HONEST COMPARISON
The manual security check alternative for people who build with AI
Checking your site by hand genuinely works: inspect the SSL config, probe for exposed .env files, read the response headers, verify your DNS records, test your cookie flags. The honest difference is not capability, it is consistency. A manual check is a skill plus a time budget. A scanner is a habit that runs the same full checklist after every deploy, whether or not you remember to.
Who checking by hand is genuinely for
Security professionals doing a targeted assessment, developers who want to learn security by doing it, and anyone testing business logic or authorization design. A skilled human with a proxy tool will always beat an automated scanner on depth against a single target, and no scanner can reason about whether your app logic lets user A read user B's invoices. If that is your situation, do the manual work, or hire a penetration tester.
Side by side
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What you get
Coverage
Setup
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Last reviewed July 2026. Send corrections to [email protected].
What UNPWNED does and does not do
UNPWNED runs external, unauthenticated scans of your deployed site: TLS configuration, security headers, DNS and email authentication, exposed files and secrets, Supabase and Firebase access rules, known CVEs matched to your detected stack, and more - 700+ checks in total. Every check is documented on our methodology page.
It does not read your source code line by line, does not test business logic or authorization flows the way a human does, and does not replace a professional penetration test where a customer or auditor requires one. Honestly: given enough time and expertise, you could run most of our checks yourself - they are built on public standards. What you are buying is the complete list, the consistency, the prioritization, and the fix prompt at the end.
Common questions
How do I check my website security manually?
The short version: test your SSL setup, read your response headers for CSP, HSTS and frame protections, probe your own site for exposed files like .env or .git, verify SPF, DKIM and DMARC on your DNS, check that your database access rules actually deny anonymous reads, and review what API keys ship in your client-side JavaScript bundle. Each step is learnable. The catch is that the full list is long, it changes as the ecosystem changes, and it has to be repeated after every deploy. UNPWNED exists to run that whole list for you in under 2 minutes.
Is a manual security check enough for an AI-built app?
The most common failure modes in AI-generated code are repetitive and boringly predictable: API keys pasted into client code, database tables without row-level security, permissive CORS, missing security headers. That exact profile is what automated scanning is best at, because the checks are mechanical and the list is known. Manual review earns its keep at the opposite end: business logic, authorization design, and anything unique to your app. Most builders are best served by automating the mechanical layer and saving human attention for the logic layer.
Could I do everything UNPWNED does by hand?
Most of it, yes - the checks are based on public standards and known vulnerability patterns, not secret techniques. What is hard to replicate by hand is doing all of it, in the same order, after every single deploy, plus keeping the CVE list current for your stack. As of July 2026, UNPWNED also cross-references your detected technologies against known CVEs enriched with CISA KEV and EPSS data on every scan, which is not practical to maintain manually.
See it on your own site
The fastest way to settle the question is to look at your actual deployment. Free scan, findings included, upgrade only if you want the fixes.
700+ checks · under 2 minutes · no signup