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Contrast Security Assess vs GitHub comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 13, 2025

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 Application Security Tools
27th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (27th)
GitHub
Ranking in Application Security Tools
5th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
95
Ranking in other categories
Version Control (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Application Security Tools category, the mindshare of Contrast Security Assess is 0.8%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of GitHub is 0.9%, down from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Security Tools Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
GitHub0.9%
Contrast Security Assess0.8%
Other98.3%
Application Security Tools
 

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.
Kamalanadha Reddy - PeerSpot reviewer
Improved deployment pipeline visibility with generally good support
My primary use case involves working with GitHub for code management. I have extensive experience using it for various tasks, such as creating repositories, managing pull requests, and utilizing GitHub Actions for automating workflows GitHub contributes to efficient project management by…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"When we access the application, it continuously monitors and detects vulnerabilities."
"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."
"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."
"By far, the thing that was able to provide value was the immediate response while testing ahead of release, in real-time."
"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."
"Assess has an excellent API interface to pull APIs."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is the fact that it's cloud-based, and we don't have to manage an on-premises server to use it."
"The most valuable features are GitHub Actions for triggering workflows, GitHub Secrets for saving credentials without needing a third-party service, and the UI for identifying errors in the code when we commit."
"It has a lot of features from the code development perspective. You get a lot of features such as repo, commit, merge, and branch. You can play around and do things on the fly. It is easy and simple to deploy. It is also easier to use when working from home."
"The most valuable features of GitHub include its ability to integrate with Jira and multiple CI/CD platforms like Techton, allowing for seamless project management."
"The most valuable features are the speed, low latency, and the clear, concise set of commands."
"The flexibility of this solution has been most valuable. It operates on a pay per use basis where you can ramp up or decrease usage."
"GitHub's source code management is top-notch. It's easy to inspect changes and visualize code and differences. Their action system is comprehensive in terms of making changes and automation."
"There are no issues. It's simple, easy, and fully compatible from my perspective with Git."
 

Cons

"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."
"The setup of the solution is different for each application. That's the one thing that has been a challenge for us. The deployment itself is simple, but it's tough to automate because each application is different, so each installation process for Contrast is different."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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 should provide more details in the section where it shows that third-party libraries have CVEs or some vulnerabilities."
"It would be useful to have tutorial videos within the GitHub dashboard."
"There can be conflict issues when two developers work on the same file or line of code, and it would be great to see that improved, possibly with an AI solution."
"GitHub needs to improve its UI."
"The stability can be improved."
"There is room for improvement in terms of interface."
"The GitHub repository needs an upgraded user interface and overall UI improvements."
"It would be good if there were training materials for junior developers."
"GitHub could have better integration or capability with other solutions."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 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."
"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 expensive."
"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."
"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."
"The licensing model for GitHub is user-based. Whenever the new developer joins we have to get a new license and register their ID. The overall price of the solution is reasonable."
"It’s an open-source solution."
"I use the free version of GitHub."
"The basic licensing model is free, and if you need to have technical support and such things, then it does cost something. You only need to pay extra if you need technical support."
"It's cheaper than Bitbucket."
"Regarding pricing, I'd rate it eight out of ten. It's decent and not too expensive, and small businesses can also afford it. With AWS taking CodeCommit out of the market, I don't see many competitors for small companies in terms of GitHub."
"I use the free version of the tool."
"The product is reasonably priced."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
22%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
9%
Insurance Company
7%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business42
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise48
 

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 GitHub?
The control is the most valuable feature as developers can work on a single code.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for GitHub?
I am not aware about the pricing, so I will not be able to give feedback.
What needs improvement with GitHub?
Sometimes we do not get the exact solution, and the suggested solution does not work, so GitHub could improve in that area. We have used GitHub mainly for the code generation part. That is the only...
 

Also Known As

Contrast Assess
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Williams-Sonoma, Autodesk, HUAWEI, Chromeriver, RingCentral, Demandware.
Dominion Enterprises, NASA, Braintree, SAP, CyberAgent
Find out what your peers are saying about Contrast Security Assess vs. GitHub and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
867,676 professionals have used our research since 2012.