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Checkmarx One vs Pentera comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
5.6
Checkmarx One enhances security by automating vulnerability detection, reducing costs, and improving development efficiency through CI/CD integration.
Sentiment score
5.2
Pentera automates security tests, proving valuable for retests, but rising licensing costs pose ROI challenges for some users.
Overall, between the fast scanning, automation, automatic reporting, and easy detection, it has reduced manual effort enough that we did not need an extra reviewer, even as our codebase or team size grew.
Senior GenAI Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Based on my interactions with the clients, I can tell that there is a return on investment because if something is not profitable and it's not helping to save costs or vulnerabilities, clients wouldn't come back to renew their license year after year.
Chief Technology Officer at 3CS Aquarah Limited
Some customers consider the ROI favorable, but facing difficulties now due to changes in the licensing model, which has made it more expensive compared to last year.
Director at Infosonik Systems Ltd
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.0
Checkmarx One support is praised for quick responses and knowledgeable staff, despite some reporting delays in technical support.
Sentiment score
6.0
Pentera's support team is reliable and responsive, but documentation needs updating; users rate support highly despite some inconsistency.
If you raise a support case with Checkmarx, it is handled smoothly.
ML Engineer - Specialist at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
The customer support team is amazing and they provide on-phone call, email support, and on-website support.
Senior Solution Architect | L3+ Systems & Cloud Engineer | SRE Specialist at Canada Cloud Solution
I have relied on Checkmarx One customer support hundreds of times for several things, and Checkmarx One support is very proactive and very responsive.
Chief Technology Officer at 3CS Aquarah Limited
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.0
Checkmarx One is scalable for large workloads, but some users report challenges with configurations and licensing requirements.
Sentiment score
7.0
Pentera is highly scalable with adaptable equipment requirements, earning strong satisfaction ratings across various enterprise environments.
Approximately four billion lines of code are being scanned monthly.
Cyber Security Expert at Nestle
Since it is cloud-based, the infrastructure and PaaS, IaaS, and SaaS are taken care of by the cloud marketplace.
Senior Solution Architect | L3+ Systems & Cloud Engineer | SRE Specialist at Canada Cloud Solution
Checkmarx One's scalability has changed my organization because the strong collaboration between the development and security team helps us to do things much faster.
Senior GenAI Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
Checkmarx One is generally stable but faces issues with large codebases, memory use, and session inconsistencies.
Sentiment score
7.3
Pentera is praised for high stability, with most users rating it highly despite minor initial setup concerns.
I would rate the stability of this solution a nine on a scale of 1 to 10 where one is low stability and 10 is high.
Specialist Leader at Deloitte
Checkmarx One is often down when the cloud provider experiences issues.
Cyber Security Expert at Nestle
 

Room For Improvement

Checkmarx One needs enhancements in accuracy, speed, integration, UI, support, pricing, and features for enterprise usability.
Pentera struggles with cost, licensing flexibility and needs better virtualization, dashboards, hardware support, and detailed credential information.
Integration into the IDE being used would be beneficial so that code does not need to be uploaded to the website and an IDE-friendly report could be generated.
Senior Software Engineer at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
It could suggest how the code base is written and automatically populate the source code with three different solution options to choose from.
Specialist Leader at Deloitte
If you can improve the speed optimization, it takes around 30 to 40 minutes for checking a build. If you can make it within five minutes or 10 minutes, that would be great.
Senior Software Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
When the IP is imported into a system, we cannot withdraw or revoke the license.
Pre-sale manager at Nam Truong Son
 

Setup Cost

Checkmarx One is often costly but provides quality and security, with costs varying by team size and selected modules.
Pentera's pricing receives mixed reviews, though many appreciate its value in effectively assessing ransomware protection.
For a small team under 50 developers, normal expenses come under 30 to 60K.
Senior Solution Architect | L3+ Systems & Cloud Engineer | SRE Specialist at Canada Cloud Solution
Due to the number of years I've implemented Checkmarx One, there are rebates and discounts from the OEM which makes it a lot more profitable.
Chief Technology Officer at 3CS Aquarah Limited
The pricing should be reasonable, matching what we are paying for.
Senior GenAI Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Valuable Features

Checkmarx One offers comprehensive vulnerability scanning, seamless CI/CD integration, and enhances productivity with ease of use and automation.
Pentera offers automated vulnerability assessments with valued features like attack surface mapping, AI reporting, and quick, effective processes.
Since replacing the previous tool, SAST and SCA scans are conducted in a couple of minutes instead of hours or days.
Cyber Security Expert at Nestle
The best features Checkmarx One offers, over the past years, include broad language and technical support that Checkmarx provides, covering most languages.
ML Engineer - Specialist at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Checkmarx One has positively impacted our organization as we tend to find vulnerabilities very early in the development cycle.
Product security engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
We can automate the Pentera processes by automatically creating scenarios to validate the system.
Pre-sale manager at Nam Truong Son
 

