Check Point CloudGuard WAF vs Contrast Security Assess comparison

Check Point CloudGuard WAF vs. Contrast Security Assess

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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

Check Point CloudGuard WAF

Ranking in Application Security Tools

10th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Web Application Firewall (WAF) (14th)

Contrast Security Assess

Ranking in Application Security Tools

26th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (22nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Application Security Tools category, the mindshare of Check Point CloudGuard WAF is 0.1%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Contrast Security Assess is 0.6%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Security Tools

Featured Reviews

Dialungana Malungo

Principal Cybersecurity Specialist at Unitel S.A.

Protects our web applications and APIs and has a very low false positive rate

CloudGuard WAF is a very straightforward solution. I do not have to worry about signatures. Most of the solutions that are out there are mainly based on signatures, and I have to do a lot of maintenance to get the signature updates, and sometimes, due to a lack of resources, I am not able to do so. With CloudGuard WAF, I have peace of mind, because most of the features are AI-based, and there is not much configuration that needs to be done on my side. Once set, I only go to CloudGuard WAF to check. I do not have to worry about signatures or updates. Everything is done perfectly, and I have a sense of peace because I know our applications are safe. It is very important for us that CloudGuard WAF protects our applications against threats without relying on signatures. That is definitely one of the key features I need.

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ToddMcAlister

Lead Application and Data Security Engineer at a insurance company with 5,001-10,000 employees

It has an excellent API interface to pull APIs.

Assess has brought our development time down because it helps create code the first time. Instead of going through the Jenkins process to build an application, they can see right off the bat that if there are errors in the code and fix them before it even goes to build.

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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

"Check Point CloudGuard Network Security helped reduce the cost of ownership for our web application firewall by 50%."

"Check Point CloudGuard WAF works well for preemptively blocking Zero Day attacks and detecting hidden anomalies."

"Its ability to adapt to our applications and ensure our security policies are followed is a big plus."

"The portal is quite intuitive."

"It is a highly scalable solution with a quick turnaround time for deployment and running of the software across any IT system."

"The solution preemptively blocks zero-day attacks and detects hidden anomalies effectively."

"By using a cloud application security solution, our company can save costs by reducing the need for additional security hardware and software and improving operational efficiency."

"It seamlessly protects through machine learning, giving us visibility into potential attacks and where they come from."

More Check Point CloudGuard WAF pros

"The accuracy of the solution in identifying vulnerabilities is better than any other product we've used, far and away. In our internal comparisons among different tools, Contrast consistently finds more impactful vulnerabilities, and also identifies vulnerabilities that are nearly guaranteed to be there, meaning that the chance of false positives is very low."

"By far, the thing that was able to provide value was the immediate response while testing ahead of release, in real-time."

"When we access the application, it continuously monitors and detects vulnerabilities."

"Assess has an excellent API interface to pull APIs."

"The most valuable feature is the continuous monitoring aspect: the fact that we don't have to wait for scans to complete for the tool to identify vulnerabilities. They're automatically identified through developers' business-as-usual processes."

"I am impressed with the product's identification of alerts and vulnerabilities."

"The solution is very accurate in identifying vulnerabilities. In cases where we are performing application assessment using Contrast Assess, and also using legacy application security testing tools, Contrast successfully identifies the same vulnerabilities that the other tools have identified but it also identifies significantly more. In addition, it has visibility into application components that other testing methodologies are unaware of."

"We use the Contrast OSS feature that allows us to look at third-party, open-source software libraries, because it has a cool interface where you can look at all the different libraries. It has some really cool additional features where it gives us how many instances in which something has been used... It tells us it has been used 10 times out of 20 workloads, for example. Then we know for sure that OSS is being used."

More Contrast Security Assess pros

Cons

"I am pretty happy with the current version. I have not yet used it to its full potential, but there could be improvements as I explore it further."

"Check Point CloudGuard WAF could benefit from an enhanced user interface as it can be a bit complex and overwhelming for new users."

"I would like to be able to integrate the theme of Artificial Intelligence to help review issues and to monitor and view the security issue while also suggesting and interpreting and additionally configuring solutions - basically, acting as an interpreter."

"CloudGuard could improve in areas such as ease of integration with Fortinet and reducing costs associated with deployment in cloud environments like Azure."

