CodeSonar vs Contrast Security Assess comparison

CodeSecure and Contrast Security are both solutions in the Application Security Tools category. CodeSecure is ranked #32 with an average rating of 7.0, while Contrast Security is ranked #28 with an average rating of 8.7. CodeSecure holds a 1.3% mindshare in AS, compared to Contrast Security’s 0.5% mindshare. Additionally, 87% of CodeSecure users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Contrast Security users who would recommend it.

CodeSonar

Read 7 CodeSonar reviews

1,958 Views
1,256 Comparison Views

87% willing to recommend

Contrast Security Assess

Read 11 Contrast Security Assess reviews

906 Views
587 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

CodeSonar

Contrast Security Assess

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 8, 2024

Contrast Security Assess and CodeSonar compete in the security scanning software category. CodeSonar has an advantage due to comprehensive security scanning and extensive code coverage, while Contrast Security Assess is noted for user-friendliness and integration capabilities.

Features: Contrast Security Assess is recognized for seamless application protection, real-time vulnerability detection, and direct integration with development tools. CodeSonar provides robust static analysis, concurrent flaw detection, and extensive code coverage with built-in checks.

Room for Improvement: Contrast Security Assess could benefit from enhanced reporting features, broader language compatibility, and improved scalability options. CodeSonar needs better integration support, enhancements in scalability, and increased speed in static analysis processing.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Both offer straightforward deployment. Contrast Security Assess is praised for efficient onboarding, while CodeSonar is highlighted for comprehensive support and responsive customer service. Contrast Security Assess, though easy to start with, may lack the depth of support that CodeSonar users value.

Pricing and ROI: Contrast Security Assess is seen as an economical option with lower setup costs and faster ROI, attracting smaller teams. CodeSonar, despite higher initial costs, justifies its price with superior capabilities and long-term gains, making it a preferred choice for those seeking advanced security measures.

To learn more, read our detailed CodeSonar vs. Contrast Security Assess Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

CodeSonar vs. Contrast Security Assess

January 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 831,158 peers since 2012

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

CodeSonar

Ranking in Application Security Tools

32nd

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Static Code Analysis (8th)

Contrast Security Assess

Ranking in Application Security Tools

28th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (24th)

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Application Security Tools category, the mindshare of CodeSonar is 1.3%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Contrast Security Assess is 0.5%, down from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Security Tools

Featured Reviews

Mathieu ALBRESPY

Intigration Developer at ez-Wheel

Nice interface, quick to deploy, and easy to expand

This is the first time I've used this kind of software. It was the only one we could apply to analyze with MISRA rules. At my new company, I tried to use Klocwork. I tried to use it, just once so I cannot compare it exactly with CodeSonar. I also have a plugin for my Visual Studio and I try to make it work. It's not easy, however, I don't think that we have this kind of functionality with CodeSonar. It can do some incremental analysis. However, since this feature is also available on CodeSonar, it would be a good idea to have a plugin on Visual Studio just to have a quick analysis.

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ToddMcAlister

Lead Application and Data Security Engineer at a insurance company with 5,001-10,000 employees

It has an excellent API interface to pull APIs.

Assess has brought our development time down because it helps create code the first time. Instead of going through the Jenkins process to build an application, they can see right off the bat that if there are errors in the code and fix them before it even goes to build.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It has been able to scale."

"There is nice functionality for code surfing and browsing."

"What I like best about CodeSonar is that it has fantastic speed, analysis and configuration times. Its detection of all runtime errors is also very good, though there were times it missed a few. The configuration of logs by CodeSonar is also very fantastic which I've not seen anywhere else. I also like the GUI interface of CodeSonar because it's very user friendly and the tool also shows very precise logs and results."

"CodeSonar’s most valuable feature is finding security threats."

"The most valuable features of CodeSonar were all the categorized classes provided, and reports of future bugs which might occur in the production code. Additionally, I found the buffer overflow and underflow useful."

"The most valuable feature of CodeSonar is the catching of dead code. It is helpful."

"The tool is very good for detecting memory leaks."

"No other tool does the runtime scanning like Contrast does. Other static analysis tools do static scanning, but Contrast is runtime analysis, when the routes are exercised. That's when the scan happens. This is a tool that has a very unique capability compared to other tools. That's what I like most about Contrast, that it's runtime."

