FOSSA vs Fortify Static Code Analyzer comparison

The compared OpenText and FOSSA solutions aren't in the same category. OpenText is ranked #3 in SCAS , with an average rating of 8.2, and holds a 11.5% mindshare in the category. FOSSA is ranked #9 in SCA , with an average rating of 8.0, and holds a 3.4% mindshare. Additionally, 87% of OpenText users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 92% of FOSSA users who would recommend it.

Fortify Static Code Analyzer

Read 16 Fortify Static Code Analyzer reviews

1,809 Views
1,210 Comparison Views

87% willing to recommend

FOSSA

Read 15 FOSSA reviews

2,099 Views
1,373 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

Fortify Static Code Analyzer

FOSSA

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Fortify Static Code Analyzer and FOSSA based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Veracode, Checkmarx, OpenText and others in Static Code Analysis.

To learn more, read our detailed Static Code Analysis Report (Updated: February 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Static Code Analysis

February 2025

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Helped 841,152 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

Fortify Static Code Analyzer

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Static Code Analysis (3rd)

FOSSA

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Software Composition Analysis (SCA) (9th)

Mindshare comparison

While both are Security Software solutions, they serve different purposes. Fortify Static Code Analyzer is designed for Static Code Analysis and holds a mindshare of 11.5%, up 9.5% compared to last year.
FOSSA, on the other hand, focuses on Software Composition Analysis (SCA), holds 3.4% mindshare, down 4.4% since last year.

Static Code Analysis

Software Composition Analysis (SCA)

Featured Reviews

Vishal Dhamke

Vice President Application Security North America at BNP Paribas

An expansive platform that comes with a comprehensive set of security rules and patterns to identify vulnerabilities

Setting up Fortify Static Application Security Testing (SAST) involves several steps to ensure that the tool is correctly configured and integrated into your development workflow say for instance Installation, License Activation, User Access and Permissions, Integration with Development Environment, Project Configuration, Custom Rules and Policies, etc. The initial setup is very easy, have used the enterprise version and a standalone version. The enterprise version definitely takes an ample amount of time to deploy because it needs to have a server along with other logistics in place along with a proper RBAC. The enterprise version would take an ample amount of time, but the standard version is just a few clicks. A team of four to five people is required for the maintenance and frequent updates are required to keep all the signatures up to date. I would rate the setup a nine out of ten.

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Hanumanth Ramsetty

Software Engineer at Tech Mahindra Limited

Proactively mitigate deployment vulnerabilities with seamless dependency tracking

Before using FOSSA, we could only identify issues after deployment in the Cloud Run. Now, with FOSSA, we identify dependency issues or vulnerabilities during the CI phase itself. This proactive approach has eliminated the need to search the internet for solutions, as FOSSA provides updated recommendations automatically. This has made the process more efficient and mitigated risks before deployment.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Integrating the Fortify Static Code Analyzer into our software development lifecycle was straightforward. It highlights important information beyond just syntax errors. It identifies issues like password credentials and access keys embedded in the code."

"The integration Subset core integration, using Jenkins is one of the good features."

"The most valuable features include its ability to detect vulnerabilities accurately and its integration with our CI/CD pipeline."

"Fortify integrates with various development environments and tools, such as IDEs (Integrated Development Environments) and CI/CD pipelines."

"It's helped us free up staff time."

"Automating the Jenkins plugins and the build title is a big plus."

"You can really see what's happening after you've developed something."

"Fortify Static Code Analyzer's most valuable features are its ability to provide best practices for fixing code and its examples and capabilities to address security problems in the code. It effectively identifies security vulnerabilities by analyzing the code and offering insights on improving it."

More Fortify Static Code Analyzer pros

"One of the things that I really like about FOSSA is that it allows you to go very granular. For example, if there's a package that's been flagged because it's subject to a license that may be conflicts with or raises a concern with one of the policies that I've set, then FOSSA enables you to go really granular into that package to see which aspects of the package are subject to which licenses. We can ultimately determine with our engineering teams if we really need this part of the package or not. If it's raising this flag, we can make really actionable decisions at a very micro level to enable the build to keep pushing forward."

