Alternatives to Astra in SaaS

middleBrick is a self-service API security scanner focused on black-box assessment. You submit a target URL and receive a risk score from A to F along with prioritized findings. The scanner uses read-only methods (GET and HEAD) and text-only POST for LLM probes, completing most scans in under a minute. No agents, SDKs, or code access are required, and it supports any language, framework, or cloud environment.

The scanner detects issues across 12 categories aligned to the OWASP API Top 10 (2023). It also maps findings to PCI-DSS 4.0 and SOC 2 Type II, and supports audit evidence for these frameworks. Specific detections include authentication bypasses and JWT misconfigurations, broken object level authorization and IDOR, business logic flaws related to privilege escalation, over-exposed properties and mass assignment surfaces, input validation issues such as CORS misconfigurations and dangerous methods, rate limiting and resource consumption indicators, data exposure including PII patterns and API key leaks, encryption and transport misconfigurations, SSRF indicators, and inventory management problems like missing versioning. For LLM-facing APIs, it runs 18 adversarial probes across Quick, Standard, and Deep tiers, covering system prompt extraction, instruction override, jailbreak techniques, data exfiltration attempts, and token smuggling.

middleBrick parses OpenAPI 3.0, 3.1, and Swagger 2.0 definitions with recursive $ref resolution, cross-referencing the spec against runtime findings to identify undefined security schemes, sensitive fields, deprecated operations, and missing pagination. Authenticated scanning is available from the Starter tier upward, supporting Bearer tokens, API keys, Basic auth, and cookies. Domain verification is enforced through DNS TXT records or an HTTP well-known file, ensuring only domain owners can scan with credentials. A strict header allowlist permits only Authorization, X-API-Key, Cookie, and X-Custom-* headers.

The Web Dashboard provides scan management, report viewing, score trend tracking, and downloadable branded compliance PDFs. The CLI, published as an npm package, enables commands such as middlebrick scan <url> with JSON or text output. A GitHub Action is available for CI/CD gating, failing the build when the score drops below a defined threshold. The MCP Server allows scanning from AI coding assistants including Claude and Cursor.

Pro tier adds scheduled rescans at intervals of six hours, daily, weekly, or monthly, with diff detection for new findings, resolved issues, and score drift. Email alerts are rate-limited to one per hour per API, and webhooks are HMAC-SHA256 signed, auto-disabling after five consecutive failures. Scan data is deletable on demand and purged within 30 days of cancellation, and customer data is never sold or used for model training.

middleBrick does not fix, patch, block, or remediate findings; it detects and reports with remediation guidance. It does not perform active SQL injection or command injection testing, as those require intrusive payloads outside the intended scope. It does not detect business logic vulnerabilities, blind SSRF relying on out-of-band infrastructure, or replace a human pentester for high-stakes audits. The tool surfaces findings relevant to compliance and security reviews but does not certify or guarantee compliance with any regulation.

The Free tier offers three scans per month with CLI access. The Starter tier at 99 dollars per month supports 15 APIs, monthly scans, dashboard access, email alerts, and the MCP Server. The Pro tier at 499 dollars per month covers 100 APIs with additional APIs billed at 7 dollars each, adding continuous monitoring, GitHub Action gates, CI/CD integration, Slack and Teams alerts, compliance reports, and signed webhooks. The Enterprise tier at 2000 dollars per month provides unlimited APIs, custom rules, SSO, audit logs, an SLA, and dedicated support.