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Contrast Security Assess vs Fortify WebInspect comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (26th), Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (22nd)
Fortify WebInspect
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) (2nd), DevSecOps (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Application Lifecycle Management solutions, they serve different purposes. Contrast Security Assess is designed for Static Application Security Testing (SAST) and holds a mindshare of 0.5%, up 0.4% compared to last year.
Fortify WebInspect, on the other hand, focuses on Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST), holds 23.9% mindshare, down 32.6% since last year.
Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST)
 

Featured Reviews

ToddMcAlister - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Navin N - PeerSpot reviewer
Effective scanning of diverse file extensions with fast reporting and issue resolution
We develop software packages for clients, and these clients are mostly in the BFSI sector. The packages need to be scanned, and we engage Fortify WebInspect for this.  Customers typically perform their own application pen tests, but in some cases, we have engagements where customers want us to scan…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Assess has an excellent API interface to pull APIs."
"I am impressed with the product's identification of alerts and vulnerabilities."
"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."
"It is a stable solution...Contrast Security Assess is one of the first players in this market, so they have experience and customers, especially abroad. Overall, it's a good product."
"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."
"When we access the application, it continuously monitors and detects 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."
"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."
"It's a well-known platform for doing dynamic application scanning."
"Technical support has been good."
"The user interface is ok and it is very simple to use."
"It is scalable and very easy to use."
"The most valuable feature is the static analysis."
"It is easy to use, and its reporting is fairly simple."
"I've found the centralized dashboard the most valuable. For the management, it helps a lot to have abilities at the central level."
"Guided Scan option allows us to easily scan and share reports."
 

Cons

"The setup of the solution is different for each application. That's the one thing that has been a challenge for us. The deployment itself is simple, but it's tough to automate because each application is different, so each installation process for Contrast is different."
"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."
"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 solution needs to improve flexibility...The scalability of the product is a problem in the solution, especially from a commercial perspective."
"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."
"The out-of-the-box reporting could be improved. We need to write our own APIs to make the reporting more robust."
"I would like to see them come up with more scanning rules."
"The solution should provide more details in the section where it shows that third-party libraries have CVEs or some vulnerabilities."
"The installation could be a bit easier. Usually it's simple to use, but the installation is painful and a bit laborious and complex."
"The initial setup was complex."
"It requires improvement in terms of scanning. The application scan heavily utilizes the resources of an on-premise server. 32 GB RAM is very high for an enterprise web application."
"Not sufficiently compatible with some of our systems."
"There are some file extensions, like .SER, that Fortify WebInspect doesn't scan."
"Lately, we've seen more false negatives."
"Our biggest complaint about this product is that it freezes up, and literally doesn't work for us."
"One thing I would like to see them introduce is a cloud-based platform."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The solution is expensive."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Our licensing is such that you can only run one scan at a time, which is inconvenient."
"The price is okay."
"Fortify WebInspect is a very expensive product."
"It’s a fair price for the solution."
"The pricing is not clear and while it is not high, it is difficult to understand."
"Its price is almost similar to the price of AppScan. Both of them are very costly. Its price could be reduced because it can be very costly for unlimited IT scans, etc. I'm not sure, but it can go up to $40,000 to $50,000 or more than that."
"This solution is very expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
24%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Computer Software Company
9%
Insurance Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
14%
Manufacturing Company
12%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Contrast Security Assess?
When we access the application, it continuously monitors and detects vulnerabilities.
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.
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 ...
What do you like most about Fortify WebInspect?
The solution's technical support was very helpful.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortify WebInspect?
Fortify WebInspect can be a bit expensive. However, considering its stability and reliability in meeting current standards, the cost is justified. Still, making the cost more affordable for multipl...
What needs improvement with Fortify WebInspect?
I would like WebInspect's scanning capability to be quicker. Specifically, being able to scan a particular flow or part of an application more rapidly would be beneficial. Additionally, the cost of...
 

Also Known As

Contrast Assess
Micro Focus WebInspect, WebInspect
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Williams-Sonoma, Autodesk, HUAWEI, Chromeriver, RingCentral, Demandware.
Aaron's
Find out what your peers are saying about Contrast Security Assess vs. Fortify WebInspect and other solutions. Updated: May 2022.
848,989 professionals have used our research since 2012.