Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Contrast Security Assess vs OpenText Dynamic Application Security Testing 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 (27th), Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (27th)
OpenText Dynamic Applicatio...
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) (2nd), DevSecOps (8th)
 

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 0.6%, up 0.4% compared to last year.
OpenText Dynamic Application Security Testing, on the other hand, focuses on Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST), holds 17.9% mindshare, down 22.0% since last year.
Static Application Security Testing (SAST) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Contrast Security Assess0.6%
SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube)20.3%
Checkmarx One9.9%
Other69.19999999999999%
Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
OpenText Dynamic Application Security Testing17.9%
HCL AppScan14.3%
Checkmarx One13.5%
Other54.3%
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

"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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 static analysis."
"Guided Scan option allows us to easily scan and share reports."
"It is scalable and very easy to use."
"It is easy to use, and its reporting is fairly simple."
"The user interface is ok and it is very simple to use."
"The accuracy of its scans is great."
"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."
"Technical support has been good."
 

Cons

"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 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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Not sufficiently compatible with some of our systems."
"I'm not sure licensing, but on the pricing, it's a bit costly. It's a bit overpriced. Though it is an enterprise tool, there are other tools also with similar functionalities."
"There are some file extensions, like .SER, that Fortify WebInspect doesn't scan."
"A localized version, for example, in Korean would be a big improvement to this solution."
"It requires improvement in terms of scanning. The application scan heavily utilizes the resources of an on-premise server. 32 GB RAM is very high for an enterprise web application."
"Fortify WebInspect could improve user-friendliness. Additionally, it is very bulky to use."
"Fortify WebInspect's shortcoming stems from the fact that it is a very expensive product in Korea, which makes it difficult for its potential customers to introduce the product in their IT environment."
"It took us between eight and ten hours to scan an entire site, which is somewhat slow and something that I think can be improved."
 

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."
"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 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."
"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."
"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."
"Fortify WebInspect is a very expensive product."
"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."
"This solution is very expensive."
"The pricing is not clear and while it is not high, it is difficult to understand."
"The price is okay."
"It’s a fair price for the solution."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Static Application Security Testing (SAST) solutions are best for your needs.
867,826 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
22%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
9%
Insurance Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Government
15%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Computer Software Company
10%
 

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 Business7
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise15
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortify WebInspect?
While I am not directly involved with licensing, I can share that our project's license for 1-9 applications costs between $15,000 to $19,000. In comparison, Burp Suite costs approximately $500 to ...
What needs improvement with Fortify WebInspect?
WebInspect works efficiently with Java-based or .NET based applications. However, it struggles with Salesforce applications, where it requires approximately 20-24 hours to crawl and audit but produ...
What is your primary use case for Fortify WebInspect?
I am currently working with several tools. For Fortify, I use SCA and WebInspect. Apart from that, I use Burp Suite from PortSwigger. For API testing, I use Postman with Burp Suite or WebInspect fo...
 

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. OpenText Dynamic Application Security Testing and other solutions. Updated: May 2022.
867,826 professionals have used our research since 2012.