Mend.io vs Synopsys Defensics comparison

The compared Mend.io and Black Duck solutions aren't in the same category. Mend.io is ranked #7 in SCA , with an average rating of 9.3, and holds a 7.8% mindshare in the category. Black Duck is ranked #5 in FTT , and holds a 22.1% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of Mend.io users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Black Duck users who would recommend it.

Mend.io

Read 31 Mend.io reviews

7,782 Views
3,580 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Synopsys Defensics

Read 4 Synopsys Defensics reviews

1,131 Views
124 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Mend.io

Synopsys Defensics

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Mend.io and Synopsys Defensics based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Black Duck, Snyk, Veracode and others in Software Composition Analysis (SCA).

To learn more, read our detailed Software Composition Analysis (SCA) Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Software Composition Analysis (SCA)

July 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 861,524 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

Mend.io

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Security Tools (17th), Software Composition Analysis (SCA) (7th), Static Code Analysis (4th), Software Supply Chain Security (1st)

Synopsys Defensics

Average Rating

8.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Fuzz Testing Tools (5th)

Mindshare comparison

Mend.io and Synopsys Defensics aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Mend.io is designed for Software Composition Analysis (SCA) and holds a mindshare of 7.8%, down 8.2% compared to last year.
Synopsys Defensics, on the other hand, focuses on Fuzz Testing Tools, holds 22.1% mindshare, up 15.4% since last year.

Software Composition Analysis (SCA)

Fuzz Testing Tools

Featured Reviews

meetharoon

CEO at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees

Enables smooth management of vulnerabilities and promotes a shift towards a culture of security

We have witnessed Mend.io for its high stability, consistently living up to our expectations in terms of performance and reliability. Our developers have reported very few issues and almost minimal to zero downtime, which is a critical factor for our organization to rely on Mend SCA to secure our applications. We didn't experience any major issues in the stability of the product. This level of dependability is crucial for our hundreds of development teams that need to maintain continuous integration and deployment processes without interruptions. We realize the solution's architecture is designed to support a wide range of use cases, making it suitable for organizations of varying sizes and complexities. As a SaaS (Software as a Service) offering, Mend.io eliminates the need for physical server management, which further contributes to its stability. Users can access the platform without worrying about hardware failures or maintenance issues that can affect on-premises solutions. Moreover, Mend.io's integration capabilities with existing workflows—including IDEs, repositories, and CI/CD pipelines—enhance its stability by providing a seamless user experience. This integration allows teams to incorporate security scanning into their development processes without significant disruptions, which is often a challenge with less stable solutions. Feedback from our developers and architects highlights the tool's effectiveness in reducing open-source software vulnerabilities while maintaining a streamlined development lifecycle. Our organization have experienced improved code quality and faster incident response times as a result of using Mend.io. The platform's intuitive dashboard and management views are also praised by our developers for their usability, contributing to a positive user experience. In short, Mend.io stands out as a dependable and reliable solution in the realm of software composition analysis. Its high stability, combined with robust integration capabilities and user-friendly features, makes it an excellent choice for organizations seeking to enhance their security posture while minimizing operational disruptions.

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Sarath Kumar Choday

Senior Technical Lead at HCL Technologies

Product security tests for switches and router sections

Codenomicon Defensics should be more advanced for the testing sector. It should be somewhat easy and flexible to install. What I see in the documentation isn't that. Even if something doesn't malfunction, sometimes it is hard to install and execute. The product needs video documentation. This would help a lot more.

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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

"Its ease of use and good results are the most valuable."

"We use a lot of open sources with a variety of containers, and the different open sources come with different licenses. Some come with dual licenses, some are risky and some are not. All our three use cases are equally important to us and we found WhiteSource handles them decently."

"The license management of WhiteSource was at a good level. As compared to other tools that I have used, its functionality for the licenses for the code libraries was quite good. Its UI was also fine."

"With the fix suggestions feature, not only do you get the specific trace back to where the vulnerability is within your code, but you also get fix suggestions."

"The overall support that we receive is pretty good. "

"We find licenses together with WhiteSource which are associated with a certain library, then we get a classification of the license. This is with respect to criticality and vulnerability, so we could take action and improve some things, or replace a third-party library which seems to be too risky for us to use on legal grounds."

