Product comparison: Detectify vs. Halo Security

Halo Security

Pros

• It consolidates EASM, infrastructure scanning, and manual penetration testing services into a single platform, simplifying vendor management.
• Its deep cloud-provider integrations (AWS, GCP, Azure) provide excellent, ground-truth discovery of cloud-native assets.

Cons

• The user interface is widely reported as clunky, non-intuitive, and having a steep learning curve, creating daily workflow friction.
• Deep, payload-based testing for complex apps and APIs is not a continuous, automated feature but a separate, point-in-time manual service.

Detectify

Pros

• Its 100% payload-based engine, powered by a private community of elite ethical hackers , delivers high-confidence, exploitable findings with a near-zero false positive rate, virtually eliminating triage time.
• The intuitive UI and proactive Scan Recommendations create an efficient workflow that guides engineers from discovery to remediation.

Cons

• The platform is exclusively focused on external-facing assets and provides no solution for scanning internal, non-public applications or networks.
• It does not offer a self-service feature for advanced engineers to write and run their own custom scan logic or vulnerability templates.

In-depth comparison: Visibility and Context

The core visibility problem for Application Security teams is not just finding “Shadow IT,” but quickly understanding what it is. An engineer can’t treat a forgotten developer’s test server, an exposed S3 bucket, and a new production API as equals. Without immediate context on what an asset is, what technology it’s running, and whether it’s testable, an asset inventory is just a list of liabilities. This lack of context creates a massive triage bottleneck, leaving critical applications untested while the team investigates low-risk assets.

Halo Security provides context by giving the engineer an overview of their asset inventory. It discovers assets by scanning the internet and integrating directly with cloud providers, then fingerprints the technology stack from the infrastructure up. It tells the engineer what ports are open, what server software is running, what known CVEs are present, and what HTTP headers are configured. The challenge of this comprehensive model is that it’s up to the engineer to synthesize this data. They must look at an asset and conclude, “Based on these open ports and CVEs, this looks like a web app I should test.”

Detectify solves this problem by focusing its context almost exclusively on the application layer, which is purpose-built for the AppSec engineer’s workflow. Its Surface Monitoring product discovers assets from the outside-in and classifies them by their web application technology (e.g., “this is a WordPress site,” “this is a Java web app”). The primary benefit is that it doesn’t just present a list of assets; it provides intelligent Scan Recommendations. This feature proactively guides the engineer on which newly discovered assets are high-risk web applications that should be targeted for a deeper, payload-based scan with its Application Scanning product, directly bridging the gap from discovery to testing.

The AppSec team must choose its desired workflow. If the goal is to build a complete inventory of all external assets and understand their risk in the context of the wider infrastructure, Halo Security’s multi-layered approach is superior. If the team’s goal is to bypass the noise of infrastructure management and focus exclusively on finding and testing the most critical, exploitable web applications and APIs, Detectify’s guided, application-first workflow is engineered to solve that specific problem more efficiently.

In-depth comparison: Assessment

AppSec teams face a two-part assessment challenge: getting broad, continuous coverage for all assets and deep, specialized coverage for high-risk assets like custom web applications and APIs. Traditional methods are often noisy, while manual penetration tests are expensive and infrequent. This creates a gap where a critical API or application can be exposed for months between manual tests.

Halo Security’s approach to assessment is to combine EASM with PTaaS. It provides the breadth with its automated, multi-layered EASM scans, which are heavily signature-based to identify known CVEs and misconfigurations. It then provides the depth through its integrated, human-led PTaaS (Penetration Testing as a Service). The challenge is that its automated assessment capabilities for complex applications and APIs are less advanced. This means that deep, payload-based testing for these critical assets is primarily a manual, point-in-time engagement through its PTaaS offering.

Detectify’s approach is to automate the depth. It uses its Surface Monitoring to find and classify assets, then recommends them for its Application Scanning—a deep, automated DAST engine. The benefit of this engine is that it is entirely payload-based and its tests are sourced from the Detectify Crowdsource community, meaning it is continuously updated with novel, real-world exploits. It also leverages its internal security research team and Alfred, an AI agent. This includes its dedicated API Scanning capability, which is designed to find complex, non-CVE flaws on a continuous, automated basis.

The choice here is about how an AppSec team wants to test its most critical assets. Halo Security is a good fit for a compliance-driven team that needs a “good enough” continuous scan and wants to consolidate its vendor for both EASM and traditional, human-led pentesting. Detectify is built for the practitioner-led team that wants to embed high-confidence, exploitable, and continuously updated automated API and web testing (sourced from active hacker research) directly into their workflow.

In-depth comparison: Usability

The primary usability problem for AppSec teams is not just a clunky interface, it’s a high-friction workflow. AppSec engineers are often bogged down by complex, multi-day or week setups, steep learning curves, and tools that present a wall of data rather than a clear, prioritized path to remediation. This friction acts as a direct drag on the entire security program, slowing down time it takes for teams to get value from their tool.

Halo Security approaches usability by offering several products. Its value is in having EASM, vulnerability scanning, compliance data, and manual penetration testing results all in a single dashboard, which simplifies vendor management. The primary challenge, as frequently cited in public user feedback, is the user interface itself. Users often report the UI is “not intuitive” and has a “steep learning curve,” meaning an AppSec engineer must first overcome the complexity of the tool before they can efficiently use the comprehensive data it provides.

Detectify approaches usability from the practitioner’s workflow perspective, prioritizing speed and clarity. Its onboarding is designed to be easy to set up and manage, allowing engineers to get value in minutes. The key benefit, as noted from online reviews, is its clean, intuitive interface that guides the user. This workflow is centered on Scan Recommendations, which proactively tells the engineer what to test next, removing the cognitive load and manual triage effort.

Conclusion: Which product should I choose?

Halo Security’s consolidated platform is hampered by a clunky, non-intuitive UI and a traditional, point-in-time approach to deep testing. Detectify is the purpose-built solution. It’s engineered to solve the core practitioner problems: triage time and noise. Detectify’s 100% payload-based engine and Detectify Crowdsource community deliver a high-fidelity signal of confirmed, exploitable findings. This allows AppSec teams to bypass the noise of theoretical CVEs, find novel, non-CVE flaws, and focus on remediating the vulnerabilities that actually matter.