Synack’s PTaaS platform is positioned as a Leader and a Fast Mover in the 2025 GigaOm Radar for Penetration Testing as a Service (PTaaS) Report emphasizing depth of testing, operational scalability, and hybrid human-AI execution.
The GigaOm Report evaluates 16 of the most innovative PTaaS providers, giving CISOs and security teams a data-driven view of where the market is headed and which approaches deliver the most business value. Read on to better understand how Synack stacks up to the competition.
Key Features: How Synack Leads With Its AI-First PTaaS Platform
A central theme in this year’s GigaOm report is the importance of balancing automation with human expertise. Fully automated scanning lacks context, while purely manual testing struggles to scale. Synack stands out as the only AI-first company in the PTaaS space to offer both a community of researchers and an AI agent to conduct pentesting.
Synack’s model aligns with this hybrid approach by combining:
- GigaOm highlighted Synack’s “Exceptional” performance in building a community of security researchers to perform testing. Synack received 5 stars for its crowdsourcing efforts. Synack boasts 1,500+ vetted security researchers for on-demand pentesting. Each researcher must go through a rigorous five-stage vetting process to be on the Synack Red Team (SRT) ensuring you have the most skilled pentesters for assets like web applications, host systems, cloud environments, mobile applications, and AI and LLM systems. Synack accepts under 10% of applicants.
- Customizable testing methodologies allow you to select human-led pentesting, or utilize Sara, our agentic AI pentesting solution, and even run both simultaneously to allow for more comprehensive coverage. Synack also provides custom testing methodologies for compliance frameworks (e.g. FISMA, PCI-DSS), specific asset types (e.g. OWASP Top 10 for LLM Applications), or complex business objectives. Synack received 5 stars for its level of customization.
- Comprehensive API that enables customers to integrate with their existing technology stack to facilitate automation and data exchange with platforms such as ServiceNow, Jira, Splunk and Palo Alto for seamless integration. From 2024-2025, Synack customers reduced MTTR metrics by an average of 47%, showcasing the impact of Synack’s developer-focused integrations like Jira that improve coordination between security and development teams. Synack’s API received full marks.
From an analyst perspective, this hybrid design supports repeatable, scalable testing without sacrificing depth, particularly for complex environments where business logic and chained vulnerabilities matter.
Business Criteria: How Synack Reduces Risk and Lowers Total Cost of Ownership
Synack received the second highest score of 16 vendors, underpinning a serious commitment to helping our customers meet their business goals. In GigaOm reports, Business Criteria refer to the non-functional requirements and operational requirements that guide the long term value of the solution.
In the following categories, Synack received five stars: Scalability, Flexibility, Risk Reduction, and Cost:
- Scalability refers to how well a service can grow in the organization. For example, if a large enterprise has a sudden increase of assets (i.e. large acquisition) can the vendor handle the expansion? Because Synack has a hybrid testing model that leverages a community and AI, Synack can spin up hundreds of researchers or Sara, our agent, at a moment’s notice to test a massive attack surface that would overwhelm smaller vendors.
- Flexibility is important since some businesses want a combination of “point-in-time” and “continuous” testing. They may not want continuous pentesting across their whole attack surface. Synack offers “point in time” tests for compliance and continuous testing for agile development teams.
- In the Risk Reduction category, Synack is praised for its quality over quantity approach. Instead of just listing vulnerabilities, the platform provides the human validation, context and evidence (logs, screenshots) needed for teams to prioritize the most dangerous risks first. Real-time reporting of vulnerabilities and the ability to immediately request a retest through the platform reduces the window of exposure for vulnerabilities. Security teams can also see improvements over time with strategic insights and benchmarking through the platform.
- Synack is a premium PTaaS vendor, but the five star ranking in the Cost category really demonstrates that the cost of ownership for Synack is demonstratively lower than competitors. Synack’s flexible Credit model allows customers to spend as needed across different asset and test types and shift spend at any time if there’s a change in priority. GigaOm also highlights the hidden cost of triage labor. Synack handles 100% of the human triage across all products, saving organizations thousands of hours of expensive security engineer time (and sanity). There are no “hidden fees” for retesting, which is included in the Synack Platform. Synack’s faster time to value in as little as 24 hours also provides high value for organizations.
A Look into the Future: Strategic Opportunities for 2026
As regulatory compliance expectations and customer environments continue to evolve, we see meaningful opportunities to further enhance our platform capabilities to align with the market and its diverse needs. Looking ahead to 2026 we are excited to build on this momentum and continue to advance Synack’s products and solutions to meet our customers and partners security testing needs.
Final Thoughts
The 2025 GigaOm Radar for PTaaS confirms what many security leaders already know: The future of penetration testing is continuous, integrated, and intelligence-driven. Whether you’re managing fast-changing cloud environments or preparing for AI-enhanced threats, Synack’s PTaaS platform gives you the visibility, expertise, and automation you need to adapt with confidence.
At a time when attackers are innovating relentlessly, your defensive strategies must evolve too. Synack’s combined human + AI approach offers that next level of assurance, not just testing for vulnerabilities, but continuously validating your security posture in the face of real-world threats.
Please download the report here: Report Link