"The most valuable feature is the continuous monitoring aspect: the fact that we don't have to wait for scans to complete for the tool to identify vulnerabilities. They're automatically identified through developers' business-as-usual processes."

"We use the Contrast OSS feature that allows us to look at third-party, open-source software libraries, because it has a cool interface where you can look at all the different libraries. It has some really cool additional features where it gives us how many instances in which something has been used... It tells us it has been used 10 times out of 20 workloads, for example. Then we know for sure that OSS is being used."

"This has changed the way that developers are looking at usage of third-party libraries, upfront. It's changing our model of development and our culture of development to ensure that there is more thought being put into the usage of third-party libraries."

"I am impressed with the product's identification of alerts and vulnerabilities."

"Assess has an excellent API interface to pull APIs."

"The accuracy of the solution in identifying vulnerabilities is better than any other product we've used, far and away. In our internal comparisons among different tools, Contrast consistently finds more impactful vulnerabilities, and also identifies vulnerabilities that are nearly guaranteed to be there, meaning that the chance of false positives is very low."

"When we access the application, it continuously monitors and detects vulnerabilities."

More Contrast Security Assess pros

Cons

"It was expensive."

"There could be a shared licensing model for the users."

"The scanning tool for core architecture could be improved."

"CodeSonar could improve by having better coding rules so we did not have to use another solution, such as MISRA C."

"It would be beneficial for the solution to include code standards and additional functionality for security."

"In a future release, the solution should upgrade itself to the current trends and differentiate between the languages. If there are any classifications that can be set for these programming languages that would be helpful rather than having everything in the generic category."

"In terms of areas for improvement, the use case for CodeSonar was good, but compared to other tools, it seems CodeSonar isn't a sound static analysis tool, and this is a major con I've seen from it. Right now, in the market, people prefer sound static analysis tools, so I would have preferred if CodeSonar was developed into a sound static analysis tool formally, in terms of its algorithms, so then you can see it extensively used in the market because at the moment, here in India, only fifty to sixty customers use CodeSonar. If the product is developed into a sound static analysis tool, it could compete with Polyspace, and from its current fifty customers, that number could go up to a hundred."

"I think there was activity underway to support the centralized configuration control. There are ways to do it, but I think they were productizing more of that."

"The solution should provide more details in the section where it shows that third-party libraries have CVEs or some vulnerabilities."

"To instrument an agent, it has to be running on a type of application technology that the agent recognizes and understands. It's excellent when it works. If we're using an application that is using an unsupported technology, then we can't instrument it at all. We do use PHP and Contrast presently doesn't support that, although it's on their roadmap. My primary hurdle is that it doesn't support all of the technologies that we use."

"Personalization of the board and how to make it appealing to an organization is something that could be done on their end. The reports could be adaptable to the customer's preferences."

"Contrast's ability to support upgrades on the actual agents that get deployed is limited. Our environment is pretty much entirely Java. There are no updates associated with that. You have to actually download a new version of the .jar file and push that out to your servers where your app is hosted. That can be quite cumbersome from a change-management perspective."

"The out-of-the-box reporting could be improved. We need to write our own APIs to make the reporting more robust."

"Regarding the solution's OSS feature, the one drawback that we do have is that it does not have client-side support. We'll be missing identification of libraries like jQuery or JavaScript, and such, that are client-side."

"I would like to see them come up with more scanning rules."

More Contrast Security Assess cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Our organization purchased a license to use the solution."

"The solution's price depends on the number of licenses needed and the source code for the project."

"The application’s pricing is high compared to other tools."

"Pricing is a bit costly."

"You only get one license for an application. Ours are very big, monolithic applications with millions of lines of code. We were able to apply one license to one monolithic application, which is great. We are happy with the licensing. Pricing-wise, they are industry-standard, which is fine."

"The good news is that the agent itself comes in two different forms: the unlicensed form and the licensed form. Unlicensed gives use of that software composition analysis for free. Thereafter, if you apply a license to that same agent, that's when the instrumentation takes hold. So one of my suggestions is to do what we're doing: Deploy the agent to as many applications as possible, with just the SCA feature turned on with no license applied, and then you can be more choosy and pick which teams will get the license applied."

"The solution is expensive."

