Checkmarx One vs Fortify Application Defender comparison

Checkmarx and OpenText are both solutions in the Application Security Tools category. Checkmarx is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.3, while OpenText is ranked #28 with an average rating of 8.0. Checkmarx holds a 9.9% mindshare in AS, compared to OpenText’s 0.7% mindshare. Additionally, 87% of Checkmarx users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 81% of OpenText users who would recommend it.

Checkmarx One

Read 71 Checkmarx One reviews

17,525 Views
11,477 Comparison Views

87% willing to recommend

Fortify Application Defender

Read 11 Fortify Application Defender reviews

917 Views
657 Comparison Views

81% willing to recommend

Checkmarx One

Fortify Application Defender

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 8, 2024

Checkmarx One and Fortify Application Defender are two competitive solutions in the application security sector. Fortify has an edge with its comprehensive features and advanced analytics, making it a worthwhile investment for users prioritizing in-depth security.

Features: Checkmarx One is known for its integration capabilities, automated scanning, and early vulnerability detection. Fortify Application Defender offers real-time threat protection, robust analytics, and detailed insights into potential vulnerabilities.

Room for Improvement: Checkmarx One users suggest reporting enhancements, better customization options, and a less steep learning curve. Fortify Application Defender could improve its initial setup process, scalability, and onboarding experience.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Checkmarx One is recognized for smooth deployment and responsive customer service, with exceptional support. Fortify’s deployment is complex but reliable once operational, with effective support.

Pricing and ROI: Checkmarx One offers competitive pricing, leading to good ROI. Though Fortify Application Defender is costlier, it delivers ROI through advanced features and long-term efficiency. Users find Checkmarx more budget-friendly; Fortify attracts with potential security advancements.

To learn more, read our detailed Checkmarx One vs. Fortify Application Defender Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Checkmarx One vs. Fortify Application Defender

June 2025

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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

3rd

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (3rd), Vulnerability Management (24th), Static Code Analysis (3rd), API Security (5th), DevSecOps (5th), Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (9th)

Fortify Application Defender

Ranking in Application Security Tools

28th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

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 Fortify Application Defender is 0.7%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Security Tools

Q&A Highlights

Shiva

Works at Saviynt

Dec 17, 2019

What is the Biggest Difference Between Checkmarx and Fortify?

Checkmarx SAST is a product supporting 20+ languages, including the modern ones (GoLang, Kotlin, Swift, Scala, Typescript, React). Its language support is constantly kept up with the current versions of the respective languages/frameworks (e.g. .NET Core 2.x etc.). Unlike Fortify, Checkmarx analyses raw (uncompiled) source code, which makes it less susceptible to changes in the built environment (e.g. no dependency on the specific version of XCode). Finally, the Checkmarx solution is available both as an on-premise and in the cloud (hosted) solution with the same capabilities. Fortify on demand (which is the cloud-only solution) is different from the on-prem one.

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Featured Reviews

Syed Hasan

Specialist Leader at Deloitte

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.

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Saroj-Patnaik

Software Development Engineer 3 at Ernst & Young

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…

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I have seen a return on investment from Checkmarx One."

"From my point of view, it is the best product on the market."

"The solution is scalable, but other solutions are better."

"The main thing we find valuable about Checkmarx is the ease of use. It's easy to initiate scans and triage defects."

"The user interface is excellent. It's very user friendly."

"The solution communicates where to fix the issue for the purpose of less iterations."

"Our static operation security has been able to identify more security issues since implementing this solution."

"The most valuable feature is that it actually identifies the different criteria you can set to meet whatever standards you're trying to get your system accredited for."

More Checkmarx One pros

"The product saves us cost and time."

"Fortify Application Defender's most valuable features are machine learning algorithms, real-time remediation, and automatic vulnerability notifications."

"The solution helped us to improve the code quality of our organization."

"We are able to provide out customers with a secure application after development. They are no longer left wondering if they are vulnerable to different threats within the market following deployment."

"The most valuable features of Fortify Application Defender are the code packages that are default."

"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 the ability to automatically feed it rules what it's coupled with the WebInspect dynamic application scanning technology."

"Its ability to find security defects is valuable."

More Fortify Application Defender pros

Cons

"I can't create a business case with multiple-factor authentication."

"We have received some feedback from our customers who are receiving a large number of false positives."

"The cost per user is high and should be reduced."

"We can run only one project at a time."

"Its user interface could be improved and made more friendly."

"C, C++, VB and T-SQL are not supported by this product. Although, C and C++ were advertised as being supported."

"Checkmarx is not good because it has too many false positive issues."

"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."

More Checkmarx One cons

"Fortify Application Defender gives a lot of false positives."

"The solution is quite expensive."

"The false positive rate should be lower."

"The product should integrate industry-standard code review tools internally with its system. This would streamline the coding process, as developers wouldn't need multiple tools for code review and security checks. Many independent and open-source tools are available, from Apache to various libraries. Using multiple DevOps pipeline tools can slow the turnaround time."

"Support for older compilers/IDEs is lacking."

"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."

