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Contrast Security Assess vs GitHub Advanced Security comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 8, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

Contrast Security Assess
Ranking in Application Security Tools
29th
Average Rating
8.8
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (24th)
GitHub Advanced Security
Ranking in Application Security Tools
15th
Average Rating
8.8
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Application Security Tools category, the mindshare of Contrast Security Assess is 0.5%, down from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of GitHub Advanced Security is 7.5%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Security Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Mustufa Bhavnagarwala - PeerSpot reviewer
Nov 27, 2023
A stable solution that provides lots of details on web-based vulnerabilities and source code reviews
Contrast Security Assess has a really good UI and gives the details in more depth. It gives more information about web application vulnerabilities. If third-party libraries, JS files, and JAR files have any CVEs in them, the solution reports that and gives a grade from A to E. It gives good…
SirinatPaphatsirinatthi - PeerSpot reviewer
Jan 15, 2024
Initial setup was very easy, scalable product and stable product
We keep our firewall security in place. Customers use GitHub because they don't want to coordinate with many tools.  GitHub provides advanced security, which is why the customers choose this tool; it allows them to rely solely on GitHub as one platform for everything they need For customers,…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"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."
"I am impressed with the product's identification of alerts and vulnerabilities."
"When we access the application, it continuously monitors and detects vulnerabilities."
"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."
"In our most critical applications, we have a deep dive in the code evaluation, which was something we usually did with periodic vulnerability assessments, code reviews, etc. Now, we have real time access to it. It's something that has greatly enhanced our code's quality. We have actually embedded a KPI in regards to the improvement of our code shell. For example, Contrast provides a baseline where libraries and the usability of the code are evaluated, and they produce a score. We always aim to improve that score. On a quarterly basis, we have added this to our KPIs."
"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."
"GitHub provides advanced security, which is why the customers choose this tool; it allows them to rely solely on GitHub as one platform for everything they need."
"GitHub Advanced Security uses artificial intelligence in the backend, specifically CodeQL, to analyze code and provide fewer but more reliable findings, so there are less false positives."
"It ensures user passwords or sensitive information are not accidentally exposed in code or reports."
"Dependency scanning is a valuable feature."
"It is a stable solution...It is a scalable solution as it can handle new applications along with the analysis part."
"The product's most valuable features are security scan, dependency scan, and cost-effectiveness."
"The most valuable is the developer experience and the extensibility of the overall ecosystem."
 

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."
"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."
"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."
"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'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."
"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."
"A more refined approach, categorizing and emphasizing specific vulnerabilities, would be beneficial."
"There could be DST features included in the product."
"There could be a centralized dashboard to view reports of all the projects on one platform."
"The report limitations are the main issue."
"Maybe make it compatible with more programming languages. Have a customized ruleset where the end-user can create their own rules for scanning."
"The customizations are a little bit difficult."
"The deployment part of the product is an area of concern that needs to be made easier from an improvement perspective."
 

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."
"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."
"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."
"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 product's pricing is low. I would rate it a two out of ten."
"The solution is expensive."
"The current licensing model, which relies on active commitments, poses challenges, particularly in predicting and managing growth."
"The solution is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
11%
Insurance Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Insurance Company
7%
 

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 GitHub Advanced Security?
It is a stable solution...It is a scalable solution as it can handle new applications along with the analysis part.
What needs improvement with GitHub Advanced Security?
Maybe make it compatible with more programming languages. Have a customized ruleset where the end-user can create their own rules for scanning. Also, support for container stuff, like when the code...
What is your primary use case for GitHub Advanced Security?
I use it for Azure DevOps, for example. This tool focuses on the security of the code. It performs code analysis to identify security issues, such as hard-coded secrets and passwords, potential SQL...
 

Also Known As

Contrast Assess
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Williams-Sonoma, Autodesk, HUAWEI, Chromeriver, RingCentral, Demandware.
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Contrast Security Assess vs. GitHub Advanced Security and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
814,763 professionals have used our research since 2012.