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Contrast Security Assess vs Fortify WebInspect 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

Contrast Security Assess
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (30th), Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (28th)
Fortify WebInspect
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) (3rd), DevSecOps (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Application Lifecycle Management solutions, they serve different purposes. Contrast Security Assess is designed for Static Application Security Testing (SAST) and holds a mindshare of 0.5%, up 0.4% compared to last year.
Fortify WebInspect, on the other hand, focuses on Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST), holds 22.8% mindshare, down 31.3% since last year.
Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST)
 

Featured Reviews

ToddMcAlister - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Navin N - PeerSpot reviewer
Effective scanning of diverse file extensions with fast reporting and issue resolution
We develop software packages for clients, and these clients are mostly in the BFSI sector. The packages need to be scanned, and we engage Fortify WebInspect for this.  Customers typically perform their own application pen tests, but in some cases, we have engagements where customers want us to scan…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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 solution is very accurate in identifying vulnerabilities. In cases where we are performing application assessment using Contrast Assess, and also using legacy application security testing tools, Contrast successfully identifies the same vulnerabilities that the other tools have identified but it also identifies significantly more. In addition, it has visibility into application components that other testing methodologies are unaware of."
"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."
"I am impressed with the product's identification of alerts and vulnerabilities."
"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."
"By far, the thing that was able to provide value was the immediate response while testing ahead of release, in real-time."
"No other tool does the runtime scanning like Contrast does. Other static analysis tools do static scanning, but Contrast is runtime analysis, when the routes are exercised. That's when the scan happens. This is a tool that has a very unique capability compared to other tools. That's what I like most about Contrast, that it's runtime."
"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."
"When we are integrating it with SSC, we're able to scan and trace and see all of the vulnerabilities. Comparison is easy in SSC."
"The solution's technical support was very helpful."
"The feature that has been most influential in identifying vulnerabilities is its ability to crawl the website, understand the structure, and analyze the network packets sent and received."
"It is easy to use, and its reporting is fairly simple."
"Good at scanning and finding vulnerabilities."
"Fortify WebInspect is a scalable solution, it is good for a lot of applications."
"The solution is able to detect a wide range of vulnerabilities. It's better at it than other products."
"The user interface is ok and it is very simple to use."
 

Cons

"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."
"The solution needs to improve flexibility...The scalability of the product is a problem in the solution, especially from a commercial perspective."
"Regarding the solution's OSS feature, the one drawback that we do have is that it does not have client-side support. We'll be missing identification of libraries like jQuery or JavaScript, and such, that are client-side."
"Personalization of the board and how to make it appealing to an organization is something that could be done on their end. The reports could be adaptable to the customer's preferences."
"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 product's retesting part needs improvement. The tool also needs improvement in the suggestions provided for fixing vulnerabilities. It relies more on documentation rather than on quick fixes."
"I would like to see them come up with more scanning rules."
"The out-of-the-box reporting could be improved. We need to write our own APIs to make the reporting more robust."
"A localized version, for example, in Korean would be a big improvement to this solution."
"The installation could be a bit easier. Usually it's simple to use, but the installation is painful and a bit laborious and complex."
"I would like WebInspect's scanning capability to be quicker."
"The scanner could be better."
"We have often encountered scanning errors."
"There are some file extensions, like .SER, that Fortify WebInspect doesn't scan."
"We have had a problem with authentification."
"Lately, we've seen more false negatives."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is expensive."
"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 product's pricing is low. I would rate it a two out of ten."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Fortify WebInspect is a very expensive product."
"The pricing is not clear and while it is not high, it is difficult to understand."
"It’s a fair price for the solution."
"This solution is very expensive."
"The price is okay."
"Its price is almost similar to the price of AppScan. Both of them are very costly. Its price could be reduced because it can be very costly for unlimited IT scans, etc. I'm not sure, but it can go up to $40,000 to $50,000 or more than that."
"Our licensing is such that you can only run one scan at a time, which is inconvenient."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
22%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Insurance Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Government
14%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
12%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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 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 advice do you have for others considering Contrast Security Assess?
Contrast Security Assess is deployed on-cloud in our organization. I would recommend Contrast Security Assess to other users. It's a really good tool. It provides lots of details on web-based vulne...
What do you like most about Fortify WebInspect?
The solution's technical support was very helpful.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortify WebInspect?
The price of Fortify WebInspect is high, with the cost depending on the number of virtual users. It is approximately 25% higher than other solutions.
What needs improvement with Fortify WebInspect?
The main area for improvement in Fortify WebInspect is the price, as it is too high compared to the market rate. The cost of the license depends on the number of virtual users and, in comparison to...
 

Also Known As

Contrast Assess
Micro Focus WebInspect, WebInspect
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Williams-Sonoma, Autodesk, HUAWEI, Chromeriver, RingCentral, Demandware.
Aaron's
Find out what your peers are saying about Contrast Security Assess vs. Fortify WebInspect and other solutions. Updated: May 2022.
857,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.