"I encountered many false positives for Python applications."

"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."

More Fortify Application Defender cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The average deal size was usually anywhere between $120K to $175K on an annual basis, which could be divided across 12 months."

"For around 250 users or committers, the cost is approximately $500,000."

"Be cautious of the one-year subscription date. Once it expires, your price will go up."

"This solution is expensive. The customized package allows you to buy additional users at any time."

"It is a good product but a little overpriced."

"The number of users and coverage for languages will have an impact on the cost of the license."

"The solution's price is high and you pay based on the number of users."

"We have a subscription license that is on a yearly basis, and it's a pretty competitive solution."

More Checkmarx One pricing and cost advice

"The base licensing costs for the SaaS platform is about $900 USD per application, per year."

"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."

"Fortify Application Defender is very expensive."

"The product’s price is much higher than other tools."

"The price of this solution could be less 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."

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Answers from the Community

Shiva

Works at Saviynt

Dec 17, 2019

What is the Biggest Difference Between Checkmarx and Fortify?

2 out of 5 answers

Akshay Prasad

Solving Acute Engineering Problems at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Dec 16, 2019

The major difference is that Checkmarx scans the code without compiling the code. This has a great advantage as code building issues are eliminated, scan time is very less and false positive is less to some extent. One more major this is Checkmarx learns as you eliminate false positives and does not show the same issue again. We can perform incremental scans on the codebase where the old issue is nicely marked as "Recurring" and new ones in Red as NEW. Checkmarx has a highly customizable filter creation where you can create a filter that can eliminate the common recurring issues in scans. This feature is very flexible and you can write your own filters and also, write specific patterns that are found in manual review which is a great help as coding styles differ form teams to teams.

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it_user1242723

Company Owner at BCMC

Dec 16, 2019

Looking at the Gartner report I would say that Checkmarx is way easier to set up (initial setup) compared to Micro Focus Fortify. Also, the financial strength of the Micro Focus Fortify spin/merger is a concern so investments could be at risk.

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See all 5 answers

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

21%

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Financial Services Firm

19%

Manufacturing Company

16%

Computer Software Company

13%

Government

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 well. Veracode is only a cloud solution. Hope this helps.

See all answers

What do you like most about Checkmarx?

Compared to the solutions we used previously, Checkmarx has reduced our workload by almost 75%.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Fortify Application Defender?

The product should integrate industry-standard code review tools internally with its system. This would streamline the coding process, as developers wouldn't need multiple tools for code review and...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

Comparisons

SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) vs Checkmarx One

Compared 36% of the time

Veracode vs Checkmarx One

Compared 11% of the time

Checkmarx SAST vs Checkmarx One

Compared 7% of the time

OpenText Core Application Security vs Checkmarx One

Compared 5% of the time

Kiuwan vs Checkmarx One

Compared 1% of the time

More Checkmarx One Competitors

SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) vs Fortify Application Defender

Compared 15% of the time

Coverity vs Fortify Application Defender

Compared 14% of the time

Qualys Web Application Scanning vs Fortify Application Defender

Compared 12% of the time

CAST Application Intelligence Platform vs Fortify Application Defender

Compared 10% of the time

Veracode vs Fortify Application Defender

Compared 9% of the time

More Fortify Application Defender Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Checkmarx One

July 2025

Download Checkmarx One product report

Buyer's Guide

Application Security Tools

June 2025

Download Fortify Application Defender product report

Also Known As

No data available

HPE Fortify Application Defender, Micro Focus Fortify Application Defender

Overview

Checkmarx One is an enterprise cloud-native application security platform focused on providing cross-tool, correlated results to help AppSec and developer teams prioritize where to focus time and resources.

Checkmarx One offers comprehensive application scanning across the SDLC:

Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
Software Composition Analysis (SCA)
API security
Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST)
Container security
IaC security
Correlation, prioritization, and risk management
Codebashing secure code training
AI security
Tech partnerships extending AppSec into runtime analysis
Developer tool integrations including: CI/CD tools, development frameworks, feedback tools, IDEs, programming languages and SCMs

Checkmarx One provides everything you need to secure application development from the first line of code through deployment and runtime in the cloud. With an ever-evolving set of AppSec engines, correlation and prioritization features, and AI capabilities, Checkmarx One helps consolidate expanding lists of AppSec tools and make better sense of results. Its capabilities are designed to provide an improved developer experience to build trust with development teams and ensure the success of your AppSec program investment.

Checkmarx

Micro Focus Security Fortify Application Defender is a runtime application self-protection (RASP) solution that helps you manage and mitigate risk from homegrown or third-party applications. It provides centralized visibility into application use and abuse while protecting from software vulnerability exploits and other violations in real time.

OpenText

Sample Customers

YIT, Salesforce, Coca-Cola, SAP, U.S. Army, Liveperson, Playtech Case Study: Liveperson Implements Innovative Secure SDLC

ServiceMaster, Saltworks, SAP

Buyer's Guide

Checkmarx One vs. Fortify Application Defender

June 2025

Free Report: Checkmarx One vs. Fortify Application Defender

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