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Contrast Security Assess vs Qualys Web Application Scanning comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 8, 2024

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
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
27th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Qualys Web Application Scan...
Ranking in Application Security Tools
13th
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
9th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

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 Qualys Web Application Scanning is 2.0%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Security Tools Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Qualys Web Application Scanning2.0%
Contrast Security Assess0.8%
Other97.2%
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.
AnkitSharma13 - PeerSpot reviewer
Web scanning needs improvement but offers good vulnerability detection
The downside of Qualys Web Application Scanning is that it cannot crawl automatically. If I provide an IP address and a login form, it does basic testing, but it doesn't go deep as IBM AppScan does. If Qualys Web Application Scanning could improve its crawling capability, it would be more user-friendly. Qualys Web Application Scanning does IP-level testing, requiring direct input of credentials, and can only scan a few pages to provide known generic vulnerabilities, which isn't as beneficial from my point of view. The Vulnerability Management also relies heavily on version numbers and will flag vulnerabilities based on the component version, but it doesn't check if a real fix exists, leading to flags on components that actually have workarounds available.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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 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."
"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."
"By far, the thing that was able to provide value was the immediate response while testing ahead of release, in real-time."
"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 feature that I have found most valuable is the progressive scan. It is good. It's done in 24 hours."
"The most valuable features are the scheduled scanning, detailed reports, asset management, the knowledge database, and the overall product framework."
"It combines both web application vulnerability management and internal vulnerability management on one platform and dashboard. Usually, you have to purchase separate tools."
"The product prevents possible vulnerabilities in our network."
"The advantage of Qualys Web Application Scanning lies in its user-friendly dashboard and appealing reports, which are useful for presentation to leadership."
"It is a very stable solution."
"By using QualysGuard, we are able to finish external scans with assured results in half the time.​"
"With our vulnerabilities under control, it's putting our services in compliance and minimizing our risk for exposure."
 

Cons

"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."
"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 should provide more details in the section where it shows that third-party libraries have CVEs or some vulnerabilities."
"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 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 out-of-the-box reporting could be improved. We need to write our own APIs to make the reporting more robust."
"I would like to see them come up with more scanning rules."
"The virus code updates are not frequent enough."
"I have dealt with Qualys's technical support, and any enhancements are challenging. I would rate them a five out of ten."
"The UI is not user-friendly and you don't have a yearly reporting facility where you can slice and dice in different jobs."
"We have many websites. We don't force scanning on all of them at once because it's taking some time."
"In terms of the Policy Compliance model which they currently have, not all the platforms are being covered. If they could improve on the Policy Compliance model, since there are policies which are benchmarked against it, this will be helpful for us."
"It should have better automatic reporting."
"The downside of Qualys Web Application Scanning is that it cannot crawl automatically. If I provide an IP address and a login form, it does basic testing, but it doesn't go deep as IBM AppScan does."
"One area for improvement is the user interface. The new UI, which was recently upgraded, feels more complex and less user-friendly than the old version."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"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."
"The solution is expensive."
"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 is an expensive platform."
"​It is best to be an institutional buyer and directly contact the sales team, as they can provide over-the-top discounts for bulk orders​."
"Qualys WAS' pricing is competitive."
"We are on an annual license for the solution and the pricing could be more affordable."
"From my perspective, it is a budget-friendly option."
"The product has a very good licensing model."
"Qualys has an IT-based licensing based on a yearly license, which is a good way of handling it. However, in some cases, when we do the PCI scanning, the host will not like the scanning and we lose the IT license. So, this could be improved."
"There are different options available with respect to licensing."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
21%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
9%
Insurance Company
8%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
7%
 

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 Business8
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise27
 

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 Qualys Web Application Scanning?
The vulnerability management feature is a strong one. And also the patch management feature.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Qualys Web Application Scanning?
The price of Qualys Web Application Scanning is reasonable compared to other vendors. Qualys Web Application Scanning is priced per application rather than per user.
What needs improvement with Qualys Web Application Scanning?
I have experience with adaptive scanning for single-page applications, which was not very effective. Generally, comparing with other tools, Qualys Web Application Scanning still needs to improve on...
 

Also Known As

Contrast Assess
Qualys WAS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Williams-Sonoma, Autodesk, HUAWEI, Chromeriver, RingCentral, Demandware.
BskyB, Cartagena, ClearPoint Learning Systems, Connect Group, du, Fortrex Technologies, HBOR, HDI, Highlights for Children, The Lithuanian State Enterprise Centre of Registers, City of Miami Beach, Microsoft, MidlandHR, MSCI Inc., Northern Arizona University, Ofgem, Olympus Europa, PhoneFactor, RTL Nederland, ThousandEyes, VGZ Organisatie B.V.
Find out what your peers are saying about Contrast Security Assess vs. Qualys Web Application Scanning and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
866,561 professionals have used our research since 2012.