Alternatives to Astra in Education

middleBrick is a self-service API security scanner designed for education environments that require fast, low-friction assessment. Submit a URL and receive a risk score from A to F with prioritized findings within under a minute. The scan is black-box: no agents, no code access, and no SDK integration are required, and it works with any language, framework, or cloud. Only read-only methods (GET and HEAD) plus text-only POST for LLM probes are used, and sensitive production systems remain untouched.

The scanner detects findings across 12 categories aligned to OWASP API Top 10 (2023), including Authentication, BOLA and IDOR, BFLA and Privilege Escalation, Property Authorization, Input Validation, Rate Limiting and Resource Consumption, Data Exposure, Encryption, SSRF, Inventory Management, Unsafe Consumption, and LLM / AI Security. For compliance framing, the tool maps findings to PCI-DSS 4.0, SOC 2 Type II, and OWASP API Top 10, and it helps you prepare for security controls described in HIPAA, GDPR, ISO 27001, NIST, and other regulatory frameworks through evidence-oriented reporting.

Authenticated scanning is available from the Starter tier and above, supporting Bearer, API key, Basic auth, and Cookie methods. Domain verification is enforced via DNS TXT record or an HTTP well-known file, ensuring only the domain owner can scan with credentials. The scanner maintains a strict header allowlist of Authorization, X-API-Key, Cookie, and X-Custom-* headers. Safety is inherent: only read-only methods are used, destructive payloads are never sent, private IPs and cloud metadata endpoints are blocked at multiple layers, and customer data is deletable on demand and never sold or used for model training.

The scanner parses OpenAPI 3.0, 3.1, and Swagger 2.0 definitions with recursive $ref resolution, cross-referencing spec definitions against runtime findings such as undefined security schemes, sensitive fields, deprecated operations, and missing pagination. For ongoing risk management, the Pro tier provides scheduled rescans every 6 hours, daily, weekly, or monthly, diff detection across scans to surface new findings, resolved findings, and score drift, along with email alerts rate-limited to 1 per hour per API and HMAC-SHA256 signed webhooks that auto-disable after 5 consecutive failures.

Integration options include a Web Dashboard for scan management and trend tracking with branded compliance PDFs, a CLI via the middlebrick npm package using middlebrick scan <url> with JSON or text output, a GitHub Action for CI/CD gating that fails the build when the score drops below a threshold, and an MCP Server for scanning from AI coding assistants. Programmatic access is available through an API client for custom integrations. Pricing starts with a Free tier at $0 for 3 scans per month and CLI access, a Starter tier at $99 per month for 15 APIs with monthly scans and dashboard features, a Pro tier at $499 per month for 100 APIs with continuous monitoring and CI/CD integration, and an Enterprise tier at $2,000 per month for unlimited APIs, custom rules, SSO, and dedicated support.