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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

"The scalability of the solution is good."
"The solution communicates where to fix the issue for the purpose of less iterations."
"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."
"The user interface is modern and nice to use."
"The initial setup was very easy."
"The most valuable feature for me is the Jenkins Plugin."
"Initial setup couldn't be any easier; Checkmarx has good documentation on environment requirements, and as long as you meet those, the installation process takes maybe 30 minutes for an initial setup, perhaps a bit longer if you're adding multiple engines."
"The main benefit to using this solution is that we find vulnerabilities in our software before the development cycle is complete."
"The best free software for pen testing web applications."
 

Cons

"I would like to see the DAST solution in the future."
"I would like to see the tool’s pricing improved."
"Checkmarx needs improvement in its Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) and API security features."
"Checkmarx could improve the speed of the scans."
"The Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) feature should be better."
"Checkmarx reports many false positives that we need to manually segregate and mark “Not exploitable”."
"From an administrative standpoint, I would rate Checkmarx with a five out of ten."
"Checkmarx One can be improved by reducing noise and improving false positive filtering."
"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."
"The solution is costly."
"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."
"I believe pricing is better compared to other commercial tools."
"The interface used to create custom rules comes at an additional cost."
"The average deal size was usually anywhere between $120K to $175K on an annual basis, which could be divided across 12 months."
"The tool's pricing is fine."
"It is the right price for quality delivery."
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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.