Contrast Security Assess vs Klocwork comparison

Contrast Security and Perforce are both solutions in the Application Security Tools category. Contrast Security is ranked #30, while Perforce is ranked #17 with an average rating of 8.2. Contrast Security holds a 1.1% mindshare in AS, compared to Perforce’s 1.4% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Contrast Security users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 93% of Perforce users who would recommend it.

Contrast Security Assess

Read 11 Contrast Security Assess reviews

1,722 Views
1,119 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Klocwork

Read 25 Klocwork reviews

3,478 Views
1,913 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

Contrast Security Assess

Klocwork

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 8, 2024

Klocwork and Contrast Security Assess are leading security analysis tools in the software development category. Contrast Security Assess appears to have an edge due to its advanced feature set, although Klocwork is preferred for its pricing and customer support.

Features: Klocwork provides robust static code analysis with comprehensive coverage, seamless integration with existing systems, and a reputation for being user-friendly. Contrast Security Assess offers real-time vulnerability detection, dynamic analysis capabilities, and superior remediation features.

Room for Improvement: Klocwork could improve scalability for large projects, increase update frequency, and enhance its user interface. Contrast Security Assess may need to boost scanning speed, provide clearer documentation, and refine its support for different programming languages.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Klocwork is praised for straightforward deployment and responsive customer service. Contrast Security Assess integrates smoothly with CI/CD pipelines but reportedly has slower support channels, making support less responsive than desired.

Pricing and ROI: Klocwork offers competitive pricing with satisfactory ROI, suitable for smaller teams focusing on cost-effectiveness. Contrast Security Assess, while perceived as costlier, provides a substantial ROI for those valuing comprehensive features, justifying the investment for businesses seeking in-depth security measures.

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

Buyer's Guide

Contrast Security Assess vs. Klocwork

December 2025

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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 Application Security Tools

30th

Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

28th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Klocwork

Ranking in Application Security Tools

17th

Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

14th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Static Code Analysis (3rd)

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Application Security Tools category, the mindshare of Contrast Security Assess is 1.1%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Klocwork is 1.4%, down from 1.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Security Tools Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Klocwork	1.4%
Contrast Security Assess	1.1%
Other	97.5%

Application Security Tools

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.

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Krishna M Gopalakrishnan

Manager, Quality, Functional Safety, Cybersecurity Embedded Processing at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

Experience with compliance improvements and efficiency boosts but static analysis engine shows a need for enhancement

One area for improvement is that when customers use different static analysis tools, they report more issues compared to Klocwork. The static analysis engine of Klocwork has areas that need improvement. Customers using different static analysis tools report more issues than with Klocwork, indicating that Klocwork's engine is not as superior. Klocwork should be able to analyze large codebases efficiently, supporting a desktop version for periodic small delta changes before pushing to the server.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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 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."

"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."

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

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

"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."

"I am impressed with the product's identification of alerts and 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."

More Contrast Security Assess pros

"Technical support is quite good."

"We like using the static analysis and code refactoring, which are very valuable because of our requirements to meet safety critical levels and reliability."

"Klocwork is user-friendly, with a client-server architecture that provides all needed compliance."

"Klocwork's most valuable feature is the static code analysis feature. It detects the potential problem earlier to allow the developer to receive feedback quickly and then address it before it becomes a problem."

"The best advantage of Klocwork is the reduced setup time."

"There is a central Klocwork server at our headquarter in France so we connect the client directly to the server on-premises remotely."

"On-the-fly analysis and incremental analysis are the best parts of Klocwork. Currently, we are using both of these features very effectively."

"There's a feature in Klocwork called 'on-the-fly analysis', which helps developers to find and fix the defects at the time of development itself."

More Klocwork pros

Cons

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

More Contrast Security Assess cons

"This solution could be improved if they offered support of more languages including Ada and Golang. They currently only support seven languages."

"Klocwork sometimes provides too many additional warnings which require expertise to manage."

