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Contrast Security Assess vs OpenText Core Application Security comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 28, 2025

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

Contrast Security Assess
Ranking in Application Security Tools
29th
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
27th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
OpenText Core Application S...
Ranking in Application Security Tools
13th
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
12th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
62
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Application Security Tools category, the mindshare of Contrast Security Assess is 1.3%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OpenText Core Application Security is 3.2%, down from 4.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Security Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
OpenText Core Application Security3.2%
Contrast Security Assess1.3%
Other95.5%
Application Security Tools
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer1605099 - PeerSpot reviewer
Director of Threat and Vulnerability Management at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
We're gathering vulnerability data from multiple environments in real time, fundamentally changing how we identify issues in applications
The solution is very accurate in identifying vulnerabilities. In cases where we are performing application assessment using Contrast Assess, and also using legacy application security testing tools, Contrast successfully identifies the same vulnerabilities that the other tools have identified but it also identifies significantly more. In addition, it has visibility into application components that other testing methodologies are unaware of. Assess also provides the option of helping developers incorporate security elements while they're writing code. It depends on whether individual developers decide to utilize the information that's provided to them from the solution, but it definitely gives them visibility into more environments. It gives them an opportunity to remediate vulnerabilities well before production deployments.
Himanshu_Tyagi - PeerSpot reviewer
Lead Cybersecurity at TBO
Supports secure development pipelines and improves issue detection but limits internal visibility and needs broader dashboard integration
If you have an internal team and you want your internal team to validate false positives, basically to determine whether it's a valid issue or an invalid issue, then I wouldn't recommend it much. That was the only reason we migrated from Fortify on Demand to another solution. Fortify has another tool which is Fortify WebInspect. On Demand is the outsourcing solution, and WebInspect you can use with your in-house team, which is basically the product developed by the Fortify team. For automated scanning, Fortify helps a lot. Regarding the visibility for the internal team, everyone is moving toward the DevSecOps side, and Fortify team has made good progress that you can integrate into your CICD pipeline. One thing I would highlight is if Fortify can focus more on the centralized dashboard of the tools because nowadays, tools such as SentinelOne also exist for identifying security issues, but they have a centralized dashboard that merges their cloud solution and application security side solution together. If you have one tool that works for different solutions, it helps a lot. They are doing good, but they should invest more on the AI side as well because AI security is evolving these days. On the cloud side, they have already made good progress, but I believe they should explore the new area related to AI security as well.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"The solution is very accurate in identifying vulnerabilities. In cases where we are performing application assessment using Contrast Assess, and also using legacy application security testing tools, Contrast successfully identifies the same vulnerabilities that the other tools have identified but it also identifies significantly more. In addition, it has visibility into application components that other testing methodologies are unaware of."
"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."
"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."
"When we access the application, it continuously monitors and detects vulnerabilities."
"I am impressed with the product's identification of alerts and vulnerabilities."
"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."
"Assess has an excellent API interface to pull APIs."
"It has saved us a lot of time as we focus primarily on programming rather than tool operational work."
"The installation was easy."
"The most valuable features are the detailed reporting and the ability to set up deep scanning of the software, both of which are in the same place."
"I use the solution in my company for security code scans."
"It is an extremely robust, scalable, and stable solution."
"Each bank may have its own core banking applications with proprietary support for different programming languages. This makes Fortify particularly relevant and advantageous in those cases."
"The vulnerability detection and scanning are awesome features."
"It improves future security scans."
 

Cons

"The out-of-the-box reporting could be improved. We need to write our own APIs to make the reporting more robust."
"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 product's retesting part needs improvement. The tool also needs improvement in the suggestions provided for fixing vulnerabilities. It relies more on documentation rather than on quick fixes."
"I would like to see them come up with more scanning rules."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Contrast Security Assess covers a wide range of applications like .NET Framework, Java, PSP, Node.js, etc. But there are some like Ubuntu and the .NET Core which are not covered. They have it in their roadmap to have these agents. If they have that, we will have complete coverage."
"During development, when our developer makes changes to their code, they typically use GitHub or GitLab to track those changes. However, proper integration between Fortify on Demand and GitHub and GitLab is not there yet. Improved integration would be very valuable to us."
"They could provide features for artificial intelligence similar to other vendors."
"Micro Focus Fortify on Demand could improve the reports. They could benefit from being more user-friendly and intuitive."
"With Rapid7 I utilized its reporting capabilities to deliver Client Reports within just a few minutes of checking the data. I believe that HP’s FoD Clients could sell more services to clients if HP put more effort into delivering visually pleasing reporting capabilities."
"I would rate the support for OpenText at no more than three out of ten; it is really bad, and we encounter a lot of problems when getting support."
"Reporting could be improved."
"The reporting capabilities need improvement, as there are some features that we would like to have but are not available at the moment."
"I would like to see improvement in CI integration and integration with GitLab or Jenkins. It needs to be more simple."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 product's pricing is low. I would rate it a two out of ten."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"The solution is expensive."
"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."
"Fortify on Demand is more expensive than Burpsuite. I rate its pricing a nine out of ten."
"Micro Focus Fortify on Demand licenses are managed by our IT team and the license model is user-based."
"The price is fair compared to that of other solutions."
"Fortify on Demand is moderately priced, but its pricing could be more flexible."
"Fortify on Demand is affordable, and its licensing comes with a year of support."
"The solution is expensive and the price could be reduced."
"Buying a license would be feasible for regular use. For intermittent use, the cloud-based option can be used (Fortify on Demand)."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Computer Software Company
7%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise44
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
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?
If you have an internal team and you want your internal team to validate false positives, basically to determine whether it's a valid issue or an invalid issue, then I wouldn't recommend it much. T...
 

Also Known As

Contrast Assess
Micro Focus Fortify on Demand
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Williams-Sonoma, Autodesk, HUAWEI, Chromeriver, RingCentral, Demandware.
SAP, Aaron's, British Gas, FICO, Cox Automative, Callcredit Information Group, Vital and more.
Find out what your peers are saying about Contrast Security Assess vs. OpenText Core Application Security and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
883,692 professionals have used our research since 2012.