Checkmarx One vs Fortify Application Defender comparison

Checkmarx and OpenText are both solutions in the Application Security Tools category. Checkmarx is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.3, while OpenText is ranked #25 with an average rating of 8.0. Checkmarx holds a 10.2% mindshare in AS, compared to OpenText’s 0.8% mindshare. Additionally, 87% of Checkmarx users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 81% of OpenText users who would recommend it.

Checkmarx One

Read 71 Checkmarx One reviews

19,941 Views
15,953 Comparison Views

87% willing to recommend

Fortify Application Defender

Read 11 Fortify Application Defender reviews

1,172 Views
914 Comparison Views

81% willing to recommend

Checkmarx One

Fortify Application Defender

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 8, 2024

Checkmarx One and Fortify Application Defender are two competitive solutions in the application security sector. Fortify has an edge with its comprehensive features and advanced analytics, making it a worthwhile investment for users prioritizing in-depth security.

Features: Checkmarx One is known for its integration capabilities, automated scanning, and early vulnerability detection. Fortify Application Defender offers real-time threat protection, robust analytics, and detailed insights into potential vulnerabilities.

Room for Improvement: Checkmarx One users suggest reporting enhancements, better customization options, and a less steep learning curve. Fortify Application Defender could improve its initial setup process, scalability, and onboarding experience.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Checkmarx One is recognized for smooth deployment and responsive customer service, with exceptional support. Fortify’s deployment is complex but reliable once operational, with effective support.

Pricing and ROI: Checkmarx One offers competitive pricing, leading to good ROI. Though Fortify Application Defender is costlier, it delivers ROI through advanced features and long-term efficiency. Users find Checkmarx more budget-friendly; Fortify attracts with potential security advancements.

To learn more, read our detailed Checkmarx One vs. Fortify Application Defender Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Checkmarx One vs. Fortify Application Defender

September 2025

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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

Checkmarx One

Ranking in Application Security Tools

3rd

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (3rd), Vulnerability Management (23rd), Container Security (22nd), Static Code Analysis (3rd), API Security (3rd), Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) (4th), DevSecOps (5th), Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (9th)

Fortify Application Defender

Ranking in Application Security Tools

25th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Application Security Tools category, the mindshare of Checkmarx One is 10.2%, down from 13.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortify Application Defender is 0.8%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Security Tools Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Checkmarx One	10.2%
Fortify Application Defender	0.8%
Other	89.0%

Application Security Tools

Q&A Highlights

Shiva

Works at Saviynt

Dec 17, 2019

What is the Biggest Difference Between Checkmarx and Fortify?

Checkmarx SAST is a product supporting 20+ languages, including the modern ones (GoLang, Kotlin, Swift, Scala, Typescript, React). Its language support is constantly kept up with the current versions of the respective languages/frameworks (e.g. .NET Core 2.x etc.). Unlike Fortify, Checkmarx analyses raw (uncompiled) source code, which makes it less susceptible to changes in the built environment (e.g. no dependency on the specific version of XCode). Finally, the Checkmarx solution is available both as an on-premise and in the cloud (hosted) solution with the same capabilities. Fortify on demand (which is the cloud-only solution) is different from the on-prem one.

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Featured Reviews

Syed Hasan

Specialist Leader at Deloitte

Partner experiences excellent technical support and seamless initial setup

In my opinion, if we are able to extract or show the report, and because everything is going towards agent tech and GenAI, it would be beneficial if it could get integrated with our code base and do the fix automatically. It could suggest how the code base is written and automatically populate the source code with three different solution options to choose from. This would be really helpful.

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Saroj-Patnaik

Software Development Engineer 3 at Ernst & Young

Reliable solution with excellent machine learning algorithms but expensive and lacking support

I primarily use Fortify Application Defender to assess whether our products can defend against applications Fortify Application Defender's most valuable features are machine learning algorithms, real-time remediation, and automatic vulnerability notifications. Fortify Application Defender gives…

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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

"The most valuable feature is the simple user interface."

"The value you can get out of the speedy production may be worth the price tag."

"The SAST component was absolutely 100% stable."

"The solution allows us to create custom rules for code checks."

"The user interface is modern and nice to use."

"Both automatic and manual code review (CxQL) are valuable."

"It has all the features we need."

"Checkmarx offers many valuable features, including Static Application Security Testing (SAST), Software Composition Analysis (SCA), Infrastructure as Code (IAC), Supply Chain Security, and API Security."

