Collection vs Application
This document compares Collections and Applications in Invicti Platform, helping you understand their key differences, uses, and relationships.
Overview
Collection | Application | |
Purpose | Organize assets and applications for reusable, business-aligned structures and access control. | Group assets logically to represent a product, service, or environment and provide aggregated security insights. |
Primary Use Case | Organizational structure and permission management. | Vulnerability tracking, reporting, and security analysis. |
Entities Included | - Individual assets- Entire applications (and their assets) | - Individual assets (DAST targets, projects, APIs)- Can be part of collections |
Relationship Model | Many-to-many: Assets and applications can belong to multiple collections. | Many-to-many: Assets can belong to multiple applications; applications can belong to multiple collections. |
Nested Structure | Yes (collections can indirectly include assets through applications). | No (applications directly include assets). |
Dashboard | No dedicated dashboard; used for filtering, organization, and access control. | Dedicated dashboard showing aggregated vulnerability stats, top risks, and affected assets. |
Access Control | Used to restrict user/team access by assigning permissions to collections. | Not directly tied to access control but can be used in reporting and visibility. |
Best For | Business units, regions, clients, environments, or any structure requiring permission control. | Representing a website, feature, service, or system to consolidate vulnerability data. |
When to use collections
- When you need to control user access to specific assets or applications.
- For grouping assets/applications by business function, team, or location.
- To create reusable, overlapping organizational groupings.
When to use applications
- To track vulnerabilities across a specific product or service.
- When you want to aggregate reports and dashboards for a specific logical environment.
- To manage security insights for functional units (e.g., a customer portal, internal service, or API layer).
Example usage scenarios
Scenario | Recommended entity |
Segmenting assets by business region for reporting and access | Collection |
Tracking vulnerabilities for a specific internal portal | Application |
Assigning different teams access to their own environments | Collection |
Aggregating scan results across related systems for vulnerability management | Application |
Summary
- Use Collections for flexible organization and access management.
- Use Applications for focused vulnerability tracking and security analysis.
You can create both entities and use them together to support complex organizational and security structures.
For detailed steps on creating these entities, refer to: