
- 24 Alternatives to Burp Suite. PfSense is a free and open source firewall and router that also features unified threat management, load balancing, multi WAN.
- An Open Source alternative to Burp Suite. We are working to make wapty a worthy replacement for Burp, but we are not there yet.
A lot of organizations find themselves to be vulnerable to various potential cyber threats.
Thus, a vulnerability scanner is a software designed to automatically analyze any application, system, or network, looking for any possible existing vulnerabilities.
One of the most complete vulnerability scanning applications that we can find on the market is OpenVAS.
In case you don't find OpenVAS as the optimal solution for your needs then you can go through the 7 alternatives provided below.
Top 7 Alternatives and Competitors of OpenVAS
Netsparker is an automated web application vulnerability assessment tool. It inspects known vulnerabilities, confirming that they are authentic and not false positives.
Netsparker can find vulnerabilities in thousands of web applications within a few hours as compared to OpenVAS.
Therefore, you do not have to waste hours manually scanning for known vulnerabilities after a scan is completed.
Despite the fact that it is a paid tool at the corporate level, it has many advanced features.
Key Features:
- Heuristic URL rewrite detection.
- Proof-based scanning.
- Advanced vulnerability detection.
- Automated vulnerability processing.
- Trend matrix reports.
Nmap
Nmap can certainly not be missing from the hacker kit of any security analyst.
Used for network discovery and security scanning, it is one of the most flexible open-source tools used by pentesters.
Nmap allows the execution of custom scripts that allow the identification of specific information.
It operates by scanning targets, which can be networks and hosts, whether open to the internet or not.
It also scans for open service ports and determines the type of service, version, and possible operating systems.
With Nmap, you scan the network and get responses from all devices that are connected.
Key Features:
- Better TLS/SSL scanning.
- Improved NSE functionality.
- Port specification and scan order.
- OS detection.
- Script scan.
- Better IPv6 support.
Nessus
Developed by Tenable, Nessus is one of the most popular vulnerability assessment tools.
It can be considered as one of the biggest competitors of OpenVAS. It performs a port scan, detecting active servers and simulating intrusions to detect vulnerabilities.
An important feature is that Nessus looks for active servers not only on standard ports but also on all TCP ports.
Based on a client-server architecture, Nessus is compatible with Linux and Windows as well. Currently, Nessus has more than 50,000 plugins.
Here is our in-depth comparison of OpenVAS and Nessus.
Nexpose
Developed by Rapid7, Nexpose is an open-source audit tool used to monitor vulnerabilities & implement various network scans.
Thanks to the Github community, all new vulnerabilities are included in the Nexpose database.
Security experts regularly use this tool and rely on it to provide detailed verification of your web application, as it can be integrated with a Metasploit framework.
Vulnerabilities are described by Nexpose based on their level of risk and ranged from low to high, which we cannot find in OpenVAS when compared.
Key Features:
- Real risk score.
- Integration with Metasploit framework.
- Advanced exposure analytics.
- Schedule scans and configures security alerts.
- Policy assessment.
Acunetix is again one of the leading web vulnerability scanner used by many companies and widely acclaimed to include the most advanced injection and XSS black box scanning technology.
It provides integrated vulnerability assessment and management, as well as multiple options for integration with leading software development tools on the market as compared to OpenVAS.
Acunetix rigorously tests thousands of web application vulnerabilities, including SQL Injection and XSS. It can find vulnerabilities not only in web applications but also on the network.
Key Features:
- Automated DOM-based XSS vulnerability testing.
- In-depth tracking and analysis.
- Detailed SQL and XSS injection vulnerability testing.
- Higher vulnerability detection rate.
Qualys
The Qualys vulnerability scanner works behind the firewall in complex internal networks, it can scan cloud-hosted environments, and can also detect vulnerabilities in multi-site organized networks.
The prices may be higher than other applications, but the solutions and countermeasures offered are more complete and the protection offered is more extensive.
Provides automated tracking and testing of custom web applications to identify vulnerabilities, including XSS (Cross-Site Scripting) and SQL injection as compared to OpenVAS.
It helps control for the presence of hidden malware, SSL related issues, and other network-related vulnerabilities.
Key Features:
- Continuous monitoring.
- Automated tracking and testing of custom web applications.
