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Checkmarx One vs Fortify Application Defender vs Mend.io 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:
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Application Security Tools category, the mindshare of Checkmarx One is 10.0%, down from 14.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortify Application Defender is 0.7%, down from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Mend.io is 3.7%, up from 3.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Security Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Syed Hasan - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Saroj-Patnaik - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
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

"The process of remediating software security vulnerabilities can now be performed (ongoing) as portions of the application are being built in advance of being compiled."
"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."
"The tool's valuable features include integrating GPT and Copilot. Additionally, the UI web representation is very user-friendly, making navigation easy. GPT has made several improvements to my security code."
"It allows for SAST scanning of uncompiled code. Further, it natively integrates with all key repos formats (Git, TFS, SVN, Perforce, etc)."
"The main thing we find valuable about Checkmarx is the ease of use. It's easy to initiate scans and triage defects."
"The setup is fairly easy. We didn't struggle with the process at all."
"The identification of verification-related security vulnerabilities is really important and one of the key things. It also identifies vulnerabilities for any kind of third-party tool coming into the system or any third-party tools that you are using, which is very useful for avoiding random hacking."
"The best thing about Checkmarx is the amount of vulnerabilities that it can find compared to other free tools."
"The most valuable features of Fortify Application Defender are the code packages that are default."
"The solution helped us to improve the code quality of our organization."
"Its ability to find security defects is valuable."
"The product saves us cost and time."
"The information from Fortify Application Defender on how to fix and solve issues is very good compared to other solutions."
"The most valuable feature is that it analyzes data in real-time."
"The tool's most valuable feature is software composition analysis. This feature works well with my .NET applications, providing a better understanding of library vulnerabilities."
"Fortify Application Defender's most valuable features are machine learning algorithms, real-time remediation, and automatic vulnerability notifications."
"Its ease of use and good results are the most valuable."
"Attribution and license due diligence reports help us with aggregating the necessary data that we, in turn, have to provide to satisfy the various licenses copyright and component usage disclosures in our software."
"For us, the most valuable tool was open-source licensing analysis."
"The reporting capability gives us the option to generate an open-source license report in a single click, which gets all copyright and license information, including dependencies."
"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."
"Mend.io is very robust in terms of managing third-party dependencies."
"Our dev team uses the fix suggestions feature to quickly find the best path for remediation."
"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."
 

Cons

"With Checkmarx, normally you need to use one tool for quality and you need to use another tool for security. I understand that Checkmarx is not in the parity space because it's totally different, but they could include some free features or recommendations too."
"I would like to see the DAST solution in the future."
"Checkmarx needs to improve the false positives and provide more accuracy in identifying vulnerabilities. It misses important vulnerabilities."
"The solution sometimes reports a false auditable code or false positive."
"The product's reporting feature could be better. The feature works well for developers, but reports generated to be shared with external parties are poor, it lacks the details one gets when viewing the results directly from the Checkmarx One platform."
"The cost per user is high and should be reduced."
"I really would like to integrate it as a service along with the SAP HANA Cloud Platform. It will then be easy to use it directly as a service."
"As the solution becomes more complex and feature rich, it takes more time to debug and resolve problems. Feature-wise, we have no complaints, but Checkmarx becomes harder to maintain as the product becomes more complex. When I talk to support, it takes them longer to fix the problem than it used to."
"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 solution could improve the time it takes to scan. When comparing it to SonarQube it does it in minutes while in Fortify Application Defender it can take hours."
"The false positive rate should be lower."
"Fortify Application Defender could improve by supporting more code languages, such as GRAAS and Groovy."
"Fortify Application Defender gives a lot of false positives."
"Support for older compilers/IDEs is lacking."
"The workbench is a little bit complex when you first start using it."
"The solution is quite expensive."
"At times, the latency of getting items out of the findings after they're remediated is higher than it should be."
"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."
"I rated the solution an eight out of ten because WhiteSource hasn't built in a couple of features that we would have loved to use and they say they're on their roadmap. I'm hoping that they'll be able to build and deliver in 2022."
"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."
"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."
"The solution lacks the code snippet part."
"The dashboard UI and UX are problematic."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The interface used to create custom rules comes at an additional cost."
"I believe pricing is better compared to other commercial tools."
"This solution is expensive. The customized package allows you to buy additional users at any time."
"The tool's pricing is fine."
"The pricing is competitive and provides a lower TCO (total cost of ownership) for achieving application security."
"It is not expensive, but sometimes, their pricing model or licensing model is not very clear. There are similar variables, such as projects or developers, and sometimes, it is a little bit confusing."
"Its price is fair. It is in or around the right spot. Ultimately, if the price is wrong, customers won't commit, but they do tend to commit. It is neither too cheap nor too expensive."
"The solution is costly."
"The base licensing costs for the SaaS platform is about $900 USD per application, per year."
"The price of this solution could be less expensive."
"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."
"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 solution involves a yearly licensing fee."
"When comparing the price of WhiteSource to the competition it is priced well. The cost for 50 users is approximately $18,000 annually."
"WhiteSource is much more affordable than Veracode."
"We are paying a lot of money to use WhiteSource. In our company, it is not easy to argue that it is worth the price. ​"
"The version that we are using, WhiteSource Bolt, is a free integration with Azure DevOps."
"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."
"It is fairly priced."
"Over the last two years, they have tried to add more and more features to their license packages, but the price is a little bit high, comparatively."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Manufacturing Company
16%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Insurance Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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 ...
What do you like most about Checkmarx?
Compared to the solutions we used previously, Checkmarx has reduced our workload by almost 75%.
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.
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.
What needs improvement with Fortify Application Defender?
The product should integrate industry-standard code review tools internally with its system. This would streamline th...
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.
How does WhiteSource compare with SonarQube?
Red Hat Ceph does well in simplifying storage integration by replacing the need for numerous storage solutions. This ...
How does WhiteSource compare with Black Duck?
We researched Black Duck but ultimately chose WhiteSource when looking for an application security tool. WhiteSource ...
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 obs...
 

Also Known As

No data available
HPE Fortify Application Defender, Micro Focus Fortify Application Defender
WhiteSource, Mend SCA, Mend.io Supply Chain Defender, Mend SAST
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

YIT, Salesforce, Coca-Cola, SAP, U.S. Army, Liveperson, Playtech Case Study: Liveperson Implements Innovative Secure SDLC
ServiceMaster, Saltworks, SAP
Microsoft, Autodesk, NCR, Target, IBM, vodafone, Siemens, GE digital, KPMG, LivePerson, Jack Henry and Associates
Find out what your peers are saying about Sonar, Veracode, Checkmarx and others in Application Security Tools. Updated: June 2025.
858,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.