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Contrast Security Assess vs Veracode comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 8, 2024

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
30th
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
28th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Veracode
Ranking in Application Security Tools
2nd
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
2nd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
208
Ranking in other categories
Container Security (8th), Software Composition Analysis (SCA) (3rd), Static Code Analysis (1st), Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) (1st), Application Security Posture Management (ASPM) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Application Security Tools category, the mindshare of Contrast Security Assess is 1.1%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Veracode is 5.4%, down from 10.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Security Tools Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Veracode5.4%
Contrast Security Assess1.1%
Other93.5%
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.
reviewer2703864 - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of Security Architecture at a healthcare company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Onboarding developers successfully while improving code security through IDE integration
Regarding room for improvement, we have some problems when onboarding new projects because the build process has to be done in a certain way, as Veracode analyzes the binaries and not the code by itself alone. If the process is not configured correctly, it doesn't work. That's one of the things that we are discussing with Veracode. Something positive that we've been able to do is submit formal feature requests to them, and they are working on them; they've already solved some of them. This encourages us to propose new ideas and improvements. Another improvement that we asked for this use case is to be able to configure how Veracode Fix proposes and fixes because sometimes it makes proposals using libraries that go against our architecture design made by the enterprise architecture team. For example, we want them to propose using another library, and that's something we already asked Veracode, and they are working on it. We want to specify when you see this kind of vulnerability, you can only propose these two options.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"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."
"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."
"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 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."
"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."
"Assess has an excellent API interface to pull APIs."
"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."
"All the features provided by Veracode are valuable, including static scan, dynamic scan, and MPT (Manual Penetration Testing)."
"We have to look at it from the perspectives of how important it is to fix something and when it should be prioritized for fixing. The JSON output from the agent-based scans gives us the CVS core, and that makes things much easier."
"It changes the DevSecOps process because we find flaws much earlier in the development life cycle, and we also spot third-party software that we don't allow on developers' machines."
"We have found the static analysis to be useful in Veracode Static Analysis. However, we are in the process of testing."
"The security team can track the remediation and risk acceptance statistics."
"You can easily integrate it with Azure DevOps. This is an added value because we work with Azure DevOps. Veracode is natively supported and we don't have to work with APIs."
"The product’s policy reporting for ensuring compliance with industry standards and regulations is great."
"Allows us to track the remediation and handling of identified vulnerabilities."
 

Cons

"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."
"The out-of-the-box reporting could be improved. We need to write our own APIs to make the reporting more robust."
"The solution should provide more details in the section where it shows that third-party libraries have CVEs or some vulnerabilities."
"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."
"The solution needs to improve flexibility...The scalability of the product is a problem in the solution, especially from a commercial perspective."
"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."
"If the dynamic scan is improved, then the speed might go up. That is somehow not happening. We have raised this concern. It might also help if they could time limit scans to 24 hours instead of letting them go for three days. Then, whatever results could be shared, even if the scan is not complete, that would definitely help us."
"The user interface could be more sleek. Some scanning requirements aren't flexible. Some features take some time for new users to understand (like what exactly "modules" are)."
"Veracode has areas for improvement in that the scan takes some time for each Jar depending on the size."
"Scheduling can be a little difficult. For instance, if you set up recurring scheduled scans and a developer comes in and says, "Hey, I have this critical release that happened outside of our normal release patterns and they want you to scan it," we actually have to change our schedule configuration and that means we lose the recurring scheduling settings we had."
"One area for improvement is the navigation in the UI. For junior developers or newcomers to the team, it can be confusing. The UI doesn't clearly bundle together certain elements associated with a scan. While running a scan, there are various aspects linked to it, but in the UI, they appear separate. It would be beneficial if they could redesign the UI to make it more intuitive for users."
"The training lab is not very user-friendly and takes a long time to set up."
"Improving sorting through findings reports to filter by only what is critically relevant will help developers focus on issues."
"The solution could improve the Dynamic Analysis Security Testing(DAST)."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The product's pricing is low. I would rate it a two out of ten."
"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."
"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."
"They just changed their pricing model two weeks ago. They went from a per-app license to a per-megabyte license. I know that the dynamic scan was $500 per app. Static analysis was about $4500 yearly. The license is only for the number of users, it doesn't matter what data you put in there. That was the old model. I do not know how the new model works."
"Aside from the standard licensing fees, we also have to pay for a competent Success Manager."
"Veracode is one of the more expensive solutions in the market, but it is worth the expense because of the eLearning and the security consultations; everything is included in the license."
"It can be expensive to do this, so I would just make sure that you're getting the proper number of licenses. Do your analysis. Make sure you know exactly what it is you need, going in."
"Pricing seems fair for what is offered, and licensing has been no problem. All developers are able to get the access they need."
"For enterprises, Veracode has done a fairly good job, but its pricing is not suitable for startups. The microservice distributed architecture for a startup is very small. I had to do a lot of discussions on the pricing initially. I previously worked in an enterprise organization where I used Veracode, and that's how I got to know about Veracode, but that was a big organization with more than a thousand employees. So, the cost is very different for them because the size of the application is different. Its pricing makes sense there, but when we try to onboard this solution for the startup ecosystem, pricing is not friendly. Because I knew the product and I knew its value, I onboarded it, but I don't think any other startup at our scale will onboard it."
"Pricing-wise, I find it a bit expensive because it's based on the number of users requesting access to Veracode."
"Compared to other similar products, the licensing and pricing are definitely competitive. If you see Checkmarx as the market leader, then we are talking about Veracode being a fraction of the cost. You also have to consider your hidden costs: you need a team to maintain it, a server, and resources. From that point of view, Veracode is great because the cost is really a fraction of many competitors."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
23%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
6%
 

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 Business69
Midsize Enterprise44
Large Enterprise115
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
Which gives you more for your money - SonarQube or Veracode?
SonarQube is easy to deploy and configure, and also integrates well with other tools to do quality code analysis. SonarQube has a great community edition, which is open-source and free. Easy to use...
What do you like most about Veracode Static Analysis?
I like its integration with GitHub. I like using it from GitHub. I can use the GitHub URL and find out the vulnerabilities.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Veracode Static Analysis?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Veracode is that it is fairly moderate.
 

Also Known As

Contrast Assess
Crashtest Security , Veracode Detect
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Williams-Sonoma, Autodesk, HUAWEI, Chromeriver, RingCentral, Demandware.
Manhattan Associates, Azalea Health, Sabre, QAD, Floor & Decor, Prophecy International, SchoolCNXT, Keap, Rekner, Cox Automotive, Automation Anywhere, State of Missouri and others.
Find out what your peers are saying about Contrast Security Assess vs. Veracode and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,176 professionals have used our research since 2012.