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Fortify on Demand vs OWASP Zap comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 12, 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

Fortify on Demand
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
9th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
60
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (11th)
OWASP Zap
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
8th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of Fortify on Demand is 4.6%, down from 4.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OWASP Zap is 5.0%, down from 5.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
 

Featured Reviews

Jonathan Steyn - PeerSpot reviewer
Source code analyzer, FPR file generation, reduction of false positives and generates compliance reports, for in-depth analysis
Not challenges with the product itself. The product is very reliable. It does have a steep learning curve. But, again, one thing that Fortify or OpenText does very well is training. There are a lot of free resources and training in the community forums, free training as well as commercial training where users can train on how to use the back-end systems and the scanning engines and how to use command-line arguments because some of the procedures or some of the tools do require a bit of a learning curve. That's the only challenge I've really seen for customers because you have to learn how to use the tool effectively. But Fortify has, in fact, improved its user interface and the way users engage the dashboards and the interfaces. It is intuitive. It's easy to understand. But in some regards, the cybersecurity specialist or AppSec would need a bit of training to engage the user interface and to understand how it functions. But from the point of the reliability index and how powerful the tool is, there's no challenge there. But it's just from a learning perspective; users might need a bit more skill to use the tool. The user interface isn't that tedious. It's not that difficult to understand. When I initially learned how to use the interfaces, I was able to master it within a week and was able to use it quite effectively. So training is required. All skills are needed to learn how to use the tool. I would like to see more enhancements in the dashboards. Dashboards are available. They do need some configuration and settings. But I would like to see more business intelligence capabilities within the tool. It's not particularly a cybersecurity function, but, for instance, business impact analysis or other features where you can actually use business intelligence capabilities within your security tool. That would be remarkable because not only do you have a cybersecurity tool, but you also have a tool that can give you business impact analysis and some other measurements. A bit more intelligence in terms of that from a cybersecurity perspective would be remarkable.
Amit Beniwal - PeerSpot reviewer
Simplifies vulnerability discovery and has high quality support
There are areas for improvement with OWASP Zap, particularly in the alignment of vulnerabilities concerning CVSS scores. Sometimes, a vulnerability initially categorized as high severity may be reduced to medium or low over time after security patches are applied. This alignment with the present severity score and CVSS score could be improved.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The static code analyzers are the most valuable features of this solution."
"The scanning capabilities, particularly for our repositories, have been invaluable."
"The licensing was good."
"The most valuable feature is the capacity to be able to check vulnerabilities during the development process. The development team can check whether the code they are using is vulnerable to some type of attack or there is some type of vulnerability so that they can mitigate it. It helps us in achieving a more secure approach towards internal applications. It is an intuitive solution. It gives all the information that a developer needs to remediate a vulnerability in the coding process. It also gives you some examples of how to remediate a vulnerability in different programming languages. This solution is pretty much what we were searching for."
"I use the solution in my company for security code scans."
"The installation was easy."
"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 source code analyzer is the most effective for identifying security vulnerabilities."
"The vulnerabilities that it finds, because the primary goal is to secure applications and websites."
"Two features are valuable. The first one is that the scan gets completed really quickly, and the second one is that even though it searches in a limited scope, what it does in that limited scope is very good. When you use Zap for testing, you're only using it for specific aspects or you're only looking for certain things. It works very well in that limited scope."
"Fuzzer and Java APIs help a lot with our custom needs."
"This solution has improved my organization because it has made us feel safer doing frequent deployments for web applications. If we have something really big, we might get some professional company in to help us but if we're releasing small products, we will check it ourselves with Zap. It makes it easier and safer."
"It's great that we can use it with Portswigger Burp."
"The most valuable feature is scanning the URL to drill down all the different sites."
"The community edition updates services regularly. They add new vulnerabilities into the scanning list."
"The scalability of this product is very good."
 