"Enables scanning/collecting third-party libraries and classifying license types. In this way we ensure our third-party software policy is followed."

"The best feature is that the Mend R&D team does their due diligence for all the vulnerabilities. In case they observe any important or critical vulnerabilities, such as the Log4j-related vulnerability, we usually get a dedicated email from our R&D team saying that this particular vulnerability has been exploited in the world, and we should definitely check our project for this and take corrective actions."

More Mend.io pros

"We have found multiple issues in our embedded system network protocols, related to buffer overflow. We have reduced some of these issues."

"The product is related to US usage with TLS contact fees, i.e. how more data center connections will help lower networking costs."

"Whatever the test suit they give, it is intelligent. It will understand the protocol and it will generate the test cases based on the protocol: protocol, message sequence, protocol, message structure... Because of that, we can eliminate a lot of unwanted test cases, so we can execute the tests and complete them very quickly."

Cons

"The turnaround time for upgrading databases for this tool as well as the accuracy could be improved."

"We specifically use this solution within our CICD pipelines in Azure DevOps, and we would like to have a gate so that if the score falls below a certain value then we can block the pipeline from running."

"We have ended our relationship with WhiteSource. We were using an agent that we built in the pipeline so that you can scan the projects during build time. But unfortunately, that agent didn't work at all. We have more than 500 projects, and it doubled or tripled the build time. For other projects, we had the failure of the builds without any known reason. It was not usable at all. We spent maybe one year working on the issues to try to make it work, but it didn't in the end. We should be able to integrate it with ID and Shift Left so that the developers are able to see the scan results without waiting for the build to fail."

"Mend supports most of the common package managers, but it doesn't support some that we use. I would appreciate it if they can quickly make these changes to add new package managers when necessary."

"The solution lacks the code snippet part."

"The initial setup could be simplified."

"WhiteSource needs improvement in the scanning of the containers and images with distinguishing the layers."

"It would be good if it can do dynamic code analysis. It is not necessarily in that space, but it can do more because we have too many tools. Their partner relationship support is a little bit confusing. They haven't really streamlined the support process when we buy through a reseller. They should improve their process."

More Mend.io cons

"Sometimes, when we are testing embedded devices, when we trigger the test cases, the target will crash immediately. It is very difficult for us to identify the root cause of the crash because they do not provide sophisticated tools on the target side. They cover only the client-side application... They do not have diagnostic tools for the target side. Rather, they have them but they are very minimal and not very helpful."

"Codenomicon Defensics should be more advanced for the testing sector. It should be somewhat easy and flexible to install."

"It does not support the complete protocol stack. There are some IoT protocols that are not supported and new protocols that are not supported."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We always negotiate for the best price possible, and as far as I know, Mend has done an excellent job with their pricing. Our management is happy with the pricing, which has led to renewals."

"As we were using an SaaS-based service, the solution must be scalable, although my understanding is that this is based on the licensing model one is using."

"WhiteSource is much more affordable than Veracode."

"The solution involves a yearly licensing fee."

"Pricing and licensing are comparable to other tools. When we started, it was less than our existing solution. I can't go into specifics, but it isn't cheap."

"It is fairly priced."

"When comparing the price of WhiteSource to the competition it is priced well. The cost for 50 users is approximately $18,000 annually."

"The version that we are using, WhiteSource Bolt, is a free integration with Azure DevOps."

More Mend.io pricing and cost advice

"Licensing is a bit expensive."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

16%

Computer Software Company

15%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Insurance Company

Computer Software Company

19%

Manufacturing Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

University

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

How does WhiteSource compare with SonarQube?

Red Hat Ceph does well in simplifying storage integration by replacing the need for numerous storage solutions. This solution allows for multiple copies of replicated and coded pools to be kept, ea...

See all answers

How does WhiteSource compare with Black Duck?

We researched Black Duck but ultimately chose WhiteSource when looking for an application security tool. WhiteSource is a software solution that enables agile open source security and license compl...

See all answers

What do you like most about Mend.io?

The best feature is that the Mend R&D team does their due diligence for all the vulnerabilities. In case they observe any important or critical vulnerabilities, such as the Log4j-related vulner...