"I found FOSSA's out-of-the-box policy engine to be accurate and that it was tuned appropriately to the settings that we were looking for. The policy engine is pretty straightforward... I find it to be very straightforward to make small modifications to, but it's very rare that we have to make modifications to it. It's easy to use. It's a four-category system that handles most cases pretty well."

"FOSSA suggests solutions for dependency mismatches."

"The most valuable feature is definitely the ease and speed of integrating into build pipelines, like a Jenkins pipeline or something along those lines. The ease of a new development team coming on board and integrating FOSSA with a new project, or even an existing project, can be done so quickly that it's invaluable and it's easy to ask the developers to use a tool like this. Those developers greatly value the very quick feedback they get on any licensing or security vulnerability issues."

"I am impressed with the tool’s seamless integration and quick results."

"What I really need from FOSSA, and it does a really good job of this, is to flag me when there are particular open source licenses that cause me or our legal department concern. It points out where a particular issue is, where it comes from, and the chain that brought it in, which is the most important part to me."

"FOSSA is easy to use and set up, provides relatively accurate results, and doesn't require armies of people to get value from its use."

"Their CLI tool is very efficient. It does not send your source code over to their servers. It just does fingerprinting. It is also very easy to integrate into software development practices."

More FOSSA pros

Cons

"I know the areas that they are trying to improve on. They've been getting feedback for several years. There are two main points. The first thing is keeping current with static code languages. I know it is difficult because code languages pop up all the time or there are new variants, but it is something that Fortify needs to put a better focus on. They need to keep current with their language support. The second thing is a philosophical issue, and I don't know if they'll ever change it. They've done a decent job of putting tools in place to mitigate things, but static code analysis is inherently noisy. If you just take a tool out of the box and run a scan, you're going to get a lot of results back, and not all of those results are interesting or important, which is different for every organization. Currently, we get four to five errors on the side of tagging, and it notifies you of every tiny inconsistency. If the tool sees something that it doesn't know, it flags, which becomes work that has to be done afterward. Clients don't typically like it. There has got to be a way of prioritizing. There are a ton of filter options within Fortify, but the problem is that you've got to go through the crazy noisy scan once before you know which filters you need to put in place to get to the interesting stuff. I keep hearing from their product team that they're working on a way to do container or docker scanning. That's a huge market mover. A lot of people are interested in that right now, and it is relevant. That is definitely something that I'd love to see in the next version or two."

"The pricing is a bit high."

"It comes with a hefty licensing fee."

"The product shows false positives for Python applications."

"Fortify Static Code Analyzer is a good solution, but sometimes we receive false positives. If they could reduce the number of false positives it would be good."

"Fortify's software security center needs a design refresh."

"The price can be improved."

"Streamlining the upgrade process and enhancing compatibility would make it easier for us to keep our security tools up-to-date."

More Fortify Static Code Analyzer cons

"Security scanning is an area for improvement. At this point, our experience is that we're only scanning for license information in components, and we're not scanning for security vulnerability information. We don't have access to that data. We use other tools for that. It would be an improvement for us to use one tool instead of two, so that we just have to go through one process instead of two."

"On the legal and policy sides, there is some room for improvement. I know that our legal team has raised complaints about having to approve the same dependency multiple times, as opposed to having them it across the entire organization."

"I would like more customized categories because our company is so big. This is doable for them. They are still in the stages of trying to figure this out since we are one of their biggest companies that they support."

"One thing that can sometimes be difficult with FOSSA is understanding all that it can do. One of the ways that I've been able to unlock some of those more advanced features is through conversations with the absolutely awesome customer success team at FOSSA, but it has been a little bit difficult to find some of that information separately on my own through FAQs and other information channels that FOSSA has. The improvement is less about the product itself and more about empowering FOSSA customers to know and understand how to unlock its full potential."

