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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 is that it actually identifies the different criteria you can set to meet whatever standards you're trying to get your system accredited for."
"From my point of view, it is the best product on the market."
"Less false positive errors as compared to any other solution."
"The administration in Checkmarx is very good."
"The solution communicates where to fix the issue for the purpose of less iterations."
"It's not an obstacle for developers. They can easily write their code and make it more secure with Checkmarx."
"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."
"Most valuable features include: ease of use, dashboard. interface and the ability to report."
"It helps deploy and track changes easily as per time-to-time market upgrades."
"The most valuable feature is that it connects with your development platforms, such as Microsoft Information Server and Jira."
"The quality of application security testing reduces risk and gives very few false positives."
"Provides good depth of scanning and we get good results."
"Fortify supports most languages. Other tools are limited to Java and other typical languages. IBM's solutions aren't flexible enough to support any language. Fortify also integrates with lots of tools because it has API support."
"It improves future security scans."
"Speed and efficiency are great features."
"This product is top-notch solution and the technology is the best on the market."
"Qualys Web Application Scanning has multiple features like threat protection and container security scanning in one box."
"The tool links vulnerabilities with DDIs and gives a complete overview of the application. The continuous monitoring capability is good."
"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."
"​This product is designed for easy scalability and can easily scale up ​without major challenges."
"With our vulnerabilities under control, it's putting our services in compliance and minimizing our risk for exposure."
"The most valuable feature of Qualys Web Application Scanning is the effective scanning that can be done."
"It is easy to use."
"Qualys Web Application Scanning is robust and mature from industry standards."
 

Cons

"It would be really helpful if the level of confidence was included, with respect to identified issues."
"Implementing a blackout time for any user or teams: Needs improvement."
"Checkmarx could be improved with more integration with third-party software."
"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. It would help if there was more scanning or if the process was more automated."
"Checkmarx could improve by reducing the price."
"Checkmarx needs improvement in its Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) and API security features."
"I think the CxAudit tool has room for improvement. At the beginning you can choose a scan of a project, but in any event the project must be scanned again (wasting time)."
"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."
"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."
"The vulnerability analysis does not always provide guidelines for what the developer should do in order to correct the problem, which means that the code has to be manually inspected and understood."
"We typically do our bulk uploads of our scans with some automation at the end of the development cycle but the scanning can take a lot of time. If you were doing all of it at regular intervals it would still consume a lot of time. This could procedure could improve."
"Micro Focus Fortify on Demand could improve the reports. They could benefit from being more user-friendly and intuitive."
"We have some stability issues, but they are minimal."
"There are lots of limitations with code technology. It cannot scan .net properly either."
"There are frequent complaints about false positives from Fortify."
"The Visual Studio plugin seems to hang when a scan is run on big projects. I would expect some improvements there."
"The software’s pricing could be improved."
"Qualys Web Application Scanning is very complex to use, and its graphical interface is not very user-friendly."
"The scanner reports a lot of false positives, which is something that needs to be improved."
"There should be better visibility into the application."
"In terms of the Policy Compliance model which they currently have, not all the platforms are being covered. If they could improve on the Policy Compliance model, since there are policies which are benchmarked against it, this will be helpful for us."
"I have dealt with Qualys's technical support, and any enhancements are challenging. I would rate them a five out of ten."
"We have many websites. We don't force scanning on all of them at once because it's taking some time."
"One area for improvement is the user interface. The new UI, which was recently upgraded, feels more complex and less user-friendly than the old version."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I believe pricing is better compared to other commercial tools."
"The tool's pricing is fine."
"We're using a commercial version of Checkmarx, and we paid for the solution for one year. The price is high and could be reduced."
"It is an expensive solution."
"The solution is costly."
"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 average deal size was usually anywhere between $120K to $175K on an annual basis, which could be divided across 12 months."
"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."
"Buying a license would be feasible for regular use. For intermittent use, the cloud-based option can be used (Fortify on Demand)."
"The subscription model, on a per-scan basis, is a bit expensive. That's another reason we are not using it for all the apps."
"The pricing model it's based on how many applications you wish to scan."
"The price is fair compared to that of other solutions."
"We used the one-time application, Security Scan Dynamic. I believe the original fee was $8,000."
"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."
"Fortify on Demand is moderately priced, but its pricing could be more flexible."
"The solution is expensive and the price could be reduced."
"The product is expensive, at least initially, in comparison to other products in this category."
"There are different options available with respect to licensing."
"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."
"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.​"
"We normally purchase an annual license."
"I rate the software’s pricing a six out of ten."
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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.
862,543 professionals have used our research since 2012.