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Aikido Security vs HCL AppScan comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
8.4
Aikido Security enhances efficiency, reduces costs, simplifies compliance, and increases productivity by automating and consolidating security tasks.
Sentiment score
1.7
HCL AppScan enhances architecture with fewer errors and improved security, achieving 50% return and 20% cost savings.
Aikido Security caught a critical remote code execution vulnerability in my Python machine learning pipelines before it reached production.
Product Manager at Zidio development
Since we got rid of that, our productivity has increased, I believe, by thirty-two percent.
SecOps Engineer at IriusRisk
We were expecting to complete the compliance in a month, but I figured out Aikido Security could do it within a week for all our 13 repositories.
Co-Founder & CTO at Mango Giraffe
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.4
Aikido Security's customer service is efficient, responsive, and provides technical, proactive support with highly valued resources for quick issue resolution.
Sentiment score
5.6
HCL AppScan's support is responsive with mixed reviews, facing regional challenges and lagging behind competitors like Veracode.
Aikido Security was the easiest to use, the easiest to onboard, and the one with the most active customer support.
SecOps Engineer at IriusRisk
Their team proactively reached out after signup to ensure we were set up correctly.
Product Manager at Zidio development
Most issues were resolved through documentation links, configuration guidance, or clarification around findings.
Software Developer at Bisag-N
Veracode provides excellent assistance and regularly scheduled calls to address customer concerns and updates.
Associate Principal, Software Engineering at LTI - Larsen & Toubro Infotech
There is still room for improvement when it comes to the speed of response.
Founder Director at Techsa Services
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.9
Aikido Security scales efficiently with multiple projects and teams, though organizational challenges and minor performance lags may occur.
Sentiment score
3.9
HCL AppScan is scalable yet varies by license, integration issues, infrastructure compatibility, and CI/CD pipeline design effectiveness.
That kind of reliability becomes invisible when it works well, which is exactly what you want from a security tool running in your CI/CD pipelines.
Product Manager at Zidio development
Scalability with Aikido Security has been good, as new teams continue to be added without significant performance issues.
Software Developer at Bisag-N
Aikido Security scales well by supporting multiple projects, repositories, and development teams on a single platform.
Full Stack Developer at Sri Krishna Arts and Science
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.8
Aikido Security is consistently reliable with no major disruptions, displaying dependable performance and precise security findings despite occasional delays.
Sentiment score
7.2
HCL AppScan is stable and reliable, with minor hardware issues, improved by recent upgrades enhancing performance and stability.
The platform has been reliable and provides accurate security findings.
Full Stack Developer at Sri Krishna Arts and Science
Aikido Security has been stable, and there have been no major outages affecting workflow.
Software Developer at Bisag-N
Since we've been using HCL AppScan for about three months, we really have not encountered a false positive.
Founder Director at Techsa Services
 

Room For Improvement

Users want improved Jira integration, customization, niche language support, faster scans, better documentation, alerts, and affordable pricing.
HCL AppScan requires improvements in vulnerability detection, usability, integration, performance, support, pricing, and language/codebase compatibility to stay competitive.
Deeper customization around policies and reporting would be beneficial, since some organizations have specific compliance requirements and the customization can feel limited compared to larger, enterprise-focused platforms.
Software Developer at Bisag-N
I would love to see a Terraform module for Aikido Security.
SecOps Engineer at IriusRisk
I had a certain object with a UUID that was being considered as a private secret key or API key, which was not the case.
Co-Founder & CTO at Mango Giraffe
If I'm scanning a web application, it shows me the various components being used. It tells me whether I have Java libraries, .NET frameworks, or other log management libraries such as Log4j, and what versions of those specific components are present.
Founder Director at Techsa Services
 

Setup Cost

HCL AppScan is considered expensive but cost-effective, with varied pricing opinions influenced by its premium features and discounts.
I used the free trial, which was sufficient for evaluating the platform and its core features.
Full Stack Developer at Sri Krishna Arts and Science
Companies often choose based on budget constraints, with Veracode being on the higher end cost-wise.
Associate Principal, Software Engineering at LTI - Larsen & Toubro Infotech
 

Valuable Features

Aikido Security offers an intuitive interface, seamless integrations, and effective tools to enhance productivity and streamline security workflows.
HCL AppScan detects vulnerabilities, integrates with agile processes, offers scalability, user-friendly features, and AI-enhanced rapid scanning for security.
We were able to get all codebase vulnerability fixes within a week for all our 13 or 14 repositories that we had.
Co-Founder & CTO at Mango Giraffe
Security shifted left, meaning issues were caught during development rather than after deployment.
Product Manager at Zidio development
My favorite feature is the dependency vulnerability scanning because it quickly identifies the risk in third-party packages, which saves me time in finding vulnerabilities.
Full Stack Developer at Sri Krishna Arts and Science
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.
Associate Principal, Software Engineering at LTI - Larsen & Toubro Infotech
I have utilized its interactive application security testing, as well as both static application security testing, dynamic application security testing, and IAST.
Founder Director at Techsa Services
 