"I like the per-application licensing model... We just license the app and we look at different vulnerabilities on that app and we remediate within the app. It's simpler."

"For what it offers, it's a very reasonable cost. The way that it is priced is extremely straightforward. It works on the number of applications that you use, and you license a server. It is something that is extremely fair, because it doesn't take into consideration the number of requests, etc. It is only priced based on the number of onboarded applications. It suits our model as well, because we have huge traffic. Our number of applications is not that large, so the pricing works great for us."

"It's a tiered licensing model. The more you buy, as you cross certain quantity thresholds, the pricing changes. If you have a smaller environment, your licensing costs are going to be different than a larger environment... The licensing is primarily per application. An application can be as many agents as you need. If you've got 10 development servers and 20 production servers and 50 QA servers, all of those agents can be reporting as a single application that utilizes one license."

"The product's pricing is low. I would rate it a two out of ten."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

26%

Computer Software Company

13%

University

Financial Services Firm

20%

Manufacturing Company

13%

Computer Software Company

11%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about CodeSonar?

CodeSonar’s most valuable feature is finding security threats.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for CodeSonar?

The application’s pricing is high compared to other tools. I rate its pricing a four out of ten.

See all answers

What needs improvement with CodeSonar?

Our license model allows one user per license. Currently, we have limitations for VPN profiles. We can’t share the key with other users. There could be a shared licensing model for the users. It wi...

See all answers

What do you like most about Contrast Security Assess?

When we access the application, it continuously monitors and detects vulnerabilities.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Contrast Security Assess?

The product's pricing is low. I would rate it a two out of ten.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Contrast Security Assess?

Technical support for the solution should be faster. We have to further analyze what kind of CVEs are in the reported libraries and what part of the code is affected. That analysis can be added to ...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 63% of the time

Coverity vs CodeSonar

Compared 19% of the time

Polyspace Code Prover vs CodeSonar

Compared 8% of the time

Klocwork vs CodeSonar

Compared 4% of the time

Fortify Static Code Analyzer vs CodeSonar

Compared 3% of the time

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Seeker vs Contrast Security Assess

Compared 19% of the time

Veracode vs Contrast Security Assess

Compared 14% of the time

SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) vs Contrast Security Assess

Compared 11% of the time

OWASP Zap vs Contrast Security Assess

Compared 9% of the time

Mend.io vs Contrast Security Assess

Compared 8% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Application Security Tools

December 2024

Download CodeSonar product report

Buyer's Guide

Contrast Security Assess

January 2025

Download Contrast Security Assess product report

Also Known As

No data available

Contrast Assess

Learn More

CodeSecure

Contrast Security

Overview

GrammaTech enables organizations to develop software applications more efficiently, on-budget, and on-schedule by helping to eliminate harmful defects that can cause system failures, enable data breaches, and ultimately increase corporate liabilities in today’s connected world. GrammaTech is the developer of CodeSonar, the most powerful source and binary code analysis solution available today. Extraordinarily precise, CodeSonar finds, on average, 2 times more serious defects in software than other static analysis solutions. Designed for organizations with zero tolerance for defects and vulnerabilities in their applications, CodeSonar provides static analysis for applications where reliability and security are paramount - widely used by software developers in avionics, medical, automotive, industrial control, and other mission-critical applications. Some of GrammaTech's customers include Toyota, GE, Hyundai, Kawasaki, LG, Lockheed Martin, NASA, Northrop Grumman, Panasonic, and Samsung.

Contrast Security is the world’s leading provider of security technology that enables software applications to protect themselves against cyberattacks, heralding the new era of self-protecting software. Contrast's patented deep security instrumentation is the breakthrough technology that enables highly accurate assessment and always-on protection of an entire application portfolio, without disruptive scanning or expensive security experts. Only Contrast has sensors that work actively inside applications to uncover vulnerabilities, prevent data breaches, and secure the entire enterprise from development, to operations, to production.

Sample Customers

Viveris, Micrel Medical Devices, Olympus, SOFTEQ, SONY

Williams-Sonoma, Autodesk, HUAWEI, Chromeriver, RingCentral, Demandware.

Buyer's Guide

CodeSonar vs. Contrast Security Assess

January 2025

Free Report: CodeSonar vs. Contrast Security Assess

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