Struggling with API security testing?
You’re trying to keep your CI/CD pipeline moving, but manual checks and slow tools create serious bottlenecks, leaving your applications exposed.
The pressure to choose the right solution is immense, as a bad fit creates more problems than it solves through false positives and workflow disruptions.
The stakes are incredibly high. Akamai Technologies reports that 85% of organizations in Asia-Pacific had an API security incident last year, a widespread and costly threat.
The right tool changes this by helping you streamline your security testing and catch critical issues before they ever reach production.
In this article, I’m going to show you the best API security testing tools designed to cut detection time and simplify your entire DevSecOps workflow.
You’ll learn how to pick a tool that provides precise, actionable feedback without overwhelming your developers or slowing down critical release cycles.
Let’s get started.
Quick Summary:
| # | Software | Rating | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jit → | DevSecOps engineers | |
| 2 | 42Crunch → | Scaling SaaS companies | |
| 3 | Salt Security → | Scaling SaaS companies | |
| 4 | Astronomer → | Scaling SaaS companies | |
| 5 | Kong Inc. → | DevSecOps engineers |
1. Jit
Tired of endless security backlogs?
Jit’s AI Agents automate tedious AppSec tasks, providing full scanning coverage in minutes and continuous monitoring across your dev teams. This means your team can streamline vulnerability triage and remediation efforts. The result is a proactive approach to security that keeps pace with development.
Jit introduces its AI Agents, acting like product security engineers with deep knowledge of your policies and system architecture. It automates vulnerability scanning, triage, remediation, and reporting, helping your team keep up without adding resources. Additionally, Jit offers full-stack scanning, consolidating risk management by using built-in scanners or integrating with existing tools. You can detect security issues across code, cloud, and CI/CD pipelines. Plus, developers get contextual feedback on every code change in their environment, explaining risks and suggesting fixes. This makes it easier to stay audit-ready by continuously mapping your environment to compliance frameworks and generating automatic reports.
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Key features:
- AI Agent Automation: Automates critical AppSec tasks like vulnerability scanning, triage, remediation, and compliance gap analysis, freeing your team from manual burdens.
- Full-Stack Security Coverage: Provides comprehensive scanning capabilities including SAST, SCA, Secrets Detection, SBOM, IaC, DAST, and CI/CD pipeline security.
- Simplified Developer UX: Offers real-time, contextual security feedback directly within developer environments, enabling quick, informed fixes without disrupting workflows.
Learn more about Jit features, pricing, & alternatives →
Verdict: Jit’s automation and comprehensive scanning make it an excellent choice for DevSecOps engineers seeking the best API security testing tools. Its AI Agents accelerate vulnerability triage and remediation, while full-stack coverage and simplified developer UX ensure precise detection and faster security fixes, providing peace of mind and reducing manual workload for your team.
2. 42Crunch
Struggling to secure APIs without slowing development?
42Crunch provides an API security platform that automates end-to-end security, integrating throughout your API lifecycle. This means you can design, develop, test, deploy, and enforce policies with security embedded.
This approach prevents vulnerable APIs from reaching production by allowing you to automate security policy enforcement in your CI/CD pipeline. The result? You mitigate risks earlier, avoiding issues at runtime.
This transitions us deeper into the solution.
42Crunch helps you block attacks immediately and fix vulnerable APIs by automating remediation and redeployment. This platform tests and hardens APIs right within your IDE, making it easier for developers to remove common vulnerabilities like BOLA and BFLA. You get instant security scoring for prioritization and remediation advice, plus dynamic scans ensuring OpenAPI contract conformance.
Additionally, 42Crunch provides immediate zero-day API threat prevention with purpose-built real-time validation. It inspects the full API transaction, headers, parameters, and payload to block malicious or non-compliant requests instantly. This micro-API firewall protection ensures no data leaves your environment, providing continuous control over security policy enforcement.
The result is accelerated delivery, reduced manual testing costs, and comprehensive API protection.
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Key features:
- API Security Testing: Automates security policy enforcement in your CI/CD pipeline, testing APIs when new or updated APIs are pushed.
- API Runtime Threat Protection: Offers immediate zero-day API threat prevention with real-time validation and blocking of malicious requests based on the API contract.
- IDE Integration and Audit: Empowers developers to test and remove API vulnerabilities directly within their IDEs, providing instant security scoring and remediation advice.
Learn more about 42Crunch features, pricing, & alternatives →
Verdict: For DevSecOps engineers and IT security managers at scaling SaaS companies, 42Crunch stands out as one of the best API Security Testing Tools available. Its ability to automate end-to-end API security, from design to runtime protection, makes it a compelling choice for streamlining CI/CD and ensuring continuous compliance.
3. Salt Security
Is your API security a blind spot?
You need complete visibility into your API attack surface to protect sensitive data. This means Salt Security illuminates every endpoint and transaction.