"I want the product to include binary scanning which is missing at the moment. Binary scanning includes code and component matching through dependency management. It also includes the actual scanning and reverse engineering of the boundaries and finding out what is inside."

"I would like the FOSSA API to be broader. I would like not to have to interact with the GUI at all, to do the work that I want to do. I would like them to do API-first development, rather than a focus on the GUI."

"On the dashboard, there should be an option to increase the column width so that we can see the complete name of the GitHub repository. Currently, on the dashboard, we see the list of projects, but to see the complete name, you have to hover your mouse over an item, which is annoying."

"FOSSA does not show the exact line of code with vulnerabilities, which adds time to the process as we have to locate these manually."

More FOSSA cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"From our standpoint, we are significantly better off with Fortify due to the favorable pricing we secured five years ago."

"It has a couple of license models. The one that we use most frequently is called their flexible deployment. We use this one because it is flexible and based on the number of code-contributing developers in the organization. It includes almost everything in the Fortify suite for one developer price. It gives access to not just the secure code analyzer (SCA) but also to FSC, the secure code. It gives us accessibility to scan central, which is the decentralized scanning farm. It also gives us access to the software security center, which is the vulnerability management platform."

"There is a licensing fee, and if you bring them to the company and you want them to do the installation and the implementation in the beginning, there is a separate cost. Similarly, if you want consultation or training, there is a separate cost. I see it as suitable only for enterprises. I do not see it suitable for a small business or individual use."

"The licensing is expensive and is in the 50K range."

"Although I am not responsible for the budget, Fortify SAST is expensive."

"I rate the pricing of Fortify Static Code Analyzer as a seven out of ten since it is a bit expensive."

"The price of Fortify Static Code Analyzer could be reduced."

"The setup costs and pricing for Fortify may vary depending on the organization's needs and requirements."

"Its price is reasonable as compared to the market. It is competitively priced in comparison to other similar solutions on the market. It is also quite affordable in terms of the value that it delivers as compared to its alternative of hiring a team."

"The solution's pricing is good and reasonable because you can literally use a lot of it for free."

"FOSSA is not cheap, but their offering is top-notch. It is very much a "you get what you pay for" scenario. Regardless of the price, I highly recommend FOSSA."

"The solution's cost is a five out of ten."

"FOSSA is a fairly priced product. It is not either cheaper or expensive. The pricing lies somewhere in the middle. The solution is worth the money that we are spending to use it."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

30%

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Manufacturing Company

29%

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Educational Organization

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Fortify Static Code Analyzer?

Integrating the Fortify Static Code Analyzer into our software development lifecycle was straightforward. It highlights important information beyond just syntax errors. It identifies issues like pa...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortify Static Code Analyzer?

I rate the pricing of Fortify Static Code Analyzer as a seven out of ten since it is a bit expensive.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Fortify Static Code Analyzer?

False positives need improvement in the future. Fortify's vulnerability remediation guidance helps improve code security, but I think they need to improve the focus of the solution, as it still Con...

See all answers

What do you like most about FOSSA?

I am impressed with the tool’s seamless integration and quick results.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for FOSSA?

The solution's pricing is good and reasonable because you can literally use a lot of it for free. You have to pay for the features you need, which I think is fair. If you want to get value for free...

See all answers

What needs improvement with FOSSA?

FOSSA does not show the exact line of code with vulnerabilities, which adds time to the process as we have to locate these manually. Some other tools like Check Point or SonarQube provide exact lin...