- Secured configuration assessment.
- Real-time compliance.
Burp Suite is a web vulnerability scanner used by many companies. Although a free version is available, its functionality is limited and lacks automation possibilities.
Its simple interface and automation have made Burp Suite the most popular scanner among penetration testers.
It is used to directly intercept and manipulate web traffic sent and received by applications. By default, you can map targets and scan for vulnerabilities as compared to OpenVAS.
The software is intuitive and easy to use, allowing new users to start working right away.
It is highly configurable and contains numerous powerful features to help the most experienced pentesters with their work.
Key Features:
- Automate the detection of various types of vulnerabilities.
- A Sequencer tool, to test the randomness of session tokens.
- Cross-platform supported.
So, Which is the Best Alternative to OpenVAS?
Well, honestly that would depend upon your specific needs. All these are very worthy options to choose from and there are probably a lot more that I didn't cover here.
But I'm sure this post might've made you aware of various features that you should expect with a vulnerability tool of your choice.
You may also like to read: What are the Top Open Source Vulnerability Scanner Tools?
How to get more out of your free Burp Suite Community Edition?
Alright, let's start with something important. Do not use any sort of cracked version of Burp Suite Professional. Using illegally acquired software is not cool. Also, Portswigger (the company behind Burp Suite) is just super awesome to the community. This most of all starts with the community edition offering that comes entirely for free! Apart from that, they have the absolute best free web app sec training existing on the market.
However, the community edition does indeed have quite heavy limitations. In this blog post, we are going to look into a couple of examples. I am going to show you how you can overcome those restrictions to some extent!
Search
Yes, something as simple as searching for a specific string or using a regex to find the needle in your big stack of recorded requests goes a long way towards successful exploitation.
Portswigger thinks so too and does not allow you to do that.
Fortunately, there are absolutely superb extensions that not just add the search functionality, but also provide more features that the current Burp filter does not have.
Flow
Find out more about Flow and its feature set here.
Burp Suite Open Source Alternative Download
Logger++
Find out more about Logger++ and its feature set here.
Generate CSRF POC
Burp Suite Professional has this amazing feature where you can right-click on any request and create a CSRF POC (proof-of-concept). This is super handy during testing as it saves you time to write the .html file by yourself. Read more about the feature here.
However, CSRF POCs can fortunately be crafted quite easily. Make sure to have a pre-built CSRF POC template ready to use or check out this Github project by Mert Tasci. You can just git clone the repository and run it with python3 -m http.server. After that, copy the request in question and insert it into the CSRF generator.
Burp Collaborator
I gotta say, the integrated Burp Collaborator definitely is the coolest feature in my opinion. This tool basically allows you to quickly check for e.g. SSRF (server-side request forgery) vulnerabilities by showing you all incoming DNS/HTTP/SMTP traffic.
It would not be part of this blog post though, if there would not be an excellent alternative. If you are all about monitoring HTTP or DNS queries, requestbin.net is a pretty good substitute that comes entirely for free.
Burp Intruder
Burp Suite Tools
Burp Suite's Intruder generally speaking is part of the community edition. However, the big drawback is the request throttling in place. The community edition allows you to send approximately 1 request per second. If you think of e.g. a password enumeration attack, you would probably sit in front of your computer for longer than planet Earth's current existence.
Burp Suite Open Source Alternative To Illustrator
Luckily, there is a Burp extension called Turbo Intruder that directly comes from the man himself, James Kettle (who btw works for Portswigger).
Burp Scanner
Some people say that Burp Scanner is the heart of the entire product. I do agree to some extent but at the same time heavily disagree. One the one hand, the scanner is a compound of excellent web application crawling technology (Burp just recently outlined the inner workings of their crawler here) and an automated vulnerability scanning capability. On the other hand, it is not the feature I use most often. I actually barely use it at all.
Key Features:
- Heuristic URL rewrite detection.
- Proof-based scanning.
- Advanced vulnerability detection.
- Automated vulnerability processing.
- Trend matrix reports.
Nmap
Nmap can certainly not be missing from the hacker kit of any security analyst.
Used for network discovery and security scanning, it is one of the most flexible open-source tools used by pentesters.
Nmap allows the execution of custom scripts that allow the identification of specific information.
