Contrast Security Assess vs Fortify Software Security Center comparison

Contrast Security Assess vs. Fortify Software Security Center

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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

Contrast Security Assess

Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

22nd

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Security Tools (26th)

Fortify Software Security C...

Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

26th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

8.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of Contrast Security Assess is 0.5%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortify Software Security Center is 0.4%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

Featured Reviews

ToddMcAlister

Lead Application and Data Security Engineer at a insurance company with 5,001-10,000 employees

It has an excellent API interface to pull APIs.

Assess has brought our development time down because it helps create code the first time. Instead of going through the Jenkins process to build an application, they can see right off the bat that if there are errors in the code and fix them before it even goes to build.

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Jonathan Steyn

Principal Technical Consultant at EOH

Comprehensive vulnerability analysis and customization features with decent pricing

Software Security Center is highly customizable and helps me test all vulnerability data against the latest conventions like OWASP Top Ten, CVE Top twenty-five, and several other legal compliances. WebInspect supports a number of APIs and web endpoints. I find its feature of macro recording allows for testing vulnerabilities during multi-factor authentication sessions very valuable. I appreciate the ability to further analyze data with tools like Audit Workbench.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"By far, the thing that was able to provide value was the immediate response while testing ahead of release, in real-time."

"Assess has an excellent API interface to pull APIs."

"In our most critical applications, we have a deep dive in the code evaluation, which was something we usually did with periodic vulnerability assessments, code reviews, etc. Now, we have real time access to it. It's something that has greatly enhanced our code's quality. We have actually embedded a KPI in regards to the improvement of our code shell. For example, Contrast provides a baseline where libraries and the usability of the code are evaluated, and they produce a score. We always aim to improve that score. On a quarterly basis, we have added this to our KPIs."

"We use the Contrast OSS feature that allows us to look at third-party, open-source software libraries, because it has a cool interface where you can look at all the different libraries. It has some really cool additional features where it gives us how many instances in which something has been used... It tells us it has been used 10 times out of 20 workloads, for example. Then we know for sure that OSS is being used."

"It is a stable solution...Contrast Security Assess is one of the first players in this market, so they have experience and customers, especially abroad. Overall, it's a good product."

"The accuracy of the solution in identifying vulnerabilities is better than any other product we've used, far and away. In our internal comparisons among different tools, Contrast consistently finds more impactful vulnerabilities, and also identifies vulnerabilities that are nearly guaranteed to be there, meaning that the chance of false positives is very low."

"The most valuable feature is the continuous monitoring aspect: the fact that we don't have to wait for scans to complete for the tool to identify vulnerabilities. They're automatically identified through developers' business-as-usual processes."

"This has changed the way that developers are looking at usage of third-party libraries, upfront. It's changing our model of development and our culture of development to ensure that there is more thought being put into the usage of third-party libraries."

More Contrast Security Assess pros

"This is a stable solution at the end of the day."

"Fortify Analytics' AI function helps scan and provides more detailed explanations and recommendations about vulnerabilities."

"I like the explanation of issues provided by Fortify Software Security Center."

"Software Security Center is highly customizable and helps me test all vulnerability data against the latest conventions like OWASP Top Ten, CVE Top twenty-five, and several other legal compliances."

"You can easily download the tool's rule packs and update them."

"The overall rating for this tool is ten out of ten."

"The reporting is very useful because you can always view an entire list of the issues that you have."

Cons

"I would like to see them come up with more scanning rules."

"Contrast Security Assess covers a wide range of applications like .NET Framework, Java, PSP, Node.js, etc. But there are some like Ubuntu and the .NET Core which are not covered. They have it in their roadmap to have these agents. If they have that, we will have complete coverage."

"To instrument an agent, it has to be running on a type of application technology that the agent recognizes and understands. It's excellent when it works. If we're using an application that is using an unsupported technology, then we can't instrument it at all. We do use PHP and Contrast presently doesn't support that, although it's on their roadmap. My primary hurdle is that it doesn't support all of the technologies that we use."

"I think there was activity underway to support the centralized configuration control. There are ways to do it, but I think they were productizing more of that."

"The solution should provide more details in the section where it shows that third-party libraries have CVEs or some vulnerabilities."

"Contrast's ability to support upgrades on the actual agents that get deployed is limited. Our environment is pretty much entirely Java. There are no updates associated with that. You have to actually download a new version of the .jar file and push that out to your servers where your app is hosted. That can be quite cumbersome from a change-management perspective."

