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Checkmarx One vs OpenText Core Application Security vs Qualys Web Application Scanning 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 July 2025, in the Application Security Tools category, the mindshare of Checkmarx One is 9.9%, down from 14.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OpenText Core Application Security is 4.3%, down from 5.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Qualys Web Application Scanning is 2.1%, up from 2.0% 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.
Jonathan Steyn - PeerSpot reviewer
Source code analyzer, FPR file generation, reduction of false positives and generates compliance reports, for in-depth analysis
Not challenges with the product itself. The product is very reliable. It does have a steep learning curve. But, again, one thing that Fortify or OpenText does very well is training. There are a lot of free resources and training in the community forums, free training as well as commercial training where users can train on how to use the back-end systems and the scanning engines and how to use command-line arguments because some of the procedures or some of the tools do require a bit of a learning curve. That's the only challenge I've really seen for customers because you have to learn how to use the tool effectively. But Fortify has, in fact, improved its user interface and the way users engage the dashboards and the interfaces. It is intuitive. It's easy to understand. But in some regards, the cybersecurity specialist or AppSec would need a bit of training to engage the user interface and to understand how it functions. But from the point of the reliability index and how powerful the tool is, there's no challenge there. But it's just from a learning perspective; users might need a bit more skill to use the tool. The user interface isn't that tedious. It's not that difficult to understand. When I initially learned how to use the interfaces, I was able to master it within a week and was able to use it quite effectively. So training is required. All skills are needed to learn how to use the tool. I would like to see more enhancements in the dashboards. Dashboards are available. They do need some configuration and settings. But I would like to see more business intelligence capabilities within the tool. It's not particularly a cybersecurity function, but, for instance, business impact analysis or other features where you can actually use business intelligence capabilities within your security tool. That would be remarkable because not only do you have a cybersecurity tool, but you also have a tool that can give you business impact analysis and some other measurements. A bit more intelligence in terms of that from a cybersecurity perspective would be remarkable.
Kelvin Oladipo - PeerSpot reviewer
User-friendly scanning provides valuable vulnerability insights, but pricing improvements are needed
Qualys Web Application Scanning ( /products/qualys-web-application-scanning-reviews ) is user-friendly, easy to understand, easy to use, and easy to deploy. Credential scanning is very effective because it goes in-depth into the system, crawling the pages, and reporting on vulnerabilities. The product helps by providing options for remediating vulnerabilities it finds, making it really useful.

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 of Checkmarx is the user interface, it is very easy to use. We do not need to configure anything, we only have to scan to see the results."
"The most valuable feature is the simple user interface."
"It has all the features we need."
"The most valuable feature is the application tracking reporting."
"The most valuable features of Checkmarx are difficult to pinpoint because of the way the functionalities and the features are intertwined, it's difficult to say which part of them I prefer most. You initiate the scan, you have a scan, you have the review set, and reporting, they all work together as one whole process. It's not like accounting software, where you have the different features, et cetera."
"Scan reviews can occur during the development lifecycle."
"Compared to the solutions we used previously, Checkmarx has reduced our workload by almost 75%."
"The solution allows us to create custom rules for code checks."
"We have the option to test applications with or without credentials."
"Provides good depth of scanning and we get good results."
"It's a stable and scalable solution."
"While using Micro Focus Fortify on Demand we have been very happy with the results and findings."
"Being able to reduce risk overall is a very valuable feature for us."
"The quality of application security testing reduces risk and gives very few false positives."
"The static code analyzers are the most valuable features of this solution."
"Fortify helps us to stay updated with the newest languages and versions coming out."
"It is a very stable solution."
"​QualysGuard web-based scanner is very useful for performing external penetration and PCI scans from remote locations.​"
"Its most valuable features are patch management, vulnerability management, and PCI compliance."
"​This product is designed for easy scalability and can easily scale up ​without major challenges."
"You can integrate your Burp Suite results and create an integrated report. Also, the way it shows the results - threats and exploit details - makes remediation very easy."
"Licensing is the most valuable. Qualys provides the best licensing for companies. It is the best product for the development purposes of web applications. The product has a lot of integrations."
"Qualys WAS' most valuable features are the navigation flow of the UI and the option for a different layer of security (identification and operation through email and mobile)."
"Qualys Web Application Scanning is user-friendly, easy to understand, easy to use, and easy to deploy."
 

