Contrast Security Assess vs Harness comparison

Contrast Security and Harness are both solutions in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category. Contrast Security is ranked #28, while Harness is ranked #16 with an average rating of 7.7. Contrast Security holds a 0.8% mindshare in SAST, compared to Harness’s 0.6% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Contrast Security users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Harness users who would recommend it.

Contrast Security Assess

Read 11 Contrast Security Assess reviews

1,722 Views
895 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Harness

Read 7 Harness reviews

2,588 Views
492 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Contrast Security Assess

Harness

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Contrast Security Assess and Harness based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Static Application Security Testing (SAST) solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Contrast Security Assess vs. Harness Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Contrast Security Assess vs. Harness

December 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 881,114 peers since 2012

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)

28th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Security Tools (30th)

Harness

Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

16th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Build Automation (7th), Cloud Cost Management (9th), Feature Management (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of Contrast Security Assess is 0.8%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Harness is 0.6%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Static Application Security Testing (SAST) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Harness	0.6%
Contrast Security Assess	0.8%
Other	98.6%

Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

Featured Reviews

reviewer1605099

Director of Threat and Vulnerability Management at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees

We're gathering vulnerability data from multiple environments in real time, fundamentally changing how we identify issues in applications

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. Assess also provides the option of helping developers incorporate security elements while they're writing code. It depends on whether individual developers decide to utilize the information that's provided to them from the solution, but it definitely gives them visibility into more environments. It gives them an opportunity to remediate vulnerabilities well before production deployments.

Read full review

reviewer2787357

Site Reliability Engineer at Granicus Inc.

Automated delivery has made production releases safer and has reduced deployment incidents

The first point for improvement is the steep learning curve, where concepts such as services, environment, pipelines, and templates take time to understand. New users often need training before becoming productive, resulting in slower initial onboarding compared to simpler CD tools. An improvement idea is better guided onboarding with more opinionated defaults and examples. The second improvement can be on UI complexity and navigation; the UI can feel cluttered with many options and finding past executions, logs, or specific settings sometimes takes extra clicks, leading to small but noticeable productivity loss. Simplified UI views for common workflows and improved search and filtering could help. I also see cost and licensing as potential areas for improvement, as pricing can feel high for small teams and advanced features are tied to higher tiers, which may limit adoption for startups or smaller organizations. Flexible pricing models and more essential features in lower tiers could address this issue.

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

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

More Contrast Security Assess pros

"Harness integrates all functions like execution pipelines, environment checks, and log monitoring in one place, making it convenient."

"Harness starts integrating with organizations, making everything automated without the need for manual interruption."

"Production deployments are faster and more reliable, especially for Kubernetes and cloud-based services, with significant reduction in deployment-related incidents, faster recovery when issues occur, faster, more confident releases, increased deployment frequency with higher confidence, and better governance and compliance that improved visibility and coordination across Dev, QA, Ops, and SRE teams."

"By adopting templates and various different pipelines across our own IDP platform, we have saved upwards of 30 to 40% of development time and also reduced risks of failures or error rates by upwards of 70%."

"Everything in Harness is configured and runs smoothly."

"It's a highly customizable DevOps tool."

"Harness integrates all functions like execution pipelines, environment checks, and log monitoring in one place."

"The features of Harness are valuable, supporting rolling deployments, basic deployments, and blue-green deployments with zero downtime."

Cons

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

"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 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."

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

"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'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."

"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."

More Contrast Security Assess cons

"When deploying multiple components to multiple environments, like production and BCP, failures sometimes occur. Improvements are needed when deploying one component to one environment."

"I prefer the previous less compact UI version of Harness, which showed more details on the screen."

"Harness setup and configurations could be made easier to configure, which would be helpful."

"There's also room for improvement in debugging pipeline issues, which can sometimes become complex."

"Infrastructure as code or pipeline as code is something that Harness severely lacks."

"The first point for improvement is the steep learning curve, where concepts such as services, environment, pipelines, and templates take time to understand."

"Even with automation, there's a requirement for manual change requests for approvals."

"When integrating Harness with more than twenty applications in one place, it becomes less stable, causing improvements to be necessary."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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 solution is expensive."

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

"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."

Information not available

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Static Application Security Testing (SAST) solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

881,114 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

23%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Computer Software Company

10%

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

29%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Retailer

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	2
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	6

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Large Enterprise	7

Questions from the Community

Ask a question

Earn 20 points

What do you like most about Harness?

It's a highly customizable DevOps tool.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Harness?

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Harness?

My main use case for Harness is continuous deployment (CD), specifically for safe, automated deployment to production, especially in Kubernetes and cloud environments. For continuous deployment in ...

See all answers

Comparisons

OpenText Dynamic Application Security Testing vs Contrast Security Assess

Compared 8% of the time

Seeker Interactive vs Contrast Security Assess

Compared 5% of the time

SonarQube vs Contrast Security Assess

Compared 5% of the time

PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional vs Contrast Security Assess

Compared 4% of the time

Digital.ai Application Security vs Contrast Security Assess

Compared 4% of the time

More Contrast Security Assess Competitors

GitHub Actions vs Harness

Compared 17% of the time

Jenkins vs Harness

Compared 9% of the time

TeamCity vs Harness

Compared 7% of the time

Tekton vs Harness

Compared 7% of the time

GitLab vs Harness

Compared 7% of the time

More Harness Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Contrast Security Assess

January 2026

Download Contrast Security Assess product report

Buyer's Guide

Harness

January 2026

Download Harness product report

Also Known As

Contrast Assess

Armory

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

Harness offers a comprehensive toolset for automating deployment processes and enhancing software update efficiency. It's lauded for its CI/CD capabilities, feature flagging, and real-time deployment monitoring. Key features include an intuitive UI, secret management, and robust rollback functionalities, all contributing to improved productivity and reduced errors in DevOps environments.

Harness

Sample Customers

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

Linedata, Openbank, Home Depot, Advanced

Buyer's Guide

Contrast Security Assess vs. Harness

December 2025

Free Report: Contrast Security Assess vs. Harness

Find out what your peers are saying about Contrast Security Assess vs. Harness and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

881,114 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Contrast Security Assess vs. Harness report.

See our list of best Static Application Security Testing (SAST) vendors.

We monitor all Static Application Security Testing (SAST) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.