We present the results of the characterization of silicon pixel modules employing n-in-pplanar sensors with an active thickness of 150 μm, produced at MPP/HLL, and 100–200 μm thin active edge sensor devices, produced at VTT in Finland.These thin sensors are designed as candidates for the ATLAS pixel detector upgrade to be operated at the HL-LHC, as they ensure radiation hardness at high fluences. They are interconnected to theATLAS FE-I3 and FE-I4 read-out chips.Moreover, the n-in-p technology only requires a single side processing and thereby it is a cost-effectivealternative to the n-in-n pixel technology presently employed in the LHC experiments.High precision beam test measurements of the hit efficiency have been performed on thesedevices both at the CERN SpS and at DESY, Hamburg. We studied the behavior of thesesensors at different bias voltages and different beam incident angles up to the maximum oneexpected for the new Insertable B-Layer of ATLAS and for HL-LHC detectors.Results obtained with 150 μm thin sensors, assembled with the new ATLAS FE-I4 chip andirradiated up to a fluence of 4 × 1015 neq/cm2, show that they are excellent candidates for largerradii of the silicon pixel tracker in the upgrade of the ATLAS detector at HL-LHC. In addition, the active edge technologyof the VTT devices maximizes the active area of the sensorand reduces the material budget to suit the requirements for the innermost layers.The edge pixel performance of VTT modules has been investigated at beam test experiments andthe analysis after irradiation up to a fluence of 5 × 1015 neq/cm2 has been performed using radioactive sources in the laboratory.