See all answers

Comparisons

Black Duck vs Fortify Static Code Analyzer

Compared 34% of the time

Snyk vs Fortify Static Code Analyzer

Compared 18% of the time

Veracode vs Fortify Static Code Analyzer

Compared 12% of the time

Sonatype Lifecycle vs Fortify Static Code Analyzer

Compared 9% of the time

CodeSonar vs Fortify Static Code Analyzer

Compared 1% of the time

More Fortify Static Code Analyzer Competitors

Black Duck vs FOSSA

Compared 43% of the time

Snyk vs FOSSA

Compared 18% of the time

Mend.io vs FOSSA

Compared 12% of the time

JFrog Xray vs FOSSA

Compared 8% of the time

Veracode vs FOSSA

Compared 3% of the time

More FOSSA Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fortify Static Code Analyzer

March 2025

Download Fortify Static Code Analyzer product report

Buyer's Guide

FOSSA

March 2025

Download FOSSA product report

Also Known As

Fortify Static Code Analysis SAST

No data available

Overview

Fortify Static Code Analyzer (SCA) utilizes numerous algorithms in addition to a dynamic intelligence base of secure coding protocols to investigate an application’s source code for any potential risk of malicious or dangerous threats. Additionally, the solution will prioritize the most critical concerns and give direction on how users can repair those concerns. This solution researches each and every potential route that workflow and data can travel to discover and repair all possible vulnerabilities. Fortify SCA allows users to create safe and secure software quickly. Users are able to discover potential security gaps more quickly with precise outcomes and repair them immediately.

Fortify Static Code Analyzer Benefits

CI/CD pipeline security: Fortify SCA integrates well with third-party tools such as ALM Octane, Atlassian Bamboo, Azure DevOps, Eclipse, Jenkins, and Jira. It offers real-time scan results, immediate recommendations, and collaborative auditing, and finds threats faster. It also discovers and prioritizes weaknesses to reduce risk.
Cost-effective: Improves coding actions by training users as they work to better understand the relationship of static application security testing (SAST). Fortify SCA is able to find more vulnerabilities than other solutions and delivers significantly fewer false positives.
Quick and reliable scanning: Fortify SCA will discover and eradicate weaknesses in byte, binary, or source code. SAST is able to stop the bulk of code issues at the start of development. The solution is able to discover 815 specific categories of risk, works through 27 programming languages and more than one million different APIs. Fortify SCA has a positive rate of 100% in the OWASP 1.2 benchmark.

Fortify Static Code Analyzer Features

Flexible deployment: Using Fortify On Demand, users can work in a complete SaaS environment. Fortify Hosted allows users to use on-premises and SaaS to work in a secure virtual space with complete control. Fortify-On-Prem gives users absolute control of the Fortify SCA solution.
Security assistant: Users have an interactive guide as they create code that provides risk analysis and anticipated outcomes. Security Assistant is an outstanding immediate feedback tool that gives instant results with significantly fewer false positives.
Audit assistant: This feature uses machine learning to reduce manual audit time while prioritizing the most important risks to users' networks. It provides automated audits in minutes. Any manual examinations are reduced, all issues are prioritized in accordance with organizational needs, and Fortify SCA consistently provides audit results to all projects.

Results from Real Users

“Fortify Static Code Analyzer tells us if there are any security leaks or not. If there are, then it's notifying us and does not allow us to pass the DevOps pipeline. If it finds everything's perfect, as per our given guidelines, then it is allowing us to go ahead and start it, and we are able to deploy it.” - Arun D., Senior Architect at a healthcare company.

“Its flexibility is most valuable. It is such a flexible tool. It can be implemented in a number of ways. It can do anything you want it to do. It can be fully automated within a DevOps pipeline. It can also be used in an ad hoc, special test case scenario and anywhere in between.” - Tom H., Director of Security at Merito

OpenText

Up to 90% of any piece of software is from open source, creating countless dependencies and areas of risk to manage. FOSSA is the most reliable automated policy engine for legal teams to maintain license compliance, security to fix vulnerabilities, and engineering to improve code quality across the entire software supply chain. As the only developer-native open source management platform, FOSSA fully integrates with your existing CI/CD pipeline to provide complete visibility and context earlier in the software development lifecycle. For the first time, teams can collaboratively shift left and audit, analyze, control, and remediate license issues and vulnerabilities right in their existing workflows.

FOSSA

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

AppDyanmic, Uber, Twitter, Zendesk, Confluent

Find out what your peers are saying about Veracode, Checkmarx, OpenText and others in Static Code Analysis. Updated: February 2025.

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