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Acunetix vs Fortify on Demand comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 8, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Acunetix
Ranking in Application Security Tools
16th
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
13th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (22nd), DevSecOps (6th)
Fortify on Demand
Ranking in Application Security Tools
10th
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
9th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
60
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Application Security Tools category, the mindshare of Acunetix is 2.6%, up from 2.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortify on Demand is 4.7%, down from 4.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Security Tools
 

Featured Reviews

AnubhavGoswami - PeerSpot reviewer
Attractive automated reports with boost user productivity and an easy setup
The primary use is mainly related to vulnerability assessment, including both public and internal IP addresses By using this tool, we have reduced the workload and increased the productivity of users. It generates automated reports. This feature is beneficial when sharing reports with clients as…
Jonathan Steyn - PeerSpot reviewer
Source code analyzer, FPR file generation, reduction of false positives and generates compliance reports, for in-depth analysis
Not challenges with the product itself. The product is very reliable. It does have a steep learning curve. But, again, one thing that Fortify or OpenText does very well is training. There are a lot of free resources and training in the community forums, free training as well as commercial training where users can train on how to use the back-end systems and the scanning engines and how to use command-line arguments because some of the procedures or some of the tools do require a bit of a learning curve. That's the only challenge I've really seen for customers because you have to learn how to use the tool effectively. But Fortify has, in fact, improved its user interface and the way users engage the dashboards and the interfaces. It is intuitive. It's easy to understand. But in some regards, the cybersecurity specialist or AppSec would need a bit of training to engage the user interface and to understand how it functions. But from the point of the reliability index and how powerful the tool is, there's no challenge there. But it's just from a learning perspective; users might need a bit more skill to use the tool. The user interface isn't that tedious. It's not that difficult to understand. When I initially learned how to use the interfaces, I was able to master it within a week and was able to use it quite effectively. So training is required. All skills are needed to learn how to use the tool. I would like to see more enhancements in the dashboards. Dashboards are available. They do need some configuration and settings. But I would like to see more business intelligence capabilities within the tool. It's not particularly a cybersecurity function, but, for instance, business impact analysis or other features where you can actually use business intelligence capabilities within your security tool. That would be remarkable because not only do you have a cybersecurity tool, but you also have a tool that can give you business impact analysis and some other measurements. A bit more intelligence in terms of that from a cybersecurity perspective would be remarkable.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"It generates automated reports."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the speed at which it can scan multiple domains in just a few hours."
"I find it to be one of the most comprehensive tools, with support for manual intervention."
"Acunetix is the best service in the world. It is easy to manage. It gives a lot of information to the users to see and identify problems in their site or applications. It works very well."
"The product is really easy to use."
"It's very user-friendly for the testing teams. It's very easy for them to understand things and to fix vulnerabilities."
"Their technical support has been very active. If I have an issue, I can reach out to them and get an answer pretty quick."
"Acunetix has an awesome crawler. It gives a referral site map of near targets and also goes really deep to find all the inputs without issues. This was valuable because it helped me find some files or directories, like web admin panels without authentication, which were hidden."
"The UL is easy to use compared to that of other tools, and it is highly reliable. The findings provide a lower number of false positives."
"What stands out to me is the user-friendliness of each feature."
"We identified a lot of security vulnerability much earlier in the development and could fix this well before the product was rolled out to a huge number of clients."
"While using Micro Focus Fortify on Demand we have been very happy with the results and findings."
"Audit workbench: for on-the-fly defect auditing."
"Fortify on Demand's best feature is that there's no need to install and configure it locally since it's on the cloud."
"Once we have our project created with our application pipeline connected to the test scanning, it only takes two minutes. The report explaining what needs to be modified related to security and vulnerabilities in our code is very helpful. We are able to do static and dynamic code scanning."
"Fortify on Demand can be scaled very easily."
 