It’s the only solution that protects your APIs across the entire lifecycle, helping you uncover shadow and zombie APIs you didn’t even know existed. This gives you instant clarity into your entire API fabric.
Here’s how Salt Security delivers comprehensive protection.
Salt’s Illuminate™ platform instantly maps your full API attack surface, giving you control in minutes. This is critical for DevSecOps engineers and IT security managers looking to streamline CI/CD without disruptions.
The platform is purpose-built to map, govern, and secure your entire API ecosystem, enforcing governance where traditional tools fall short. It also prevents behavioral attacks and identifies AI agent risks that other solutions might miss. Additionally, Illuminate helps you align API posture to policy, simplifying compliance with frameworks like PCI DSS, NIST, and GDPR, which is a huge relief when regulators are involved.
The result? Reduced attack surface, unified inventory, and accelerated incident response.
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Key features:
- API Discovery & Visibility: Helps you reduce your attack surface by creating a unified inventory of all your APIs, even those you weren’t aware of.
- API Posture & Compliance: Enables you to govern your API posture, extend data security to APIs, and simplify compliance with critical regulations.
- API Threat Detection & Protection: Stops behavioral attacks and identifies AI agent risks, providing proactive security across your API lifecycle.
Learn more about Salt Security features, pricing, & alternatives →
Verdict: Salt Security is among the best API security testing tools because it offers comprehensive API discovery, posture management, and threat protection, addressing critical pain points for DevSecOps engineers. Its ability to illuminate unknown APIs and simplify compliance ensures precise vulnerability detection and low-noise alerts, crucial for scaling SaaS companies.
4. Astronomer
Struggling with complex API security testing integrations?
Astronomer offers an orchestration-first DataOps platform built on Apache Airflow, designed to streamline your data pipelines. This means you can focus on building reliable data products.
Here’s how Astro eliminates operational headaches, providing a unified DataOps platform for faster Airflow value. You can build, run, and observe data pipelines that simply work, all from one place.
Simplify your CI/CD pipeline integration.
Astro helps your team innovate faster with intuitive tools. You get secure testing environments and over 1,600 pre-built integrations, accelerating your pipeline development. This allows you to deploy and scale critical data pipelines with confidence. Additionally, it offers intelligent autoscaling and 70% higher uptime than self-managed Airflow. Plus, you gain complete transparency into your data operations, moving beyond basic monitoring to automate anomaly detection and perform guided root cause analysis.
This means reliable, high-performing API security testing.
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Key features:
- Unified DataOps Platform: Empowers your team to build, run, and observe data pipelines, reducing infrastructure complexity and accelerating development.
- Secure Testing Environments: Provides dedicated environments for robust API testing with 1,600+ pre-built integrations to simplify workflows.
- Built-in Observability: Offers complete transparency into data operations, including smart alerts and automated anomaly detection for proactive issue resolution.
Learn more about Astronomer features, pricing, & alternatives →
Verdict: Astronomer, with its orchestration-first DataOps platform and Airflow capabilities, simplifies complex integrations for DevSecOps engineers. It provides secure testing environments, automated pipeline optimization, and robust observability, making it suitable as one of the best API security testing tools for scaling SaaS companies. Case studies show job runtimes reduced from 2 hours to 2 minutes, and 80% reduction in processing time.
5. Kong Inc.
Are you overwhelmed by fragmented API security tools?
Kong Konnect helps engineering teams unify API management and security, providing everything required to build, run, discover, and govern your APIs effectively. This means you can eliminate the pain of stitching together disparate API tooling.
This integrated approach addresses your need for streamlined workflows.
Kong Inc. unifies your API ecosystem.
Kong Konnect helps you build a unified API platform to manage, secure, and govern all your APIs, AI agents, event streams, and microservices. It allows you to shift API security left and right through automated API security checkpoints within your CI/CD pipeline, ensuring robust protection without disrupting developer workflows. You can also productize real-time data and strengthen your streaming security posture. This comprehensive platform fosters consistent, secure communication across complex deployments, accelerating your API delivery and maintaining compliance with evolving security standards.
The result is increased developer productivity.
Key features:
- Unified API Platform: Offers a single, self-service platform for API producers and consumers to build, run, discover, and govern APIs across AI, event streaming, and microservices.
- Automated API Security Checkpoints: Provides automated security checkpoints within your CI/CD pipeline, enabling effective left and right shifting of API security for continuous monitoring and vulnerability detection.
- APIOps Automation: Supports robust APIOps with imperative and declarative config, automating security, reliability, and developer experience best practices across your entire API estate.