It operates by scanning targets, which can be networks and hosts, whether open to the internet or not.
It also scans for open service ports and determines the type of service, version, and possible operating systems.
With Nmap, you scan the network and get responses from all devices that are connected.
Key Features:
- Better TLS/SSL scanning.
- Improved NSE functionality.
- Port specification and scan order.
- OS detection.
- Script scan.
- Better IPv6 support.
Nessus
Developed by Tenable, Nessus is one of the most popular vulnerability assessment tools.
It can be considered as one of the biggest competitors of OpenVAS. It performs a port scan, detecting active servers and simulating intrusions to detect vulnerabilities.
An important feature is that Nessus looks for active servers not only on standard ports but also on all TCP ports.
Based on a client-server architecture, Nessus is compatible with Linux and Windows as well. Currently, Nessus has more than 50,000 plugins.
Here is our in-depth comparison of OpenVAS and Nessus.
Nexpose
Developed by Rapid7, Nexpose is an open-source audit tool used to monitor vulnerabilities & implement various network scans.
Thanks to the Github community, all new vulnerabilities are included in the Nexpose database.
Security experts regularly use this tool and rely on it to provide detailed verification of your web application, as it can be integrated with a Metasploit framework.
Vulnerabilities are described by Nexpose based on their level of risk and ranged from low to high, which we cannot find in OpenVAS when compared.
Key Features:
- Real risk score.
- Integration with Metasploit framework.
- Advanced exposure analytics.
- Schedule scans and configures security alerts.
- Policy assessment.
Acunetix is again one of the leading web vulnerability scanner used by many companies and widely acclaimed to include the most advanced injection and XSS black box scanning technology.
It provides integrated vulnerability assessment and management, as well as multiple options for integration with leading software development tools on the market as compared to OpenVAS.
Acunetix rigorously tests thousands of web application vulnerabilities, including SQL Injection and XSS. It can find vulnerabilities not only in web applications but also on the network.
Key Features:
- Automated DOM-based XSS vulnerability testing.
- In-depth tracking and analysis.
- Detailed SQL and XSS injection vulnerability testing.
- Higher vulnerability detection rate.
Qualys
The Qualys vulnerability scanner works behind the firewall in complex internal networks, it can scan cloud-hosted environments, and can also detect vulnerabilities in multi-site organized networks.
The prices may be higher than other applications, but the solutions and countermeasures offered are more complete and the protection offered is more extensive.
Provides automated tracking and testing of custom web applications to identify vulnerabilities, including XSS (Cross-Site Scripting) and SQL injection as compared to OpenVAS.
It helps control for the presence of hidden malware, SSL related issues, and other network-related vulnerabilities.
Key Features:
- Continuous monitoring.
- Automated tracking and testing of custom web applications.
- Secured configuration assessment.
- Real-time compliance.
Burp Suite is a web vulnerability scanner used by many companies. Although a free version is available, its functionality is limited and lacks automation possibilities.
Its simple interface and automation have made Burp Suite the most popular scanner among penetration testers.
It is used to directly intercept and manipulate web traffic sent and received by applications. By default, you can map targets and scan for vulnerabilities as compared to OpenVAS.
The software is intuitive and easy to use, allowing new users to start working right away.
It is highly configurable and contains numerous powerful features to help the most experienced pentesters with their work.
Key Features:
- Automate the detection of various types of vulnerabilities.
- A Sequencer tool, to test the randomness of session tokens.
- Cross-platform supported.
So, Which is the Best Alternative to OpenVAS?
Well, honestly that would depend upon your specific needs. All these are very worthy options to choose from and there are probably a lot more that I didn't cover here.
But I'm sure this post might've made you aware of various features that you should expect with a vulnerability tool of your choice.
You may also like to read: What are the Top Open Source Vulnerability Scanner Tools?
How to get more out of your free Burp Suite Community Edition?
Alright, let's start with something important. Do not use any sort of cracked version of Burp Suite Professional. Using illegally acquired software is not cool. Also, Portswigger (the company behind Burp Suite) is just super awesome to the community. This most of all starts with the community edition offering that comes entirely for free! Apart from that, they have the absolute best free web app sec training existing on the market.
