DefectDojo — Open Source Vulnerability Management Platform

Introduction

DefectDojo is an open-source vulnerability management and security orchestration platform. It imports scan results from over 180 security tools, deduplicates and correlates findings, and provides dashboards for tracking remediation progress. DevSecOps teams use it as a central hub to manage vulnerabilities across applications.

What DefectDojo Does

• Imports results from 180+ security scanners including SAST, DAST, SCA, and container tools
• Deduplicates findings automatically using configurable matching algorithms
• Tracks vulnerabilities through their lifecycle from discovery to remediation
• Provides risk-based dashboards and metrics per product, engagement, or team
• Integrates with Jira, Slack, and CI/CD pipelines for automated workflows

Architecture Overview

DefectDojo is a Django web application backed by PostgreSQL (or MySQL) and Celery for async task processing. The web frontend serves dashboards and management views, while a REST API enables programmatic access. An importer framework parses output from each supported scanner into a normalized finding model. Redis provides the message broker for Celery workers.

Self-Hosting & Configuration

• Deploy via Docker Compose using the provided dc-build.sh and dc-up.sh scripts
• Install on Kubernetes using the official Helm chart from the DefectDojo repository
• Configure database, Celery broker, and external integrations in local_settings.py
• Set up LDAP or SAML authentication for enterprise single sign-on
• Schedule periodic imports via the API to pull scan results from CI pipelines automatically

Key Features

• Support for 180+ scanner parsers covering SAST, DAST, SCA, IaC, and container scanning
• Intelligent deduplication that reduces noise and groups related findings
• Product and engagement hierarchy for organizing vulnerabilities by team or application
• Full REST API for CI/CD integration and programmatic vulnerability management
• Role-based access control with product-level permissions

Comparison with Similar Tools

• Dependency-Track — focused on SCA and SBOM analysis; DefectDojo aggregates findings from all scanner types
• Faraday — vulnerability management with a collaborative UI; DefectDojo has broader scanner import support
• Archery — lightweight vulnerability assessment tool; DefectDojo offers deeper deduplication and workflow features
• OWASP ZAP — a DAST scanner that produces findings; DefectDojo imports and manages ZAP results alongside other tools
• Snyk — commercial SCA and SAST platform; DefectDojo is self-hosted, open source, and scanner-agnostic

FAQ

Q: How many security scanners does DefectDojo support? A: Over 180 parsers are included, covering tools like Trivy, Semgrep, Bandit, OWASP ZAP, Nessus, Burp Suite, and many more.

Q: Can DefectDojo integrate with Jira? A: Yes. DefectDojo can push findings to Jira as issues and sync status updates bidirectionally.

Q: Is DefectDojo suitable for large organizations? A: Yes. It supports multi-product hierarchies, role-based access, and scales horizontally with Celery workers and database replicas.

Q: Does DefectDojo replace security scanners? A: No. DefectDojo is a management layer that aggregates and correlates results from your existing scanners.

Sources

• https://github.com/DefectDojo/django-DefectDojo
• https://documentation.defectdojo.com/