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Aqua Cloud Security Platform vs Mend.io comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 29, 2025

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

Aqua Cloud Security Platform
Ranking in Software Supply Chain Security
9th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
Cloud and Data Center Security (12th), Container Security (16th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (15th), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (13th), DevSecOps (10th)
Mend.io
Ranking in Software Supply Chain Security
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (17th), Software Composition Analysis (SCA) (7th), Static Code Analysis (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Software Supply Chain Security category, the mindshare of Aqua Cloud Security Platform is 3.9%, down from 4.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Mend.io is 12.7%, down from 19.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Software Supply Chain Security Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Mend.io12.7%
Aqua Cloud Security Platform3.9%
Other83.4%
Software Supply Chain Security
 

Featured Reviews

Burak AKCAGUN - PeerSpot reviewer
A robust and cost-effective solution, excelling in scalability, on-premises support, and responsive technical support, making it well-suited for enterprises navigating stringent regulatory environment
The most crucial aspect is runtime protection, specifically image scanning before preproduction and deployment. Customers find it invaluable to have the ability to check for vulnerabilities in an image before deployment, similar to a sandbox environment. This feature ensures that customers can identify any potential issues with the image, such as misconfigurations or vulnerabilities, before integrating it into their workloads and infrastructure. In their source pipeline, companies can identify issues before deploying changes. This is crucial because customers prefer resolving any problems or misconfigurations before the deployment process. Software change security, including GSPM Cloud, is a key feature customers seek in their infrastructure.
meetharoon - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Aqua Security helps us to check the vulnerability of image assurance and check for malware."
"The most valuable feature is the security."
"The most helpful feature of Aqua Security is Drift Prevention, which is a feature that allows images to be immutable. In addition, one of the main reasons we went with Aqua Security is because it provides strong protection when it comes to runtime security."
"The container security element of this product has been very valuable to our organization."
"From what I understand, the initial setup is simple."
"The most valuable feature of Aqua Security is the scanner."
"The DTA, which stands for Dynamic Threat Analysis, allows me to analyze Docker images in a sandbox environment before deployment, helping me anticipate risks."
"Their sandboxing service is also really good."
"The overall support that we receive is pretty good. ​"
"The solution boasts a broad range of features and covers much of what an ideal SCA tool should."
"Mend has reduced our open-source software vulnerabilities and helped us remediate issues quickly. My company's policy is to ensure that vulnerabilities are fixed before it gets to production."
"WhiteSource is unique in the scanning of open-source licenses. Additionally, the vulnerabilities aspect of the solution is a benefit. We don't use WhiteSource in the whole organization, but we use it for some projects. There we receive a sense of the vulnerabilities of the open-source components, which improves our security work. The reports are automated which is useful."
"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."
"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."
"What is very nice is that the product is very easy to set up. When you want to implement Mend.io, it just takes a few minutes to create your organization, create your products, and scan them. It's really convenient to have Mend scanning your products in less than one hour."
"I am the organizational deployment administrator for this tool, and I, along with other users in our company, especially the security team, appreciate the solution for several reasons. The UI is excellent, and scanning for security threats fits well into our workflow."
 

Cons

"We would like to see an improvement in the overview visibility that this solution offers."
"It's a bit hard to use the user roles. That was a bit confusing."
"The solution could improve user-friendliness."
"Since we are working from home, we would like to have the proper training for Aqua."
"Aqua Security could provide more open documentation so that their learning resources can be more easily accessed and searched through online. Right now, a lot of the documentation is closed and not available to the public."
"The integrations on CICD could be improved. If Aqua had more plugins or container images to integrate and automate more easily on CICD, it would be better."
"They want to release improvements to their product to work with other servers because now there are more focused on the Kubernetes environment. They need to improve the normal servers. I would like to have more options."
"There's room for improvement, particularly in management capabilities as it may not be comprehensive enough for all customers, and it has been lacking in the realm of cloud security posture management."
"I would like to have an additional compliance pack. Currently, it does not have anything for the CIS framework or the NIST framework. If we directly run a scan, and it is under the CIS framework, we can directly tell the auditor that this product is now CIS compliant."
"It would be nice to have a better way to realize its full potential and translate it within the UI or during onboarding."
"Some detected libraries do not specify a location of where in the source they were matched from, which is something that should be enhanced to enable quicker troubleshooting."
"WhiteSource Prioritize should be expanded to cover more than Java and JavaScript."
"AI integration in code security tools like Mend.io is still in its early stages and relatively immature."
"At times, the latency of getting items out of the findings after they're remediated is higher than it should be."
"They're working on a UI refresh. That's probably been one of the pain points for us as it feels like a really old application."
"If anything, I would spend more time making this more user-friendly, better documenting the CLI, and adding more examples to help expand the current documentation."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Aqua Security is not cheap, and it's not very expensive, such as Splunk, they are in the middle."
"They were reasonable with their pricing. They were pretty down-to-earth about the way they pitched their product and the way they tried to close the deal. They were one of the rare companies that approached the whole valuation in a way that made sense for our company, for our needs, and for their own requirements as well... They will accommodate your needs if they are able to understand them and they're stated clearly."
"It comes at a reasonable cost."
"Dealing with licensing costs isn't my responsibility, but I know that the licenses don't depend on the number of users, but instead are priced according to your workload."
"The pricing of this solution could be improved."
"Its pricing model is per developer. It depends on the number of developers in the company. The license is for a minimum of 20 developers. So, even if you are a small startup with less than 10 developers, you have to buy a license for 20 developers on a yearly subscription, which makes it quite expensive for startup customers. I provide consultation to startup accelerators. They're small at the beginning, and only once they grow to 20 developers, they can afford this tool. As a result, WhiteSource is missing this target audience. Their licensing is not flexible."
"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."
"It is fairly priced."
"WhiteSource is much more affordable than Veracode."
"The version that we are using, WhiteSource Bolt, is a free integration with Azure DevOps."
"The solution involves a yearly licensing fee."
"Mend is costly but not overly expensive. The license was quite expensive this year, but we managed to negotiate the price down to the same as last year. At the same time, it's a good value. We're getting what we're paying for and still not using all the features. We could probably get more out of the tool and make it more valuable. At the moment, we don't have the capacity to do that."
"When comparing the price of WhiteSource to the competition it is priced well. The cost for 50 users is approximately $18,000 annually."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
23%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Insurance Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise9
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise17
 

Questions from the Community

What do you think of Aqua Security vs Prisma Cloud?
Aqua Security is easy to use and very manageable. Its main focus is on Kubernetes and Docker. Security is a very valuable feature and their speed of integration is very good. The initial setup was ...
What do you like most about Aqua Security?
Customers find it invaluable to have the ability to check for vulnerabilities in an image before deployment, similar to a sandbox environment.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Aqua Security?
It comes at a reasonable cost. When compared to Prisma Cloud, it is more budget-friendly.
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...
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...
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...
 

Also Known As

Aqua Security Platform, CloudSploit, Argon
WhiteSource, Mend SCA, Mend.io Supply Chain Defender, Mend SAST
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

HPE Salesforce Telstra Ellie Mae Cathay Pacific HomeAway
Microsoft, Autodesk, NCR, Target, IBM, vodafone, Siemens, GE digital, KPMG, LivePerson, Jack Henry and Associates
Find out what your peers are saying about Aqua Cloud Security Platform vs. Mend.io and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
867,349 professionals have used our research since 2012.