Wapiti vs Skipfish: Which Debates tool is Best in 2025?

Wapiti, pre-installed in Kali Linux, is an open-source web application vulnerability scanner designed for black-box security testing of web applications. Written in Python, it crawls websites to identify scripts and forms, injecting payloads to detect vulnerabilities such as SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), file disclosure, command execution, XML external entity (XXE) injection, CRLF injection, and server-side request forgery (SSRF). Wapiti leverages a Nikto database to search for dangerous files and supports authentication, proxies, Tor, and customizable scan scopes (e.g., page, folder, domain). Its lightweight 1.54 MB footprint and modular design make it ideal for penetration testers and security auditors.

Skipfish is an open-source web application security reconnaissance tool pre-installed in Kali Linux, designed for automated penetration testing and vulnerability scanning. Developed by Google and maintained on GitHub, it performs recursive crawls and dictionary-based probes to create an interactive sitemap of a target website, annotating it with results from non-disruptive security checks. With a lightweight 559 KB footprint, Skipfish achieves high performance (500+ requests/second on internet targets, 2000+ on LAN), detecting vulnerabilities like XSS, SQL injection, and directory traversal in CMS platforms like WordPress and Joomla. Its 15+ modules, including metagoofil and wananga, support comprehensive scans, while features like form authentication, custom headers, and heuristic wordlist generation enhance flexibility. Skipfish generates detailed HTML reports for professional security assessments, making it ideal for ethical hackers, penetration testers, and webmasters.