"Under NIST cybersecurity standards, we must address vulnerabilities within a specified time after discovering them. When we try to propagate those updates and fixes through the system, it would be nice if the clients could reconnect to the existing server or have the server dynamically updated in some way. I know that isn't easy, but maybe processes could be enhanced to make that more streamlined from a DevOps perspective."

"We'd like to see integration with Agile DevOps and Agile methodologies."

"There are too many warnings, and it requires expertise to determine the correct category for them."

"Now the only issue we have is that whenever we need to get the code we have to build it first. Then we can get the report."

"What needs improvement in Klocwork, compared to other products in the market, is the dashboard or reporting mechanisms that need to be a bit more flexible. The Klocwork dashboard could be improved. Though it's good, it's not as good as some of the other products in the market, which is a problem. The reporting could be more detailed and easier to sort out because sorting in Klocwork could be a bit more time-consuming, mainly when sorting defects based on filters, compared to how it's done on other tools such as Coverity."

"The main problem is that since it only parses the code, the warnings or the problems that are given as a result of the report can sometimes require a lot of effort to analyze."

More Klocwork cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 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."

"The solution is expensive."

"Klocwork should not to be quite so heavy handed on the licensing for very specific programs."

"The limitation that we have is that Klocwork is licensed to certain programs, and if you want to license them to other programs, you have to pay more money."

"Licensing fees are paid annually, but they also have a perpetual license."

"The pricing for Klocwork is very competitive if you compare it from apple to apple. It has competitive pricing regarding the licensing model and the per-license cost. Klocwork isn't a high-end investment for anyone deploying it; even SMBs can afford it. The Klocwork cost per user would depend on the license type, so I'm unable to mention a ballpark figure because it would depend on the type of installation and how the deployment will be, and the nodes to give an accurate calculation or figure. The total price depends on the package, so my company could never publish pricing for Klocwork on the website. My team first collects information from potential clients on the deployment scenario, project environment, etc., before suggesting a package for Klocwork. My rating for Klocwork in terms of pricing is a five because of its flexible license models. There's a license model for every type of organization, whether small, midsize, or enterprise, so it's a five out of five for me."

"This solution offers competitive pricing."

"When it comes to licensing, the solution has two packages, one for a fixed and the other for a floating server, with the former being more cost effective than the latter."

"There are other solutions on the market such as Microsoft Visual Studio. They have been adding more static code analysis features that come for free. It is getting better all the time. That is one of the possibilities is that we've been considering that we may stop using the Klocwork because it doesn't give us any added value."

"Klocwork is still tight on their licensing. If Klocwork would loosen up on the licensing, and where the license could be used, and how many different programs could be run on it, then we have several development programs that I would love to be able to use it for going forward."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

24%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Computer Software Company

10%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

23%

Computer Software Company

10%

Transportation Company

Comms Service Provider

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
Small Business	12
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	12

Questions from the Community

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Klocwork?

Klocwork's pricing seems attractive, as it uses a per-user license model that does not have a lot of overhead.

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What needs improvement with Klocwork?

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What is your primary use case for Klocwork?

I work on tools such as Klocwork, LDRA, as well as Jira and Confluence, focusing more on the software quality assurance aspect. We use Klocwork for coding and aggregate checks. We use it for static...

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Compared 10% of the time

Helix QAC vs Klocwork

Compared 8% of the time

Axivion Static Code Analysis vs Klocwork

Compared 5% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Contrast Security Assess

January 2026

Download Contrast Security Assess product report

Buyer's Guide

Klocwork

December 2025

Download Klocwork product report

Also Known As

Contrast Assess

No data available

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

Klocwork detects security, safety, and reliability issues in real-time by using this static code analysis toolkit that works alongside developers, finding issues as early as possible, and integrates with teams, supporting continuous integration and actionable reporting.

Perforce

Sample Customers

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

ACCESS Co Ltd, Risk-AI, Winbond Electronics, Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharmaceutical Research Institute, University of Southern California, Alebra Technologies, SIMULIA, Risk Management Solutions, Brigham Young University, SRD, HRL

Buyer's Guide

Contrast Security Assess vs. Klocwork

December 2025

Free Report: Contrast Security Assess vs. Klocwork

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