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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
15th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
43
Ranking in other categories
Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (12th), Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) (1st)
Snyk
Ranking in Application Security Tools
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
Container Security (7th), Software Composition Analysis (SCA) (3rd), Software Development Analytics (2nd), DevSecOps (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 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%, down from 8.2% 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

"For me, as a manager, it was the ease of use. Inserting security into the development process is not normally an easy project to do. The ability for the developer to actually use it and get results and focuses, that's what counted."
"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."
"We are now deploying less defects to production."
"It highlights, with several grades of severity, the types of vulnerabilities, so we can focus on the most severe security vulnerabilities in the code."
"It was easy to set up."
"AppScan's most valuable features include its ability to identify vulnerabilities accurately, provide detailed remediation steps, and the newly introduced AI-powered features that enhance its functionality further."
"I like the recording feature."
"The platform has valuable security features, helping us identify sensitive code issues and the possibility of internal applications' exposure to external threats."
"Snyk helps me pinpoint security errors in my code."
"Our customers find container scans most valuable. They are always talking about it."
"We're loving some of the Kubernetes integration as well. That's really quite cool. It's still in the early days of our use of it, but it looks really exciting. In the Kubernetes world, it's very good at reporting on the areas around the configuration of your platform, rather than the things that you've pulled in. There's some good advice there that allows you to prioritize whether something is important or just worrying. That's very helpful."
"I am impressed with the product's security vulnerability detection. My peers in security are praising the tool for its accuracy to detect security vulnerabilities. The product is very easy to onboard. It doesn't require a lot of preparation or prerequisites. It's a bit of a plug-and-play as long as you're using a package manager or for example, you are using a GitHub repository. And that is an advantage for this tool because developers don't want to add more tools to what they're currently using."
"It has a nice dashboard where I can see all the vulnerabilities and risks that they provided. I can also see the category of any risk, such as medium, high, and low. They provide the input priority-wise. The team can target the highest one first, and then they can go to medium and low ones."
"The solution has great features and is quite stable."
"I think all the standard features are quite useful when it comes to software component scanning, but I also like the new features they're coming out with, such as container scanning, secrets scanning, and static analysis with SAST."
"There are many valuable features. For example, the way the scanning feature works. The integration is cool because I can integrate it and I don't need to wait until the CACD, I can plug it in to our local ID, and there I can do the scanning. That is the part I like best."
 

Cons

"The pricing has room for improvement."
"I would like to see the roadmap for this product. We are still waiting to see it as we have only so many resources."
"A desktop version should be added."
"They could incorporate AI to enhance vulnerability detection and improve the product's reporting capabilities."
"IBM Security AppScan needs to add performance optimization for quickly scanning the target web applications."
"The product has some technical limitations."
"There is not a central management for static and dynamic."
"There is room for improvement in the pricing model."
"It would be helpful if we get a recommendation while doing the scan about the necessary things we need to implement after identifying the vulnerabilities."
"The solution could improve the reports. They have been working on improving the reports but more work could be done."
"The feature for automatic fixing of security breaches could be improved."
"We have to integrate with their database, which means we need to send our entire code to them to scan, and they send us the report. A company working in the financial domain usually won't like to share its code or any information outside its network with any third-party provider."
"The documentation sometimes is not relevant. It does not cover the latest updates, scanning, and configurations. The documentation for some things is wrong and does not cover some configuration scannings for the multiple project settings."
"I use Snyk alongside Sonar, and Snyk tends to generate a lot of false positives. Improving the overall report quality and reducing false positives would be beneficial. I don't need additional features; just improving the existing ones would be enough."
"There are some new features that we would like to see added, e.g., more visibility into library usage for the code. Something along the lines where it's doing the identification of where vulnerabilities are used, etc. This would cause them to stand out in the market as a much different platform."
"The product is very expensive."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is very expensive."
"The solution is moderately priced."
"I rate the product's price a seven on a scale of one to ten, where one is low, and ten is high. HCL AppScan is an expensive tool."
"AppScan is a little bit expensive. IBM needs to work a little bit on the pricing model, decreasing the license cost."
"The product is moderately priced, though it's an investment due to extensive code analysis needs."
"With the features, that they offer, and the support, they offer, AppScan pricing is on a higher level."
"HCL AppScan is 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."
"I would rate the pricing of Snyk at two. I'm currently using the free version, which the company offers before buying the full version. So, the price is affordable, especially for an enterprise."
"Pricing-wise, it is not expensive as compared to other tools. If you have a couple of licenses, you can scan a certain number of projects. It just needs to be attached to them."
"The license model is based on the number of contributing developers. Snyk is expensive, for a startup company will most likely use the community edition, while larger companies will buy the licensed version. The price of Snyk is more than other SLA tools."
"The product has good pricing."
"With Snyk, you get what you pay for. It is not a cheap solution, but you get a comprehensiveness and level of coverage that is very good. The dollars in the security budget only go so far. If I can maximize my value and be able to have some funds left over for other initiatives, I want to do that. That is what drives me to continue to say, "What's out there in the market? Snyk's expensive, but it's good. Is there something as good, but more affordable?" Ultimately, I find we could go cheaper, but we would lose the completeness of vision or scope. I am not willing to do that because Snyk does provide a pretty important benefit for us."
"You can get a good deal with Snyk for pricing. It's a little expensive, but it is worth it."
"We do have some missing licenses issues, especially with non-SPDX compliant one, but we expect this to be fixed soon"
"Cost-wise, it's similar to Veracode, but I don't know the exact cost."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Government
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Insurance Company
6%
 

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?
Snyk has several limitations, including issues with Gradle, NPM, and Xcode, and trouble with AutoPR. It lacks the ability to select branches on its Web UI, forcing users to rely on CLI or CI/CD for...
 

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: January 2025.
838,713 professionals have used our research since 2012.