More Checkmarx One pros

"Fortify Application Defender's most valuable features are machine learning algorithms, real-time remediation, and automatic vulnerability notifications."

"The information from Fortify Application Defender on how to fix and solve issues is very good compared to other solutions."

"Its ability to find security defects is valuable."

"I find the configuration of rules in Fortify Application Defender useful. Its integration is also easy."

"We are able to provide out customers with a secure application after development. They are no longer left wondering if they are vulnerable to different threats within the market following deployment."

"The most valuable feature is that it analyzes data in real-time."

"The most valuable feature is the ability to automatically feed it rules what it's coupled with the WebInspect dynamic application scanning technology."

"The solution helped us to improve the code quality of our organization."

More Fortify Application Defender pros

Cons

"Updating and debugging of queries is not very convenient."

"Checkmarx could improve the REST APIs by including automation."

"The statistics module has a function that allows you to show some statistics, but I think it's limited. Maybe it needs more information."

"If it is a very large code base then we have a problem where we cannot scan it."

"This product requires you to create your own rulesets. You have to do a lot of customization."

"The Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) feature should be better."

"The reports are good, but they still need to be improved considering what the UI offers."

"We are trying to find out if there is a way to identify the run-time null values. I am analyzing different tools to check if there is any tool that supports run-time null value identification, but I don't think any of the tools in the market currently supports this feature. It would be helpful if Checkmarx can identify and throw an exception for a null value at the run time. It would make things a lot easier if there is a way for Checkmarx to identify nullable fields or hard-coded values in the code. The accessibility for customized Checkmarx rules is currently limited and should be improved. In addition, it would be great if Checkmarx can do static code and dynamic code validation. It does a lot of security-related scanning, and it should also do static code and dynamic code validation. Currently, for security-related validation, we are using Checkmarx, and for static code and dynamic code validation, we are using some other tools. We are spending money on different tools. We can pay a little extra money and use Checkmarx for everything."

More Checkmarx One cons

"Support for older compilers/IDEs is lacking."

"Fortify Application Defender could improve by supporting more code languages, such as GRAAS and Groovy."

"The workbench is a little bit complex when you first start using it."

"The false positive rate should be lower."

"The biggest complaint that I have heard concerns additional platform support because right now, it only supports applications that are written in .NET and Java."

"The licensing can be a little complex."

"The product should integrate industry-standard code review tools internally with its system. This would streamline the coding process, as developers wouldn't need multiple tools for code review and security checks. Many independent and open-source tools are available, from Apache to various libraries. Using multiple DevOps pipeline tools can slow the turnaround time."

"I encountered many false positives for Python applications."

More Fortify Application Defender cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This solution is expensive. The customized package allows you to buy additional users at any time."

"Checkmarx is not a cheap scanning tool, but none of the security tools are cheap. Checkmarx is a powerful scanning tool, and it’s essential to have one of these products."

"We have a subscription license that is on a yearly basis, and it's a pretty competitive solution."

"The tool's pricing is fine."

"The solution is costly."

"Checkmarx is comparatively costlier than other products, which is why some of the customers feel reluctant to go for it, though performance-wise, Checkmarx can compete with other products."

"The pricing was not very good. This is just a framework which shouldn’t cost so much."

"I would rate the solution’s pricing an eight out of ten. The tool’s pricing is higher than others and it is for the license alone."

More Checkmarx One pricing and cost advice

"The licensing is very complex, it's project based and can range from $10,000 to $200,000+ depending on the project type and size."

"The price of this solution could be less expensive."

"The base licensing costs for the SaaS platform is about $900 USD per application, per year."

"The product’s price is much higher than other tools."

"Fortify Application Defender is very expensive."

"I rate the solution's pricing a five out of ten. It comes as an annual cloud subscription. The tool's pricing is around 50 lakhs."

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Answers from the Community

Shiva

Works at Saviynt

Dec 17, 2019

What is the Biggest Difference Between Checkmarx and Fortify?

