Snyk vs. StackHawk: AppSec Tool Comparison

Snyk and StackHawk are complementary security tools designed to help developers build secure applications by identifying and addressing vulnerabilities. Snyk focuses on static analysis by evaluating open-source dependencies in a codebase to detect known vulnerabilities, offering features such as IDE integration, CI/CD pipeline inclusion, and automatic pull request generation for patch updates. It has also expanded to include container scanning for security issues in Kubernetes applications. On the other hand, StackHawk conducts dynamic scanning by examining a running version of an application to uncover security bugs introduced by the development team, identifying issues like SQL Injection and Cross Site Scripting. Both static and dynamic scanning, representing whitebox and blackbox approaches respectively, are essential for comprehensive security coverage, and the article recommends employing both Snyk and StackHawk, which offer free versions for initial testing and remediation efforts.