Learn more about Kong Inc. features, pricing, & alternatives →
Verdict: Kong Inc. stands out as one of the best API Security Testing Tools, offering a unified platform that directly addresses evaluation paralysis and integration challenges. Its ability to automate security checkpoints within your CI/CD pipeline, as demonstrated by customers achieving 10x faster deployments, ensures precise vulnerability detection and seamless integration for DevSecOps engineers.
6. Semgrep
Struggling with security findings overwhelming your developers?
Semgrep helps you find and fix critical issues across your code (SAST), supply chain (SCA), and hardcoded secrets. This means you can increase security while accelerating development.
Semgrep addresses pain points like false positives and developer friction by providing contextual, AI-powered noise filtering. Your team will reduce false positives in high-critical dependency vulnerabilities by up to 98% with dataflow reachability analysis.
Here’s how you can achieve cleaner code.
Semgrep eliminates developer friction by automatically hiding likely false positives with AI-powered noise filtering. You also get tailored remediation guidance and code fixes at scale using Semgrep Assistant.
This capability helps you present findings and fixes to developers in their native workflows, like PR comments, Jira, or IDEs. Semgrep also helps programmatically eliminate OWASP Top Ten issues with policies, guardrails, and AI-powered fixes. Additionally, you can automate routine triage and remediation with Assistant, allowing your AppSec program to scale efficiently.
The result: actionable security feedback for your entire team.
Key features:
- AI-powered Noise Filtering: Reduces false positives across SAST, SCA, and secrets scanning, giving your developers findings they can trust for efficient remediation.
- Developer Workflow Integration: Delivers tailored remediation guidance and code fixes directly within PRs, Jira, and IDEs, minimizing disruption and accelerating fixes.
- Automated Guardrails and Policies: Helps you programmatically eliminate OWASP Top Ten issues and automate triage, enabling a scalable and secure AppSec program.
Learn more about Semgrep features, pricing, & alternatives →
Verdict: If you’re seeking the best API Security Testing Tools to cut detection time and streamline CI/CD, Semgrep stands out. Its median CI scan time is 10 seconds, helping you avoid developer productivity taxes while achieving highly accurate vulnerability detection. It’s also easily operationalized, adaptable, and extensible.
7. Checkmarx
Tired of security slowing your pipeline?
Checkmarx offers a unified platform that integrates AppSec tools into developer workflows, streamlining security tasks. This means you can spot more critical vulnerabilities and know which ones to fix first.
This helps eliminate evaluation paralysis, providing precise vulnerability detection.
So, how does it accomplish this?
Checkmarx focuses on developer needs, integrating into every pipeline and IDE, making security tasks easier to complete within existing tools. Its unified platform and dashboard consolidate all your [security tools and data], offering a complete view of application risk. This correlation of findings across tools reduces noise by up to 90%, prioritizing exploitable or business-critical vulnerabilities. Additionally, Checkmarx provides best-fix location, guided and auto-remediation right in the IDE, making it easy and fast to fix code security issues. Plus, it supports over 75 programming languages and frameworks. The result is increased velocity and a seamless developer experience.
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Key features:
- Unified AppSec Platform: Consolidates multiple application security capabilities like SAST, DAST, SCA, and API security into a single platform for simplified management and reduced total cost of ownership.
- Developer Experience Focus: Integrates directly into developer workflows and IDEs, offering features like auto-remediation, guided remediation, and real-time scanning to reduce friction and increase productivity.
- AI-Powered Insights & Automation: Leverages AI across the platform to increase accuracy, reduce noise by up to 90%, and prioritize vulnerabilities, making security more accessible for developers.
Learn more about Checkmarx features, pricing, & alternatives →
Verdict: Checkmarx provides a comprehensive, AI-powered platform for DevSecOps engineers seeking the best API Security Testing Tools, simplifying vulnerability management and empowering developers. Its ability to unify AppSec tools, reduce noise by 90%, and support 75+ languages makes it ideal for scaling SaaS companies aiming for continuous monitoring without disrupting CI/CD pipelines.
8. Spectral
Struggling with API security and CI/CD slowdowns?
You need solutions that fit seamlessly into your existing workflows, providing clear insights without disrupting developers. This means less friction for your team.
Spectral, as part of Check Point CloudGuard, offers the context needed to prioritize risks and drive actionable remediation, preventing critical attacks from the source. It helps you shift security left.
Here’s how Spectral helps.
Spectral provides comprehensive code security, giving your team the insights to tackle vulnerabilities efficiently. This ensures you can act decisively on identified risks.
For instance, it helps prevent secrets sprawl, a common issue where sensitive data is exposed in repositories, giving you better control. You gain developer-first code security for robust protection.
Additionally, Spectral’s capabilities extend to software composition analysis, helping you understand and manage risks associated with open-source components. This comprehensive approach means your security posture is continuously strengthened, from development through deployment.
The result is streamlined, secure development.
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Key features:
- Contextual Risk Prioritization: Gives your team the necessary context to prioritize critical risks, enabling faster and more effective remediation actions.