Cons

"We want a user-based control and role-based access for developers. We want to give limited access to developers so that it only pertains to the code that they write and scanning of the codes for any vulnerabilities as they're progressing with writing the code. As of now, the interface to give restricted access to the developers is not the best. It gives them more access than what is basically required, but we don't want over-provisioning and over-access."
"There are many false positives identified by the solution."
"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."
"It's still a little bit too complex for regular developers. It takes a little bit more time than usual. I know static code scan is not the main focus of the tool, but the overall time span to scan the code, and even to set up the code scanning, is a bit overwhelming for regular developers."
"The Visual Studio plugin seems to hang when a scan is run on big projects. I would expect some improvements there."
"It does scanning for all virtual machines and other things, but it doesn't do the scanning for containers. It currently lacks the ability to do the scanning on containers. We're asking their product management team to expand this capability to containers."
"They have a release coming out, which is full of new features. Based on their roadmap, there's nothing that I would suggest for them to put in it that they haven't already suggested. However, I am a customer, so I always think the pricing is something that could be improved. I am working with them on that, and they're very flexible. They work with their customers and kind of tailor the product to the customer's needs. So far, I am very happy with what they're able to provide. Their subscriptions could use a little bit of a reworking, but that would be about it."
"Fortify on Demand needs to improve its pricing."
"There's very little documentation that comes with OWASP Zap."
"It would be a great improvement if they could include a marketplace to add extra features to the tool."
"Too many false positives; test reports could be improved."
"They stopped their support for a short period. They've recently started to come back again. In the early days, support was much better."
"Reporting format has no output, is cluttered and very long."
"I prefer Burp Suite to SWASP Zap because of the extensive coverage it offers."
"It would be beneficial to enhance the algorithm to provide better summaries of automatic scanning results."
"Sometimes, we get some false positives."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If I exceed one million lines of code, there might be an extra cost or a change in the pricing bracket."
"The pricing can be improved because it is complex when compared to the competition."
"The product's cost depends on the type of license."
"Their subscriptions could use a little bit of a reworking, but I am very happy with what they're able to provide."
"It is not more expensive than other solutions, but the pricing is competitive."
"The solution is a little expensive."
"The price is fair compared to that of other solutions."
"The solution is expensive and the price could be reduced."
"As Zap is free and open-source, with tons of features similar to those of commercial solutions, I would definitely recommend trying it out."
"OWASP ZAP is a free tool provided by OWASP’s engineers and experts. There is an option to donate."
"The tool is open-source."
"It's free and open, currently under the Apache 2 license. If ZAP does what you need it to do, selling a free solution is a very easy."
"We have used the freeware version. I believe Zap only has freeware."
"It's free. It's good for us because we don't know what the extent of our use will be yet. It's good to start with something free and easy to use."
"This is an open-source solution and can be used free of charge."
"The tool is open source."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Manufacturing Company
15%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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?
There are frequent complaints about false positives from Fortify. One day it may pass a scan with no issues, and the next day, without any code changes, it will report vulnerabilities such as passw...
Is OWASP Zap better than PortSwigger Burp Suite Pro?
OWASP Zap and PortSwigger Burp Suite Pro have many similar features. OWASP Zap has web application scanning available with basic security vulnerabilities while Burp Suite Pro has it available with ...
What do you like most about OWASP Zap?
The best feature is the Zap HUD (Heads Up Display) because the customers can use the website normally. If we scan websites with automatic scanning, and the website has a web application firewall, i...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for OWASP Zap?
OWASP might be cost-effective, however, people prefer to use the free edition available as open source.
 

Also Known As

Micro Focus Fortify on Demand
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SAP, Aaron's, British Gas, FICO, Cox Automative, Callcredit Information Group, Vital and more.
1. Google 2. Microsoft 3. IBM 4. Amazon 5. Facebook 6. Twitter 7. LinkedIn 8. Netflix 9. Adobe 10. PayPal 11. Salesforce 12. Cisco 13. Oracle 14. Intel 15. HP 16. Dell 17. VMware 18. Symantec 19. McAfee 20. Citrix 21. Red Hat 22. Juniper Networks 23. SAP 24. Accenture 25. Deloitte 26. Ernst & Young 27. PwC 28. KPMG 29. Capgemini 30. Infosys 31. Wipro 32. TCS
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortify on Demand vs. OWASP Zap and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
842,651 professionals have used our research since 2012.