Contrast Security Assess vs GitLab comparison

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Contrast Security Assess

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 12, 2025

Contrast Security Assess and GitLab compete in the software security and productivity market. Contrast Security Assess excels in application security testing, while GitLab stands out for its comprehensive DevOps and automation capabilities.

Features: Contrast Security Assess offers real-time security verification, easy integration into existing workflows, and a feature allowing control over identified vulnerabilities. GitLab provides excellent CI/CD pipelines, robust code versioning, and strong collaboration tools, catering to development and operations from end to end.

Room for Improvement: Contrast Security Assess could enhance its user interface for better usability and offer more integration options with third-party tools. Additionally, improving documentation clarity would benefit users. GitLab could reduce complexity in its extensive features, streamline its interface for new users, and enhance its code analysis capabilities to better compete with dedicated security tools.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: GitLab facilitates seamless deployment with comprehensive guides and strong community support. Contrast Security Assess offers personalized customer service, providing direct solutions to security-specific issues, making it favorable for organizations seeking attentive support.

Pricing and ROI: Contrast Security Assess presents attractive setup costs focusing on security, offering good ROI for security-prioritized companies. GitLab, despite its higher cost, offers a broader feature set promising higher long-term ROI by increasing productivity through integrated functionalities.

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

Contrast Security Assess vs. GitLab

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Helped 847,862 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

Contrast Security Assess

Ranking in Application Security Tools

26th

Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

22nd

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

GitLab

Ranking in Application Security Tools

9th

Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

7th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Build Automation (1st), Release Automation (2nd), Rapid Application Development Software (12th), Software Composition Analysis (SCA) (5th), Enterprise Agile Planning Tools (2nd), Fuzz Testing Tools (2nd), DevSecOps (3rd)

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Application Security Tools category, the mindshare of Contrast Security Assess is 0.6%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of GitLab is 3.0%, up from 2.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Security Tools

Featured Reviews

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.

Read full review

Gaurav Chandel

AWS DevOps/ Site Reliability Engineer at Tata Consultancy

Boosted productivity with automated pipelines and seamless collaboration

There are some challenges with repository file management as GitLab may struggle to manage larger files. Improvements could be made regarding size management and file partitioning. Also, the UI has remained the same for a couple of years and could benefit from an update with AI features and better customization.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

More Contrast Security Assess pros

"It scales well."

"It is scalable."

"CI/CD is very good. The version control system is also good. These are the two features that we use."

"As a developer, this solution is useful as a repository holder because most of the POC projects that we have are on GitLab."

"The most valuable feature of GitLab is its convenience. I am able to trace back most of my changes up to a far distance in time and it helps me to analyze and see the older version of the code."

"GitLab is very useful for pipelines, continuous integration, and continuous deployment. It is also stable."

"Continuous integration with deployment is very powerful, which is a significant reason for migrating from TFS to GitLab."

"The most valuable features of GitLab are the CI/CD pipeline and code management."

More GitLab pros

Cons

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

"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."

"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 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."

"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."

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

"The solution needs to improve flexibility...The scalability of the product is a problem in the solution, especially from a commercial perspective."

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

More Contrast Security Assess cons

"There are missing search features, particularly when searching repositories or applying filters. Additionally, I have encountered issues with the deployment of CI/CD pipelines, especially dealing with variable environments."

"While GitLab is a great tool for developers, it lacks project planner features. Roadmaps and Gantt charts in GitLab are not as advanced as in Jira, and changing start and end dates is more laborious in GitLab."

"GitLab's UI could be improved."

"GitLab would be improved with the addition of templates for deployment on local PCs."

"GitLab could improve by having more plugins and better user-friendliness."

"GitLab doesn't have AWS integration. It would be better to have integration with other container management environments beyond Kubernetes. It has very good integration with Kubernetes, but it doesn't have good integration with, for example, AWS, ETS, etc."

"The user interface could be more user-friendly. We do most of our operations through the website interface but it could be better."

"Even if I say I want some improvement, they will say it is already planned in the first quarter, second quarter, or third quarter. That said, most everything is quite improved already, and they're improving even further still."

More GitLab cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 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."

"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."

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

"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."

"This is an open-source solution."

"The open-source version is very good and the commercial version is reasonably priced."

"The solution is free."

"This product is not very expensive but the price can be better."

"We are using the open-source version."

"In total, I believe we have more than 300 licenses spread over about 100 users, though I can't comment on the costs involved."

"I'm not aware of the licensing costs because those were covered by the customer."

"The price is okay."

More GitLab pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Security Tools solutions are best for your needs.

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

23%

Manufacturing Company

13%

Computer Software Company

10%

Insurance Company

Educational Organization

25%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

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 GitLab?

I find the features and version control history to be most valuable for our development workflow. These aspects provide us with a clear view of changes and help us manage requests efficiently.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for GitLab?

The pricing of GitLab is reasonable, aligning with what I consider to be average compared to competitors.

What needs improvement with GitLab?

Certain features in Jira are not available in GitLab, such as the functionality to have weights at the milestone and epic levels. Hopefully, these features will be resolved with work items in GitLa...

Seeker vs Contrast Security Assess

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Compared 28% of the time

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Compared 13% of the time

SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) vs GitLab

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AWS CodePipeline vs GitLab

Compared 6% of the time

Tekton vs GitLab

Compared 5% of the time

More GitLab Competitors

Product Reports

Contrast Security Assess

Download Contrast Security Assess product report

Download GitLab product report

Also Known As

Contrast Assess

Fuzzit

Overview

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.

Contrast Security

GitLab is a complete DevOps platform that enables teams to collaborate and deliver software faster.

It provides a single application for the entire DevOps lifecycle, from planning and development to testing, deployment, and monitoring.

With GitLab, teams can streamline their workflows, automate processes, and improve productivity.

Sample Customers

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

1. NASA 2. IBM 3. Sony 4. Alibaba 5. CERN 6. Siemens 7. Volkswagen 8. ING 9. Ticketmaster 10. SpaceX 11. Adobe 12. Intuit 13. Autodesk 14. Rakuten 15. Unity Technologies 16. Pandora 17. Electronic Arts 18. Nordstrom 19. Verizon 20. Comcast 21. Philips 22. Deutsche Telekom 23. Orange 24. Fujitsu 25. Ericsson 26. Nokia 27. General Electric 28. Cisco 29. Accenture 30. Deloitte 31. PwC 32. KPMG

Contrast Security Assess vs. GitLab