- Actionable Remediation Guidance: Helps your developers understand and fix vulnerabilities quickly, integrating security into their existing workflows without disruption.
- Continuous Leak Prevention: Stops leaks at the source by detecting and preventing the exposure of secrets and sensitive data within your code and repositories.
Learn more about Spectral features, pricing, & alternatives →
Verdict: Spectral provides robust developer-first code security capabilities, making it one of the best API security testing tools for DevSecOps engineers and IT security managers. Its focus on contextual risk prioritization and actionable remediation helps prevent critical attacks and ensures compliance without slowing down CI/CD pipelines.
9. PortSwigger
Struggling to cut API security detection time?
PortSwigger’s Burp Suite Professional, enhanced with Burp AI, streamlines your workflow, automating tedious tasks. This means you can focus your expertise where it truly counts.
Burp AI is designed to enhance your testing workflow, cutting detection time. Here’s how it ensures you stay ahead.
Solutions that truly empower your team.
PortSwigger offers an all-in-one platform for web application security testing, trusted by professionals globally. It combines best-in-class software with learning resources, helping you hack smarter.
You can leverage Burp AI’s “Shadow Repeater” for AI-enhanced manual testing, making sure no vulnerability goes undetected. Plus, the Web Security Academy provides free online training, boosting your team’s cybersecurity skills. Additionally, PortSwigger Research offers insights into the latest security exploits, keeping you informed about emerging threats. The result is comprehensive security testing without slowing down your release cycles.
This comprehensive approach helps you achieve precise vulnerability detection and developer-friendly remediation guidance.
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Key features:
- AI-powered assistance: Burp AI streamlines your testing workflow, cutting down on tedious tasks and letting your team focus on critical security challenges.
- Comprehensive web security training: The Web Security Academy offers free, online web security training to boost your team’s cybersecurity skills and knowledge.
- Advanced vulnerability detection: Leverage the widely used Burp Suite Professional, recognized as a Gartner® Peer Insights™ Customers’ Choice, for thorough web vulnerability scanning.
Learn more about PortSwigger features, pricing, & alternatives →
Verdict: PortSwigger’s Burp Suite Professional, with its Burp AI integration and extensive training resources, makes it one of the best API security testing tools. Its ability to simplify workflows and provide continuous insights ensures your team can efficiently detect and remediate vulnerabilities, keeping pace with CI/CD pipelines without compromise.
10. Postman
Are your API security efforts slowing you down?
Postman provides a unified platform to design, test, and manage your APIs, helping you streamline the entire API lifecycle. This means you can identify and address security concerns earlier.
You can prototype, document, and test all your APIs in one place, getting early feedback and having conversations in context without jumping between tools. This fosters speedy development and high-quality APIs.
Move fast to that 200 OK.
Here’s how Postman helps your team transform API development into a collaborative effort. It expedites self-serve API consumption across your organization, allowing developers to start testing APIs and building workflows in seconds.
You can organize API collections into workspaces, where real-time API changes are visible to everyone, reducing duplication of work. Additionally, Postman’s AI-powered Postbot can write test scripts from scratch, generate tests for entire collections, and even visualize API responses for better understanding. The result is fewer errors and higher-quality APIs for your projects.
This helps you continuously deliver secure APIs.
Key features:
- Team Collaboration: Facilitates building, testing, and managing APIs together within shared workspaces to reduce redundant effort and improve visibility.
- AI-Powered Testing: Leverages Postbot to automate test script generation, create collection-wide tests, and visualize API outputs for faster debugging.
- Seamless Integration: Connects with popular CI/CD tools like CircleCI and Jenkins, and platforms like GitHub and GitLab, enabling smooth API testing within existing pipelines.
Learn more about Postman features, pricing, & alternatives →
Verdict: Postman is ideal for DevSecOps engineers and IT security managers seeking the best API security testing tools. It enables precise vulnerability detection and developer-friendly remediation by centralizing API workflows and leveraging AI for efficient testing, ensuring your team ships high-quality APIs without breaking things.
Conclusion
Struggling to secure your APIs?
Choosing the right tool is overwhelming. With so many options claiming seamless integration, finding one that actually works without creating workflow friction is tough.
Thales reports that enterprises are now prioritizing securing critical APIs with discovery and automation. This shift highlights the urgency to find solutions that deliver real-world value without the guesswork.
So what’s the best choice?
From everything I’ve reviewed, Jit is the standout solution for automating security and cutting through the noise without disrupting your developer workflows.
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What I love is how its AI Agents automate tedious AppSec tasks, providing full scanning coverage in minutes. Using the best API security testing tools like Jit ensures your team stays proactive, not reactive.
I recommend you book a free demo of Jit to see how its AI-driven platform can transform your security posture.
You’ll ship secure code faster.