"The trial version should be extended further so that QA test engineers can actually test the utilities in a real sense and can provide the maximum amount of feedback for enhancements."

"The learning curve was a challenge due to initially incorrect configurations."

"Check Point CloudGuard Application Security needs to improve updates on integrations. It also needs to incorporate real-time monitoring features."

"One of the big problems we found in Check Point, in general, is the support."

More Check Point CloudGuard WAF cons

"I think there was activity underway to support the centralized configuration control. There are ways to do it, but I think they were productizing more of that."

"The out-of-the-box reporting could be improved. We need to write our own APIs to make the reporting more robust."

"The product's retesting part needs improvement. The tool also needs improvement in the suggestions provided for fixing vulnerabilities. It relies more on documentation rather than on quick fixes."

"Personalization of the board and how to make it appealing to an organization is something that could be done on their end. The reports could be adaptable to the customer's preferences."

"The solution should provide more details in the section where it shows that third-party libraries have CVEs or some vulnerabilities."

"Regarding the solution's OSS feature, the one drawback that we do have is that it does not have client-side support. We'll be missing identification of libraries like jQuery or JavaScript, and such, that are client-side."

"Contrast's ability to support upgrades on the actual agents that get deployed is limited. Our environment is pretty much entirely Java. There are no updates associated with that. You have to actually download a new version of the .jar file and push that out to your servers where your app is hosted. That can be quite cumbersome from a change-management perspective."

"To instrument an agent, it has to be running on a type of application technology that the agent recognizes and understands. It's excellent when it works. If we're using an application that is using an unsupported technology, then we can't instrument it at all. We do use PHP and Contrast presently doesn't support that, although it's on their roadmap. My primary hurdle is that it doesn't support all of the technologies that we use."

More Contrast Security Assess cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"As Infiniti customers, the pricing is manageable, as we have allowances dedicated to each Check Point product. The price is not as high compared to other options I have dealt with in the past."

"The pricing is not that expensive considering what it offers."

"Check Point CloudGuard WAF is expensive compared to Azure WAF."

"The sales team or account managers from Check Point are top-notch. As I am using other products as well, my pricing was competitive compared to others."

"Considering all the benefits we've observed, we find the price to be satisfactory."

"The pricing is competitive compared to other solutions on the market. So, the licensing cost is average."

"If the pricing for the Infinity platform covers everything, it would be more straightforward. I had a hard time selling it to our CEO as a former CFO because of the differentials. There are different deltas year to year over a five-year period. It is very difficult to explain. It would be easier to digest for our executives if there was a flatter scale"

"Check Point CloudGuard Application Security's pricing is not friendly."

More Check Point CloudGuard WAF pricing and cost advice

"The good news is that the agent itself comes in two different forms: the unlicensed form and the licensed form. Unlicensed gives use of that software composition analysis for free. Thereafter, if you apply a license to that same agent, that's when the instrumentation takes hold. So one of my suggestions is to do what we're doing: Deploy the agent to as many applications as possible, with just the SCA feature turned on with no license applied, and then you can be more choosy and pick which teams will get the license applied."

"You only get one license for an application. Ours are very big, monolithic applications with millions of lines of code. We were able to apply one license to one monolithic application, which is great. We are happy with the licensing. Pricing-wise, they are industry-standard, which is fine."

"It's a tiered licensing model. The more you buy, as you cross certain quantity thresholds, the pricing changes. If you have a smaller environment, your licensing costs are going to be different than a larger environment... The licensing is primarily per application. An application can be as many agents as you need. If you've got 10 development servers and 20 production servers and 50 QA servers, all of those agents can be reporting as a single application that utilizes one license."

"I like the per-application licensing model... We just license the app and we look at different vulnerabilities on that app and we remediate within the app. It's simpler."

"The solution is expensive."

"The product's pricing is low. I would rate it a two out of ten."

"For what it offers, it's a very reasonable cost. The way that it is priced is extremely straightforward. It works on the number of applications that you use, and you license a server. It is something that is extremely fair, because it doesn't take into consideration the number of requests, etc. It is only priced based on the number of onboarded applications. It suits our model as well, because we have huge traffic. Our number of applications is not that large, so the pricing works great for us."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

14%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Government

Financial Services Firm

25%

Manufacturing Company

13%

Computer Software Company

10%

Insurance Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about CloudGuard for Application Security?

