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Checkmarx One vs w3af 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Checkmarx One
Ranking in Application Security Tools
2nd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
81
Ranking in other categories
Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (2nd), Vulnerability Management (16th), Container Security (15th), Static Code Analysis (2nd), API Security (4th), Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) (2nd), DevSecOps (2nd), Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (10th), Application Security Posture Management (ASPM) (3rd), AI Security (1st)
w3af
Ranking in Application Security Tools
41st
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Application Security Tools category, the mindshare of Checkmarx One is 8.8%, down from 10.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of w3af is 0.7%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Security Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Checkmarx One8.8%
w3af0.7%
Other90.5%
Application Security Tools
 

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.
OS
Information Security Advisor, CISO & CIO, Docutek Services at Docutek Services
It's buggy and seems to try to do too many things, but having this on a USB drive has been valuable.
I tried to install this on numerous systems and eventually, with help, I got it running. It needs far too many dependencies installed and there's too much messing about to be of much use. Once running, it's buggy and begs the question can it be relied upon? Even within Kali it reports website time-outs, yet Zap or Burp are able to do a successful scan. I wanted this to work so much and be able to use it as an additional check of my results but have now binned it.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"Checkmarx One has positively impacted the organization by providing resolution strategies and indicating which vulnerabilities need to be fixed."
"The solution is always updating to continuously add items that create a level of safety from vulnerabilities, and they are always ahead of the game when it comes to finding any vulnerabilities within the database, so I am assured that when I am scanning my product those vulnerabilities are identified at very initial stages, giving my development team more time to react."
"The administration in Checkmarx is very good."
"Checkmarx One has positively impacted my organization, especially in our CI/CD integration, where when we try to build any feature, they are always scanned by Checkmarx before they get released."
"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."
"We have been using this product extensively for a lot of applications to identify as well as employ proper remediation which makes the application secure including information issues which might get neglected with a manual code review process."
"Security can be part of the SDLC and reduce the cost of vulnerability remediation."
"The best free software for pen testing web applications."
 

Cons

"Vulnerability details: Reduce false positive results and improve it by providing more details how I can resolve the vulnerability."
"The tool is currently quite static in terms of finding security vulnerabilities. It would be great if it was more dynamic and we had even more tools at our disposal to keep us safe."
"They could work to improve the user interface. Right now, it really is lacking."
"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."
"C, C++, VB and T-SQL are not supported by this product. Although, C and C++ were advertised as being supported."
"Checkmarx could improve the REST APIs by including automation."
"The Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) feature should be better."
"The interactive application security testing, or IAST, the interactive part where you're looking at an application that lives in a runtime environment on a server or virtual machine, needs improvement."
"Unfortunately, once you get around the seemingly strict set of pre-requisites to install it, it is incredibly buggy."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"We have a subscription license that is on a yearly basis, and it's a pretty competitive solution."
"The pricing is competitive and provides a lower TCO (total cost of ownership) for achieving application security."
"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."
"It is a good product but a little overpriced."
"For around 250 users or committers, the cost is approximately $500,000."
"We have purchased an annual license to use this solution. The price is reasonable."
"Most of my customers opted for a perpetual license. They prefer to pay the highest amount up front for the perpetual license and then pay for additional support annually."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
6%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise46
No data available
 

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...
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Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

YIT, Salesforce, Coca-Cola, SAP, U.S. Army, Liveperson, Playtech Case Study: Liveperson Implements Innovative Secure SDLC
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Find out what your peers are saying about SonarSource Sàrl, Checkmarx, Veracode and others in Application Security Tools. Updated: May 2026.
893,244 professionals have used our research since 2012.