CodeQL vs Invicti

From $30 per committer/month (GitHub Advanced Security, indicative)

Quote on request

Free on public repos. Private repositories require GitHub Advanced Security, priced per active committer.

Enterprise licensing by number of target sites or applications.

Free for public repositories on GitHub.

Demo and trial on request.

Widely used

GitHub (Microsoft) · since 2019

Established

Invicti Security · since 2009

• Interprocedural dataflow analysis finds real vulnerabilities that regex- and pattern-based tools cannot see.
• Free on public repositories, with results in the GitHub security tab.
• Custom queries let you encode organisation-specific security rules.

• Proof-based scanning eliminates most false-positive triage, which is the main cost of DAST.
• Handles authenticated scanning of modern JavaScript applications well.
• Good asset discovery for organisations that do not know all their own sites.

• Writing custom CodeQL queries is a specialist skill with a steep learning curve.
• Analysis is slow — minutes to tens of minutes, so it fits nightly better than per-commit.
• Private-repo licensing through Advanced Security is expensive at scale.

• Expensive relative to free DAST alternatives.
• Scans take time and are not suited to per-commit feedback.
• Dynamic testing alone cannot find everything a code review would.

GitHub-hosted projects wanting deep static security analysis, free if the repo is public.

Organisations with many web applications and no capacity to triage scanner noise.