Cons

"When we first ran it on a big project, there wasn't enough memory on the computer. It originally ran with eight gigabytes, and now it runs with 32. The software stopped at some point, and while I don't think it said it ran out of memory, it just said "stopped" and something else. We had to go to the logs and send them to the integrator, and eventually, they found a memory issue in the logs and recommended increasing the memory. We doubled it once, and it didn't seem enough. We doubled it again, and it helped."
"The resolutions should also be provided. For example, if the user faces any problem regarding an installation due to the internal security policies of their company, there should be a resolution offered."
"The statistics module has a function that allows you to show some statistics, but I think it's limited. Maybe it needs more information."
"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."
"They can support the remaining languages that are currently not supported. They can also create a different model that can identify zero-day attacks. They can work on different patterns to identify and detect zero-day vulnerability attacks."
"Meta data is always needed."
"They could work to improve the user interface. Right now, it really is lacking."
"Creating and editing custom rules in Checkmarx is difficult because the license for the editor comes at an additional cost, and there is a steep learning curve."
"If you have a continuous integration in place, for example, and you want it to run along with your build and you want it to be fast, you're not going to get it. It adds to your development time."
"Micro Focus Fortify on Demand cannot be run from a Linux Agent. When we are coding the endpoint it will not work, we have to use Windows Agent. This is something they could improve."
"It does scanning for all virtual machines and other things, but it doesn't do the scanning for containers. It currently lacks the ability to do the scanning on containers. We're asking their product management team to expand this capability to containers."
"We have some stability issues, but they are minimal."
"Temenos's (T-24) info basic is a separate programming interface, and such proprietary platforms and programming interfaces were not easily supported by the out-of-the-box versions of Fortify."
"We would like a reduction in the time frame of scans. It takes us three to five days to run a scan now. We would like that reduced to under three days."
"Primarily for a complex, advanced website, they don't really understand some of the functionalities. So for instance, they could tell us that there is a vulnerability because somebody could possibly do something, but they don't really understand the code to realize that we actually negate that vulnerability through some other mechanism in the program. In addition, the technical support is just not there. We have open tickets. They don't respond. Even if they respond, we're not seeing eye to eye. As the company got sold and bought, the support got worse."
"The cybersecurity specialist or AppSec would need a bit of training to engage the user interface and to understand how it functions."
"The software’s pricing could be improved."
"Sometimes the response time is low because the handshake fails, and then you have to re-login and start again."
"It should have better automatic reporting."
"In certain cases, this product does have false positives, which the company should work on."
"The product should allow users to upload their payloads."
"We procured around 110 licenses for Web Application Scanning, but we have issues running concurrent scans. I don't currently have the option to trigger scans for all 100-plus websites. The default limit is around 10 conference scans. It's not very scalable, to be honest, because of the limitation that they put on concurrent scans."
"When comparing this solution to Veracode, Veracode has good interactive features and gives a clear understanding of what the vulnerabilities are, which error line of the vulnerability is on and what can be done. It gives interactive features, whereas this solution does not give a clear understanding of where or how to fix the problem."
"The area of false positives could be improved. There are quite a number of false positives as compared to other solutions. They could probably fine tune the algorithm to be able to reduce the number of false positives being detected."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If you want more, you have to pay more. You have to pay for additional modules or functionalities."
"I believe pricing is better compared to other commercial tools."
"The number of users and coverage for languages will have an impact on the cost of the license."
"The solution is costly."
"We got a special offer for a 30% reduction for three years, after our first year. I think for a real source-code scanning tool, you have to add a lot of money for Open Source Analysis, and AppSec Coach (160 Euro per user per year)."
"It's relatively expensive."
"It is the right price for quality delivery."
"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."
"Micro Focus Fortify on Demand licenses are managed by our IT team and the license model is user-based."
"It is quite expensive. Pricing and the licensing model could be improved."
"I believe the rental license is not too expensive, but it provides a lot of information about the vulnerabilities."
"Fortify on Demand is more expensive than Burpsuite. I rate its pricing a nine out of ten."
"The pricing model it's based on how many applications you wish to scan."
"The price is fair compared to that of other solutions."
"It is not more expensive than other solutions, but the pricing is competitive."
"There are different costs for Micro Focus Fortify on Demand depending on the assessments you want to use. There is only a standard license needed to use the solution."
"Qualys has an IT-based licensing based on a yearly license, which is a good way of handling it. However, in some cases, when we do the PCI scanning, the host will not like the scanning and we lose the IT license. So, this could be improved."
"Pricing was reasonable and competitive. It was not too far above the other products."
"Qualys Web Application Scanning's pricing is a bit expensive compared to other solutions available in the market."
"Try the free trial of the product to understand the basic working mechanisms.​"
"The product pricing is fair and reasonably priced."
"Qualys WAS' pricing is competitive."
"Licensing was based on the number of assets that you want to scan on your network. You can also do licensing on subscription. On subscription, it is easier and more flexible. You tell Qualys that you want to move from the 1000 to 2000 band or the 3000 or 5000 band, then they will give you the quotation for it. Once you pay for it, applying the licensing is quite easy and effective."
"The cost is $30,000 USD for one year to cover WAS (Web Application Security) and the VM (Virtual Machine) security in a company with 200 employees."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Manufacturing Company
15%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
7%
 

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 Micro Focus Fortify on Demand?
It helps deploy and track changes easily as per time-to-time market upgrades.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Micro Focus Fortify on Demand?
In comparison with other tools, they're competitive. It is not more expensive than other solutions, but their pricing...
What needs improvement with Micro Focus Fortify on Demand?
There are frequent complaints about false positives from Fortify. One day it may pass a scan with no issues, and the ...
What do you like most about Qualys Web Application Scanning?
The vulnerability management feature is a strong one. And also the patch management feature.
What needs improvement with Qualys Web Application Scanning?
I would like it to be cheaper because it is a bit expensive compared to competitors like Tenable Nessus ( /products/t...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Micro Focus Fortify on Demand
Qualys WAS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

YIT, Salesforce, Coca-Cola, SAP, U.S. Army, Liveperson, Playtech Case Study: Liveperson Implements Innovative Secure SDLC
SAP, Aaron's, British Gas, FICO, Cox Automative, Callcredit Information Group, Vital and more.
BskyB, Cartagena, ClearPoint Learning Systems, Connect Group, du, Fortrex Technologies, HBOR, HDI, Highlights for Children, The Lithuanian State Enterprise Centre of Registers, City of Miami Beach, Microsoft, MidlandHR, MSCI Inc., Northern Arizona University, Ofgem, Olympus Europa, PhoneFactor, RTL Nederland, ThousandEyes, VGZ Organisatie B.V.
Find out what your peers are saying about Sonar, Veracode, Checkmarx and others in Application Security Tools. Updated: July 2025.
862,624 professionals have used our research since 2012.