Categories and Ranking

Checkmarx One
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
81
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (2nd), Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (3rd), Vulnerability Management (17th), Container Security (16th), Static Code Analysis (2nd), API Security (3rd), Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) (2nd), DevSecOps (3rd), Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (8th), Application Security Posture Management (ASPM) (3rd), AI Security (2nd)
Pentera
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Penetration Testing Services (4th), Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS) (3rd), Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Security Software solutions, they serve different purposes. Checkmarx One is designed for Application Security Tools and holds a mindshare of 9.9%, down 11.0% compared to last year.
Pentera, on the other hand, focuses on Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS), holds 23.2% mindshare, down 30.6% since last year.
Application Security Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Checkmarx One9.9%
SonarQube16.3%
Snyk5.5%
Other68.3%
Application Security Tools
Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Pentera23.2%
Cymulate15.6%
The NodeZero Platform by Horizon3.ai13.9%
Other47.300000000000004%
Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS)
 

Featured Reviews

Shahzad Shahzad - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Solution Architect | L3+ Systems & Cloud Engineer | SRE Specialist at Canada Cloud Solution
Enable secure development workflows while identifying opportunities for faster scans and improved AI guidance
Checkmarx One is a very strong platform, but there are several areas where it can improve to support modern DevSecOps workflows even better. For example, better real-time developer guidance is needed. The IDE plugin should offer richer AI-powered auto-fixes similar to SNYK Code or GitHub Copilot Security, as current guidance is good but not deeply contextual for large-scale enterprise codebases. This matters because it reduces developer friction and accelerates shift-left adoption. More transparency control over the correlation engines is another need. The correlation engine is powerful but not fully transparent. Users want to understand why vulnerabilities were correlated or de-prioritized, which helps AppSec teams trust the prioritization logic. Faster SAST scan and more language coverage is needed since SAST scan can still be slow for very large mono-repos and there is limited deep support for new language frameworks like Rust and Go, along with advanced coverage for serverless-specific frameworks. This matters because large organizations want sub-minute scans in CI/CD as cloud-native ecosystems evolve fast. A strong API security module is another area for enhancement. API security scanning could be improved with active testing, API discovery, full Swagger, OpenAPI, drift detection, and schema-based fuzzing. This is important as API attacks are one of the biggest AppSec risks in 2025. Checkmarx One is strong, but I see a few areas for improvement including faster SAST scanning for large mono-repos, deeper language framework support, more transparent correlation logic, and stronger API security that includes discovery and runtime context. The IDE plugin could offer more AI-assisted fixes, and the SBOM lifecycle tracking can evolve further. Enhancing integration with SIEM and SOAR would also make enterprise adoption smoother, and these improvements would help developers and AppSec teams move faster with more accuracy.
Sabbir Ahmed - PeerSpot reviewer
Director at Infosonik Systems Ltd
Comprehensive attack surface coverage and real-world threat emulation strengthen security while licensing models need improvement
Comprehensive Attack Surface includes several features. Omni Attack Surface discovers, assesses, and exploits vulnerabilities across both internal networks and external assets, including cloud environments from a single platform. External Attack Surface Management (EASM) and Internal Network Validation test internal security controls and identify weaknesses within the internal network. Automated Penetration Testing features are provided through the Pentera Surface module. Surface provides automated validation and penetration testing features with a proactive, continuous, and highly realistic approach to cybersecurity validation, helping organizations understand and reduce their true cyber exposure. They have AI-based reporting that leverages AI to identify patterns of exploitability over time, aggregate results across sites, and highlight recurring weaknesses. They offer two types of reports: an elaborate technical report for CTOs and an Executive Summary for management. When customers see the reports after completing the POC, they are impressed by how detailed the technical report is, while management can understand what actions need to be taken to protect their network and infrastructure. Recent Gartner reports indicate that traditional VAPT companies perform vulnerability testing at specific times, which creates security gaps. Pentera provides continuous validation, running 24/7 in the infrastructure. This means when any vulnerability appears due to firmware upgrades, OS updates, or software changes, it can be automatically identified in real-time.
report
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise46
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise4
 

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.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Checkmarx?
Checkmarx One is a premium solution, so budget accordingly. Make sure you understand how licensing scales with additional applications and users. I advise negotiating multi-year contracts or bundle...
What needs improvement with Checkmarx?
One way Checkmarx One could be improved is if it could automatically run scans every month after implementation. If it is possible to set it in the SAST portal to scan the repositories automaticall...
What do you like most about Pentera?
What I like the most about Pentera is its solution-oriented approach.
What needs improvement with Pentera?
The licensing model has changed from earlier versions. Previously, there was a 500 IP cap, and customers needed to buy a minimum of 500 IP and consider 500 domains. In Bangladesh, many large organi...
What is your primary use case for Pentera?
Common use cases include several features. The POC is completed before any customer goes for procurement. Once the POC is done, customers appreciate features such as comprehensive attack surface co...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

YIT, Salesforce, Coca-Cola, SAP, U.S. Army, Liveperson, Playtech Case Study: Liveperson Implements Innovative Secure SDLC
Blackstone Group Caterpillar Apria Healthcare Taylor Vinters Sandler Capital Management Drawbridge BNP Paribas British Red Cross
Find out what your peers are saying about Checkmarx One vs. Pentera and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
885,728 professionals have used our research since 2012.