See all answers

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Comparisons

SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) vs Mend.io

Compared 22% of the time

Black Duck vs Mend.io

Compared 12% of the time

Snyk vs Mend.io

Compared 9% of the time

Veracode vs Mend.io

Compared 7% of the time

GitHub Dependabot vs Mend.io

Compared 7% of the time

More Mend.io Competitors

SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) vs Synopsys Defensics

Compared 32% of the time

HCL AppScan vs Synopsys Defensics

Compared 12% of the time

Snyk vs Synopsys Defensics

Compared 12% of the time

Veracode vs Synopsys Defensics

Compared 11% of the time

Coverity vs Synopsys Defensics

Compared 10% of the time

More Synopsys Defensics Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Mend.io

June 2025

Download Mend.io product report

Buyer's Guide

GitLab vs. Synopsys Defensics

June 2025

Download Synopsys Defensics product report

Also Known As

WhiteSource, Mend SCA, Mend.io Supply Chain Defender, Mend SAST

Defensics, Codenomicon Defensics

Overview

Mend.io is a software composition analysis tool that secures what developers create. The solution provides an automated reduction of the software attack surface, reduces developer burdens, and accelerates app delivery. Mend.io provides open-source analysis with its in-house and other multiple sources of software vulnerabilities. In addition, the solution offers license and policy violation alerts, has great pipeline integration, and, since it is a SaaS (software as a service), it doesn’t require you to physically maintain servers or data centers for any implementation. Not only does Mend.io reduce enterprise application security risk, it also helps developers meet deadlines faster.

Mend.io Features

Mend.io has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

Vulnerability analysis
Automated remediation
Seamless integration
Business prioritization
Limitless scalability
Intuitive interface
Language support
Integration
Continuous monitoring
Remediation suggestions
Customization

Mend.io Benefits

There are many benefits to implementing Mend.io. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

Easy to use: The Mend.io platform is very user-friendly and easy to set up.

Third-party libraries: The solution eases the process of keeping track of all the used third-party dependencies within a product. It not only scans for the pure occurrence (also transitively) but also takes care of licenses and vulnerabilities.

Static code analysis: With Mend.io’s static code analysis, you can quickly identify security weaknesses in custom code across desktop, web, and mobile applications.

Broad support: Mend.io provides 27 different programming languages and various programming frameworks.

Easy integration: Mend.io makes integration very easy with existing DevOps environments and CI/CD pipelines so developers don’t need to manually configure or trigger the scan.

Ultra-fast scanning engine: The solution’s scanning engine generates results up to ten times faster than legacy SAST solutions.

Unified developer experience: Mend.io has a unified developer experience inside the code repository that shows side-by-side security alerts and remediation suggestions for custom code and open-source code.

Reviews from Real Users

Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by PeerSpot users currently using the Mend.io solution.

Jeffrey H., System Manager of Cloud Engineering at Common Spirit, says, “Finding vulnerabilities is pretty easy. Mend.io (formerly WhiteSource) does a great job of that and we had quite a few when we first put this in place. Mend.io does a very good job of finding the open-source, checking the versions, and making sure they're secure. They notify us of critical high, medium, and low impacts, and if anything is wrong. We find the product very easy to use and we use it as a core part of our strategy for scanning product code moving toward release.”

PeerSpot reviewer Ben D., Head of Software Engineering at a legal firm, mentions, “The way WhiteSource scans the code is great. It’s easy to identify and remediate open source vulnerabilities using this solution. WhiteSource helped reduce our mean time to resolution since we adopted the product. In terms of integration, it's pretty easy.”

An IT Service Manager at a wholesaler/distributor comments, “Mend.io provides threat detection and an excellent UI in a highly stable solution, with outstanding technical support.”

Another reviewer, Kevin D., Intramural OfficialIntramural at Northeastern University, states, "The vulnerability analysis is the best aspect of the solution."

Mend.io

Defensics® fuzz testing is a comprehensive, powerful, and automated black box solution that enables organizations to effectively and efficiently discover and remediate security weaknesses in software. By taking a systematic and intelligent approach to negative testing, Defensics allows organizations to ensure software security without compromising on product innovation, increasing time to market, or inflating operational costs.

Black Duck

Sample Customers

Microsoft, Autodesk, NCR, Target, IBM, vodafone, Siemens, GE digital, KPMG, LivePerson, Jack Henry and Associates

Coriant, CERT-FI, Next Generation Networks

Buyer's Guide

Software Composition Analysis (SCA)

July 2025

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