However, the community edition does indeed have quite heavy limitations. In this blog post, we are going to look into a couple of examples. I am going to show you how you can overcome those restrictions to some extent!
Search
Yes, something as simple as searching for a specific string or using a regex to find the needle in your big stack of recorded requests goes a long way towards successful exploitation.
Portswigger thinks so too and does not allow you to do that.
Fortunately, there are absolutely superb extensions that not just add the search functionality, but also provide more features that the current Burp filter does not have.
Flow
Find out more about Flow and its feature set here.
Burp Suite Open Source Alternative Download
Logger++
Find out more about Logger++ and its feature set here.
Generate CSRF POC
Burp Suite Professional has this amazing feature where you can right-click on any request and create a CSRF POC (proof-of-concept). This is super handy during testing as it saves you time to write the .html file by yourself. Read more about the feature here.
However, CSRF POCs can fortunately be crafted quite easily. Make sure to have a pre-built CSRF POC template ready to use or check out this Github project by Mert Tasci. You can just git clone the repository and run it with python3 -m http.server. After that, copy the request in question and insert it into the CSRF generator.
Burp Collaborator
I gotta say, the integrated Burp Collaborator definitely is the coolest feature in my opinion. This tool basically allows you to quickly check for e.g. SSRF (server-side request forgery) vulnerabilities by showing you all incoming DNS/HTTP/SMTP traffic.
It would not be part of this blog post though, if there would not be an excellent alternative. If you are all about monitoring HTTP or DNS queries, requestbin.net is a pretty good substitute that comes entirely for free.
Burp Intruder
Burp Suite Tools
Burp Suite's Intruder generally speaking is part of the community edition. However, the big drawback is the request throttling in place. The community edition allows you to send approximately 1 request per second. If you think of e.g. a password enumeration attack, you would probably sit in front of your computer for longer than planet Earth's current existence.
Burp Suite Open Source Alternative To Illustrator
Luckily, there is a Burp extension called Turbo Intruder that directly comes from the man himself, James Kettle (who btw works for Portswigger).
Burp Scanner
Some people say that Burp Scanner is the heart of the entire product. I do agree to some extent but at the same time heavily disagree. One the one hand, the scanner is a compound of excellent web application crawling technology (Burp just recently outlined the inner workings of their crawler here) and an automated vulnerability scanning capability. On the other hand, it is not the feature I use most often. I actually barely use it at all.
The crawling and scanning engine are both nicely integrated in Burp's UI but can once again be substituted with different tools. In regards to crawling, I am personally a fan of clicking through the entire web app by myself anyway. Whenever you start a penetration test or when you are going for bug bounties, make sure to fire up Burp and start browsing. This is not just feeding Burp's proxy tab, but also immediately gives you a great first glimpse of the application's behavior and purpose.
Some of you might say now '… but not all pages are directly linked'. That's absolutely correct. For discovering unlinked directories and paths, I recommend to use a tool called FFUF. You can check out e.g. InsiderPhD's video on how to use that tool.
In regards to scanning, the best and most critical vulnerabilities still have to be found manually. While we currently see a lot of active development around pentest automation, vuln categories like business logic errors will most likely always need an actual brain figuring out the issue.
The entire security community however has built hundreds of open-source tools that automate pentesting to some extent. All those tools (which cannot be mentioned in this single blog post, check out this Github repository for a start) can cover parts of Burp's automated scanner. If you are all about payloads, then PayloadAllTheThings is the place to start looking.
Burp Suite Open Source Alternative To Tableau
In the end, Burp's scanner is still really nice though, especially as it is displaying all the findings in an easy-to-understand way in the Dashboard tab. Check out this page to get a rough idea what the scanner is covering.
Burp Suite Open Source Alternative For Adobe After Effects
Conclusion
What Is Burp Suite
Portswigger's Burp Suite is arguably one of the TOP-5 pentest tools used by the entire IT-Security community. Next to its comprehensive feature set, it also comes with a very low price tag. An annual subscription is only setting you back USD 399,–.
If you happen to be able to afford a Professional license, I can only recommend you to get it. If you are just starting out, or you are only hacking occasionally, then there is no need to go pro. Make use of the additional tools mentioned in this article to work around the limitations of Burp Suite Community.
Check out my Youtube video to get visual guidance
