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HCL AppScan vs Snyk 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

HCL AppScan
Ranking in Application Security Tools
14th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
43
Ranking in other categories
Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (10th), Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) (1st)
Snyk
Ranking in Application Security Tools
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
45
Ranking in other categories
Container Security (8th), Software Composition Analysis (SCA) (3rd), Software Development Analytics (2nd), DevSecOps (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Application Security Tools category, the mindshare of HCL AppScan is 2.6%, down from 2.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Snyk is 8.0%, up from 8.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Security Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Rishi Anupam - PeerSpot reviewer
A stable and scalable scanning solution with good reporting feature
The solution is used for the vulnerabilities scan on the network side The reporting part is the most valuable feature. The penetration testing feature should be included. I have been using the solution for four years. It is a stable solution. I rate it seven out of ten. It is a scalable…
meetharoon - PeerSpot reviewer
Affordable tool boosts code scanning efficiency but faces integration hurdles
The most important feature of Snyk is its cost-effectiveness compared to other solutions such as Check Point. It is easy to consolidate Snyk across multiple entities within a large organization. Additionally, our integration of Snyk into GitHub allows us to automatically scan codebases and identify issues, which has improved efficiency.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The static scans are good, and the SaaS as well."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is Postman."
"We are now deploying less defects to production."
"The most valuable feature of HCL AppScan is its integration with the SDLC, particularly during the coding phase."
"It provides a better integration for our ecosystem."
"The most valuable feature of HCL AppScan is scanning QR codes."
"It is easy it is to use. It is quick to find things, because of the code scanning tools. It's quite simple to use and it is very good the way it reports the findings."
"The solution offers services in a few specific development languages."
"Snyk allows for scaling across large organizations, accommodating tens of thousands of applications and over 60,000 repositories, making it suitable for wide-scale deployment."
"The most valuable features include enriched information around the vulnerabilities for better triaging, in terms of the vulnerability layer origin and vulnerability tree."
"A main feature of Snyk is that when you go with SCA, you do get properly done security composition, also from the licensing and open-source parameters perspective. A lot of companies often use open-source libraries or frameworks in their code, which is a big security concern. Snyk deals with all the things and provides you with a proper report about whether any open-source code or framework that you are using is vulnerable. In that way, Snyk is very good as compared to other tools."
"We use Snyk to check vulnerabilities and rectify potential leaks in GitHub."
"Our customers find container scans most valuable. They are always talking about it."
"Snyk is a good and scalable tool."
"The most valuable feature of Snyk is the SBOM."
"The most valuable feature is that they add a lot of their own information to the vulnerabilities. They describe vulnerabilities and suggest their own mitigations or version upgrades. The information was the winning factor when we compared Snyk to others. This is what gave it more impact."
 

Cons

"The product has some technical limitations."
"AppScan needs to improve its handling of false positives."
"There are so many lines of code with so many different categories that I am likely to get lost. ​"
"I would love to see more containers. Many of the tools are great, they require an amount of configuration, setup and infrastructure. If most the applications were in a container, I think everything would be a little bit faster, because all our clients are now using containers."
"I think being able to search across more containers, especially some of the docker elements. We need a little tighter integration there. That's the only thing I can see at this point."
"It has crashed at times."
"​IBM Security AppScan Source is rather hard to use​."
"A desktop version should be added."
"The log export function could be easier when shipping logs to other platforms such as Splunk."
"It can be improved from the reporting perspective and scanning perspective. They can also improve it on the UI front."
"Could include other types of security scanning and statistical analysis"
"The feature for automatic fixing of security breaches could be improved."
"We have seen cases where tools didn't find or recognize certain dependencies. These are known issues, to some extent, due to the complexity in the language or stack that you using. There are some certain circumstances where the tool isn't actually finding what it's supposed to be finding, then it could be misleading."
"The product is very expensive."
"Because Snyk has so many integrations and so many things it can do, it's hard to really understand all of them and to get that information to each team that needs it... If there were more self-service, perhaps tutorials or overviews for new teams or developers, so that they could click through and see things themselves, that would help."
"Offering API access in the lower or free open-source tiers would be better. That would help our customers. If you don't have an enterprise plan, it becomes challenging to integrate with the rest of the systems. Our customers would like to have some open-source integrations in the next release."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"With the features, that they offer, and the support, they offer, AppScan pricing is on a higher level."
"Our clients are willing to pay the extra money. It is expensive."
"The price is very expensive."
"I would rate the product's pricing a nine out of ten. The product's pricing is expensive compared to the features that they offer."
"The solution is cheap."
"AppScan is a little bit expensive. IBM needs to work a little bit on the pricing model, decreasing the license cost."
"HCL AppScan is expensive."
"Pricing was the main reason that we went ahead with this solution as they were the lowest in the market."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"The product has good pricing."
"Presently, my company uses an open-source version of the solution. The solution's pricing can be considered quite reasonable owing to the features they offer."
"Compared to Veracode, Snyk is definitely a cheaper tool."
"Cost-wise, it's similar to Veracode, but I don't know the exact cost."
"You can get a good deal with Snyk for pricing. It's a little expensive, but it is worth it."
"We are using the open-source version for the scans."
"We do have some missing licenses issues, especially with non-SPDX compliant one, but we expect this to be fixed soon"
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Government
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Insurance Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about HCL AppScan?
The most valuable feature of HCL AppScan is its integration with the SDLC, particularly during the coding phase.
What needs improvement with HCL AppScan?
AppScan needs to improve its handling of false positives. It also requires enhancements in customer support, similar to what Veracode provides. Regularly scheduling calls with clients to discuss fe...
What is your primary use case for HCL AppScan?
The primary use case for AppScan is for security purposes. I compare AppScan with other tools such as Veracode. We use AppScan for vulnerability detection and auto-remediation of vulnerabilities wi...
How does Snyk compare with SonarQube?
Snyk does a great job identifying and reducing vulnerabilities. This solution is fully automated and monitors 24/7 to find any issues reported on the internet. It will store dependencies that you a...
What do you like most about Snyk?
The most effective feature in securing project dependencies stems from its ability to highlight security vulnerabilities.
What needs improvement with Snyk?
There are a lot of false positives that need to be identified and separated. The inclusion of AI to remove false positives would be beneficial. So far, I've not seen any AI features to enhance vuln...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

IBM Security AppScan, Rational AppScan, AppScan
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Essex Technology Group Inc., Cisco, West Virginia University, APIS IT
StartApp, Segment, Skyscanner, DigitalOcean, Comic Relief
Find out what your peers are saying about HCL AppScan vs. Snyk and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,190 professionals have used our research since 2012.