We have not had any incidents. We could realize its benefits immediately. We watched and monitored the traffic, and it was amazing to see the results.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for CloudGuard for Application Security?

I am less knowledgeable with prices because I only define the requirements and look at the execution. I know that its price is relatively expensive compared to other products but it gives benefits ...

What needs improvement with CloudGuard for Application Security?

I would like it to be able to analyze more complex functions, although I did not examine the case study of more complex implementations. Things like forum fields, etc seem to need a little more foc...

What do you like most about Contrast Security Assess?

When we access the application, it continuously monitors and detects vulnerabilities.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Contrast Security Assess?

The product's pricing is low. I would rate it a two out of ten.

What needs improvement with Contrast Security Assess?

Technical support for the solution should be faster. We have to further analyze what kind of CVEs are in the reported libraries and what part of the code is affected. That analysis can be added to ...

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Product Reports

Check Point CloudGuard WAF

Download Check Point CloudGuard WAF product report

Contrast Security Assess

Download Contrast Security Assess product report

Also Known As

Check Point CloudGuard Application Security, CloudGuard Application Security, CloudGuard AppSec

Contrast Assess

Overview

Check Point CloudGuard WAF (Web Application Firewall) is a cloud-native security solution designed to protect web applications and APIs from known and unknown threats. It employs contextual AI and machine learning to prevent zero-day attacks without relying on traditional signature-based detection methods, ensuring that applications remain secure even as new threats emerge.

CloudGuard WAF offers preemptive protection against vulnerabilities by using machine learning to identify and block zero-day threats like Log4Shell and Spring4Shell. It provides precise detection capabilities, minimizing the need for constant fine-tuning and reducing false positives. Designed for cloud-native environments, CloudGuard WAF integrates seamlessly with CI/CD pipelines, supporting automated deployment and configuration through infrastructure as code (IaC) or APIs.

Key Features of CloudGuard WAF:

ML-Based Threat Prevention: Stops application-layer attacks, including those listed in the OWASP Top 10, with minimal tuning and no reliance on signature updates.
API Discovery and Security: Identifies and secures APIs, preventing misuse and enforcing API schemas to protect against unauthorized access.
Bot and DDoS Prevention: Detects and mitigates automated attacks that can disrupt services or degrade customer experiences.
Intrusion Prevention (IPS): Provides protection against over 2,800 web-related CVEs using Check Point’s award-winning IPS technology.

Benefits of CloudGuard WAF:

Zero-Day Protection: Mitigates risks from newly discovered vulnerabilities without waiting for signature updates.
Reduced Operational Overhead: Eliminates the need for constant manual tuning and exception handling, simplifying security management.
Comprehensive API Security: Enhances control over your attack surface by discovering and securing all APIs, including shadow, rogue, and deprecated endpoints.
Fast and Easy Deployment: Deployable within minutes via WAF as a Service (WAFaaS), requiring only a one-time DNS configuration for immediate protection.

CloudGuard WAF is particularly suitable for organizations using modern, cloud-based architectures that require robust, automated security measures for both applications and APIs. Its capabilities are valuable for industries that handle sensitive data, such as finance or healthcare, where compliance and data protection are critical. Pricing and support are typically customized to the specific needs and scale of the deployment, with options for continuous updates and maintenance through Check Point's managed services.

CloudGuard WAF by Check Point provides advanced, AI-driven protection for web applications and APIs, offering automated, precise threat prevention and easy integration with cloud-native environments, ensuring robust security without the need for extensive manual configuration.

Check Point Software Technologies

Contrast Security is the world’s leading provider of security technology that enables software applications to protect themselves against cyberattacks, heralding the new era of self-protecting software. Contrast's patented deep security instrumentation is the breakthrough technology that enables highly accurate assessment and always-on protection of an entire application portfolio, without disruptive scanning or expensive security experts. Only Contrast has sensors that work actively inside applications to uncover vulnerabilities, prevent data breaches, and secure the entire enterprise from development, to operations, to production.

Contrast Security

Sample Customers

Orange España, Paschoalotto

Williams-Sonoma, Autodesk, HUAWEI, Chromeriver, RingCentral, Demandware.

Check Point CloudGuard WAF vs. Contrast Security Assess