Cons

"Acunetix needs to improve its cost."
"Tools that would allow us to work more efficiently with the mobile environment, with Android and iOS."
"While we do have it integrated with other solutions, it could still offer more integrations."
"There's a clear need for a reduction in pricing to make the service more accessible."
"When monitoring the traffic we always have issues with the bandwidth consumption and the throttling of traffic."
"Currently only supports web scanning."
"I had some issues with the JSON parameters where it found some strange vulnerabilities, but it didn't alert the person using it or me about these vulnerabilities, e.g., an error for SQL injection."
"Acunetix needs to be dynamic with JavaScript code, unlike Netsparker which can scan complex agents."
"The reporting capabilities need improvement, as there are some features that we would like to have but are not available at the moment."
"They have very good support, but there is always room for improvement."
"Sometimes when we run a full scan, we have a bunch of issues in the code. We should not have any issues."
"It could have a little bit more streamlined installation procedure. Based on the things that I've done, it could also be a bit more automated. It is kind of taking a bunch of different scanners, and SSC is just kind of managing the results. The scanning doesn't really seem to be fully integrated into the SSC platform. More automation and any kind of integration in the SSC platform would definitely be good. There could be a way to initiate scans from SSC and more functionality on the server-side to initiate desk scans if it is not already available."
"The technical support is actually a problem that needs to be addressed. Since the acquisition and merger with Hewlett Packard, it has been really hard to know who the technical or salesperson to talk to."
"In terms of communication, they can integrate a few more third-party tools. It would be great if we can have more options for microservice communication. They can also improve the securability a bit more because security is one of the biggest aspects these days when you are using the cloud. Some more security features would be really helpful."
"Micro Focus Fortify on Demand can improve by having more graphs. For example, to show the improvement of the level of security."
"The Visual Studio plugin seems to hang when a scan is run on big projects. I would expect some improvements there."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Implementing Acunetix needs a medium or larger business agency, because you need some money to get Acunetix. It is costly, but if you care about your agency's security, then maybe it's a cost that might help you in the future."
"I would say that Acunetix is expensive because there are products on the market with similar features that are equally or better-priced."
"The costs aren't very expensive. It costs around $3000 or $4000."
"The solution is expensive."
"The pricing is a little high, and moreover, it's kind of domain-based."
"It is a bit expensive. If you need to check five applications, you have to pay almost 14,000. It is an agreement for two years at 7,000 per year for only five applications. You cannot change the applications in the license. So, you are stuck with the same license for the five applications for one full year."
"Acunetix was around the same price as all the other vendors we looked at, nothing special."
"The price is exceptionally high."
"The subscription model, on a per-scan basis, is a bit expensive. That's another reason we are not using it for all the apps."
"It is not more expensive than other solutions, but the pricing is competitive."
"We are still using the trial version at this point but I can already see from the trial version alone that it is a good product. For others, I would say that Fortify on Demand might look expensive at the beginning, but it is very powerful and so you shouldn't be put off by the price."
"There are different costs for Micro Focus Fortify on Demand depending on the assessments you want to use. There is only a standard license needed to use the solution."
"We used the one-time application, Security Scan Dynamic. I believe the original fee was $8,000."
"The licensing was good because the licenses have the heavy centralized server."
"The pricing can be improved because it is complex when compared to the competition."
"The solution is a little expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Manufacturing Company
15%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Acunetix Vulnerability Scanner?
The tool's most valuable feature is scan configurations. We use it for external physical applications. The scanning time depends on the application's code.
What is your primary use case for Acunetix Vulnerability Scanner?
I use Acunetix for penetration testing purposes. This is the primary use case.
What advice do you have for others considering Acunetix Vulnerability Scanner?
I rate the overall solution nine out of ten. I prefer Acunetix for its more precise and accurate results.
What do you like most about Micro Focus Fortify on Demand?
It helps deploy and track changes easily as per time-to-time market upgrades.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Micro Focus Fortify on Demand?
In comparison with other tools, they're competitive. It is not more expensive than other solutions, but their pricing is competitive. The licenses for Fortify On Demand are generally bought in unit...
What needs improvement with Micro Focus Fortify on Demand?
There are frequent complaints about false positives from Fortify. One day it may pass a scan with no issues, and the next day, without any code changes, it will report vulnerabilities such as passw...
 

Also Known As

AcuSensor
Micro Focus Fortify on Demand
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Joomla!, Digicure, Team Random, Credit Suisse, Samsung, Air New Zealand
SAP, Aaron's, British Gas, FICO, Cox Automative, Callcredit Information Group, Vital and more.
Find out what your peers are saying about Acunetix vs. Fortify on Demand and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
838,713 professionals have used our research since 2012.