Categories and Ranking

Aikido Security
Ranking in Application Security Tools
20th
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
15th
Ranking in Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST)
9th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (27th), Container Security (30th), Software Composition Analysis (SCA) (12th), Static Code Analysis (9th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (23rd), DevSecOps (9th), Application Security Posture Management (ASPM) (11th)
HCL AppScan
Ranking in Application Security Tools
21st
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
16th
Ranking in Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST)
6th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Application Security Tools category, the mindshare of Aikido Security is 1.4%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HCL AppScan is 2.3%, down from 2.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Security Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Aikido Security1.4%
HCL AppScan2.3%
Other96.3%
Application Security Tools
 

Featured Reviews

B Goswami - PeerSpot reviewer
Product Manager at Zidio development
Security has shifted left and now catches vulnerabilities early in our development workflow
There are a few areas for improvement. The first is scan speed. For large repositories, initial scans can be slow. Incremental scanning helps, but full scans still take considerable time. The second thing is the false positive rate. While Auto-Triage is good, it is not perfect. Occasionally, genuine issues get filtered out and real false positives slip through. The third one is remediation guidance. Aikido Security tells you what is vulnerable, but sometimes the fix suggestions are generic. More specific, actionable remediation steps would save developer time. The fourth one is IDE integrations. It currently works best in CI/CD pipelines. A proper VS Code or JetBrains plugin for real-time scanning while coding would be a significant improvement. From a customer point of view, the following things could change. The first thing is documentation for custom rules. Aikido Security allows you to create custom scanning rules, but the documentation for this feature is surprisingly thin. I spent considerable time in community forums and with trial and error just to configure basic custom rules. Step-by-step guides with real-world examples would make this feature much more accessible. The second thing is better Slack and communication integrations. Currently, security alerts come through email and dashboard notifications, but our team lives in Slack. A more configurable Slack integration that sends contextual alerts directly to the relevant developer, not just a generic channel notification, would dramatically improve response time. The third one is historical trend reporting. While Aikido Security shows current vulnerability status well, generating historical reports showing security posture improvement over time is limited. For presenting security progress to management or stakeholders, better exportable trend reports would be very valuable.
Ravi Khanchandani - PeerSpot reviewer
Founder Director at Techsa Services
Has improved identification of encryption and authentication issues across cloud and on-prem applications
During the learning curve of onboarding HCL AppScan, we learned that HCL has altered the portfolio and now offers HCL AppScan 360, which has a much better look and feel with an improved user interface. However, there is one feature called SCA, which stands for Software Composition Analysis, that could be improved. When I'm doing an application scan, HCL AppScan has the ability to generate information about what components are in use. For example, if I'm scanning a web application, it shows me the various components being used. It tells me whether I have Java libraries, .NET frameworks, or other log management libraries such as Log4j, and what versions of those specific components are present. I would like to see more detailed reports from the tool. Currently, you can find out the components belonging to a specific software, but if detailed reporting became available, you would be in a better position to identify vulnerabilities. For instance, I could identify that I had the Log4j vulnerability and know that I need to fix my application accordingly. If they add the features I'm describing, I would consider giving them a higher rating. However, I've only been experienced with the product for three months.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise2
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise31
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Aikido Security?
I think Aikido Security could be improved by addressing its Jira integration, which I feel needs a bit of work. For my preferences, it is a bit too rigid. They recently added the capability of havi...
What is your primary use case for Aikido Security?
My main use case for Aikido Security is to utilize it as part of our vulnerability management program, where we also scan our images, codes, and manage our SBOM. A specific example of how I use Aik...
What advice do you have for others considering Aikido Security?
Since switching to Aikido Security, I have noticed a positive impact on my team's productivity with measurable results, as we now have measurements. Before, we did not even know how many vulnerabil...
What needs improvement with HCL AppScan?
During the learning curve of onboarding HCL AppScan, we learned that HCL has altered the portfolio and now offers HCL AppScan 360, which has a much better look and feel with an improved user interf...
What is your primary use case for HCL AppScan?
I'm currently working with BigFix and HCL AppScan. At least three people in my company are using HCL AppScan. Since we are a reseller, we run it in both lab environments and live production applica...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HCL AppScan?
AppScan is considered more cost-effective than Veracode, although I have not updated the exact pricing details. Companies often choose based on budget constraints, with Veracode being on the higher...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
IBM Security AppScan, Rational AppScan, AppScan
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

FinTech GoCardless ZIP CertifID HealthTech Dental Intelligence PE & Group Techstars Cronos Group Security Tech Human Security Tines HR Tech Simployer Recruitee Agency November Five Other Lighthouse (Hospitality Tech) Smokeball (LegalTech) Runna (B2C Tech) GEA Group (Manufacturing) Community fibre (Telecom) n8n (Software Development)
Essex Technology Group Inc., Cisco, West Virginia University, APIS IT
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