"The solution needs to improve flexibility...The scalability of the product is a problem in the solution, especially from a commercial perspective."

"The out-of-the-box reporting could be improved. We need to write our own APIs to make the reporting more robust."

More Contrast Security Assess cons

"Improvements needed for Software Security Center include better aggregation views of datasets."

"The product's overlap feature is restrictive and requires more customization efforts, which can be expensive."

"Improvements needed for Software Security Center include better aggregation views of datasets."

"Fortify Software Security Center's setup is really painful."

"I am not satisfied with the percentage of false positives, which is around eighteen percent."

"This solution is difficult to implement, and it should be made more comfortable for the end-users."

"We are having issues with false positives that need to be resolved."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product's pricing is low. I would rate it a two out of ten."

"For what it offers, it's a very reasonable cost. The way that it is priced is extremely straightforward. It works on the number of applications that you use, and you license a server. It is something that is extremely fair, because it doesn't take into consideration the number of requests, etc. It is only priced based on the number of onboarded applications. It suits our model as well, because we have huge traffic. Our number of applications is not that large, so the pricing works great for us."

"The good news is that the agent itself comes in two different forms: the unlicensed form and the licensed form. Unlicensed gives use of that software composition analysis for free. Thereafter, if you apply a license to that same agent, that's when the instrumentation takes hold. So one of my suggestions is to do what we're doing: Deploy the agent to as many applications as possible, with just the SCA feature turned on with no license applied, and then you can be more choosy and pick which teams will get the license applied."

"The solution is expensive."

"You only get one license for an application. Ours are very big, monolithic applications with millions of lines of code. We were able to apply one license to one monolithic application, which is great. We are happy with the licensing. Pricing-wise, they are industry-standard, which is fine."

"It's a tiered licensing model. The more you buy, as you cross certain quantity thresholds, the pricing changes. If you have a smaller environment, your licensing costs are going to be different than a larger environment... The licensing is primarily per application. An application can be as many agents as you need. If you've got 10 development servers and 20 production servers and 50 QA servers, all of those agents can be reporting as a single application that utilizes one license."

"I like the per-application licensing model... We just license the app and we look at different vulnerabilities on that app and we remediate within the app. It's simpler."

"The solution is priced fair."

"As a Fortify partner company providing technical support, I find the product expensive in our country, where local, inexpensive products are available."

"This is a costly solution that could be cheaper."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

25%

Manufacturing Company

13%

Computer Software Company

10%

Insurance Company

Manufacturing Company

20%

Financial Services Firm

16%

Computer Software Company

12%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Contrast Security Assess?

When we access the application, it continuously monitors and detects vulnerabilities.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Contrast Security Assess?

The product's pricing is low. I would rate it a two out of ten.

What needs improvement with Contrast Security Assess?

Technical support for the solution should be faster. We have to further analyze what kind of CVEs are in the reported libraries and what part of the code is affected. That analysis can be added to ...

What do you like most about Micro Focus Software Security Center?

You can easily download the tool's rule packs and update them.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Micro Focus Software Security Center?

In the beginning, it was difficult for me to verify that our usage of Fortify Software Security Center corresponded to the license and criteria. Now, we have negotiated a number of details to respe...

What needs improvement with Micro Focus Software Security Center?

I would like the false positive issue to diminish. I have experienced a lot of false positives, but I think this is due to using an older version. I hope the new version will resolve my problem.

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Product Reports

Contrast Security Assess

Download Contrast Security Assess product report

Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

Download Fortify Software Security Center product report

Also Known As

Contrast Assess

Micro Focus Software Security Center, Application Security Center, HPE Application Security Center, WebInspect

Overview

Contrast Security is the world’s leading provider of security technology that enables software applications to protect themselves against cyberattacks, heralding the new era of self-protecting software. Contrast's patented deep security instrumentation is the breakthrough technology that enables highly accurate assessment and always-on protection of an entire application portfolio, without disruptive scanning or expensive security experts. Only Contrast has sensors that work actively inside applications to uncover vulnerabilities, prevent data breaches, and secure the entire enterprise from development, to operations, to production.

Contrast Security

Software Security Center enables management, development, and security teams to work together to triage, track, validate, automate, and manage software security activities.

OpenText

Sample Customers

Williams-Sonoma, Autodesk, HUAWEI, Chromeriver, RingCentral, Demandware.

Neosecure, Acxiom, Skandinavisk Data Center A/S, Parkeon

Contrast Security Assess vs. Fortify Software Security Center