2 out of 5 answers

Akshay Prasad

Solving Acute Engineering Problems at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Dec 16, 2019

The major difference is that Checkmarx scans the code without compiling the code. This has a great advantage as code building issues are eliminated, scan time is very less and false positive is less to some extent. One more major this is Checkmarx learns as you eliminate false positives and does not show the same issue again. We can perform incremental scans on the codebase where the old issue is nicely marked as "Recurring" and new ones in Red as NEW. Checkmarx has a highly customizable filter creation where you can create a filter that can eliminate the common recurring issues in scans. This feature is very flexible and you can write your own filters and also, write specific patterns that are found in manual review which is a great help as coding styles differ form teams to teams.

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it_user1242723

Company Owner at BCMC

Dec 16, 2019

Looking at the Gartner report I would say that Checkmarx is way easier to set up (initial setup) compared to Micro Focus Fortify. Also, the financial strength of the Micro Focus Fortify spin/merger is a concern so investments could be at risk.

Read full answer

See all 5 answers

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

20%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Financial Services Firm

17%

Manufacturing Company

15%

Computer Software Company

12%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	30
Midsize Enterprise	9
Large Enterprise	38

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	3
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	8

Questions from the Community

What alternatives are there for Fortify WebInspect and Fortify SCA?

I would like to recommend Checkmarx. With Checkmarx, you are able to have an all in one solution for SAST and SCA as well. Veracode is only a cloud solution. Hope this helps.

See all answers

What do you like most about Checkmarx?

Compared to the solutions we used previously, Checkmarx has reduced our workload by almost 75%.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Checkmarx?

The pricing is relatively expensive due to the product's quality and performance, but it is worth it.

See all answers

What do you like most about Fortify Application Defender?

I find the configuration of rules in Fortify Application Defender useful. Its integration is also easy.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Fortify Application Defender?

The product should integrate industry-standard code review tools internally with its system. This would streamline the coding process, as developers wouldn't need multiple tools for code review and...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Fortify Application Defender?

We use the solution for fast code review. It is integrated into our DevOps pipeline.

See all answers

Comparisons

SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) vs Checkmarx One

Compared 42% of the time

Veracode vs Checkmarx One

Compared 8% of the time

Checkmarx SAST vs Checkmarx One

Compared 7% of the time

OpenText Core Application Security vs Checkmarx One

Compared 5% of the time

Sonatype Lifecycle vs Checkmarx One

Compared 1% of the time

More Checkmarx One Competitors

SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) vs Fortify Application Defender

Compared 16% of the time

Coverity vs Fortify Application Defender

Compared 16% of the time

Qualys Web Application Scanning vs Fortify Application Defender

Compared 12% of the time

CAST Application Intelligence Platform vs Fortify Application Defender

Compared 10% of the time

Veracode vs Fortify Application Defender

Compared 10% of the time

More Fortify Application Defender Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Checkmarx One

September 2025

Download Checkmarx One product report

Buyer's Guide

Application Security Tools

August 2025

Download Fortify Application Defender product report

Also Known As

No data available

HPE Fortify Application Defender, Micro Focus Fortify Application Defender

Overview

Checkmarx One is an enterprise cloud-native application security platform focused on providing cross-tool, correlated results to help AppSec and developer teams prioritize where to focus time and resources.

Checkmarx One offers comprehensive application scanning across the SDLC:

Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
Software Composition Analysis (SCA)
API security
Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST)
Container security
IaC security
Correlation, prioritization, and risk management
Codebashing secure code training
AI security
Tech partnerships extending AppSec into runtime analysis
Developer tool integrations including: CI/CD tools, development frameworks, feedback tools, IDEs, programming languages and SCMs

Checkmarx One provides everything you need to secure application development from the first line of code through deployment and runtime in the cloud. With an ever-evolving set of AppSec engines, correlation and prioritization features, and AI capabilities, Checkmarx One helps consolidate expanding lists of AppSec tools and make better sense of results. Its capabilities are designed to provide an improved developer experience to build trust with development teams and ensure the success of your AppSec program investment.

Checkmarx

Micro Focus Security Fortify Application Defender is a runtime application self-protection (RASP) solution that helps you manage and mitigate risk from homegrown or third-party applications. It provides centralized visibility into application use and abuse while protecting from software vulnerability exploits and other violations in real time.

OpenText

Sample Customers

YIT, Salesforce, Coca-Cola, SAP, U.S. Army, Liveperson, Playtech Case Study: Liveperson Implements Innovative Secure SDLC

ServiceMaster, Saltworks, SAP

Buyer's Guide

Checkmarx One vs. Fortify Application Defender

September 2025

Free Report: Checkmarx One vs. Fortify Application Defender

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