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Contrast Security Assess vs Snyk 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
26th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (22nd)
Snyk
Ranking in Application Security Tools
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
45
Ranking in other categories
Container Security (8th), Software Composition Analysis (SCA) (3rd), Software Development Analytics (2nd), DevSecOps (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Application Security Tools category, the mindshare of Contrast Security Assess is 0.6%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Snyk is 7.9%, down from 8.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
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.
meetharoon - PeerSpot reviewer
Affordable tool boosts code scanning efficiency but faces integration hurdles
The most important feature of Snyk is its cost-effectiveness compared to other solutions such as Check Point. It is easy to consolidate Snyk across multiple entities within a large organization. Additionally, our integration of Snyk into GitHub allows us to automatically scan codebases and identify issues, which has improved efficiency.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"By far, the thing that was able to provide value was the immediate response while testing ahead of release, in real-time."
"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 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."
"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."
"I am impressed with the product's identification of alerts and vulnerabilities."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"It is easy for developers to use. The documentation is clear as well as the APIs are good and easily readable. It's a good solution overall."
"From the software composition analysis perspective, it first makes sure that we understand what is happening from a third-party perspective for the particular product that we use. This is very difficult when you are building software and incorporating dependencies from other libraries, because those dependencies have dependencies and that chain of dependencies can go pretty deep. There could be a vulnerability in something that is seven layers deep, and it would be very difficult to understand that is even affecting us. Therefore, Snyk provides fantastic visibility to know, "Yes, we have a problem. Here is where it ultimately comes from." It may not be with what we're incorporating, but something much deeper than that."
"It's very easy for developers to use. Onboarding was an easy process for all of the developers within the company. After a quick, half-an-hour to an hour session, they were fully using it on their own. It's very straightforward. Usability is definitely a 10 out of 10."
"The most valuable feature is that they add a lot of their own information to the vulnerabilities. They describe vulnerabilities and suggest their own mitigations or version upgrades. The information was the winning factor when we compared Snyk to others. This is what gave it more impact."
"The most effective feature in securing project dependencies stems from its ability to highlight security vulnerabilities."
"Snyk's focus on security is a valuable feature. Also Snyk supports multiple programming languages, which has positively affected my security practices. I use only two or three languages, and when I change the language in a file, it detects it in the same suite. I find the AI-powered scanning overall beneficial.Using Snyk's AI-powered scanning, I can detect around ten or twenty errors in my project with about twenty thousand lines of code, so it helps improve my project by identifying a lot of potential vulnerabilities."
"Provides clear information and is easy to follow with good feedback regarding code practices."
"We have integrated it into our software development environment. We have it in a couple different spots. Developers can use it at the point when they are developing. They can test it on their local machine. If the setup that they have is producing alerts or if they need to upgrade or patch, then at the testing phase when a product is being built for automated testing integrates with Snyk at that point and also produces some checks."
 

Cons

"I would like to see them come up with more scanning rules."
"The solution needs to improve flexibility...The scalability of the product is a problem in the solution, especially from a commercial perspective."
"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 out-of-the-box reporting could be improved. We need to write our own APIs to make the reporting more robust."
"The solution should provide more details in the section where it shows that third-party libraries have CVEs or some vulnerabilities."
"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."
"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."
"Offering API access in the lower or free open-source tiers would be better. That would help our customers. If you don't have an enterprise plan, it becomes challenging to integrate with the rest of the systems. Our customers would like to have some open-source integrations in the next release."
"For the areas that they're new in, it's very early stages for them. For example, their expertise is in looking at third-party components and packages, which is their bread-and-butter and what they've been doing for ages, but for newer features such as static analysis I don't think they've got compatibility for all the languages and frameworks yet."
"We had some issues integrating into our pipeline, however, they were resolved."
"The solution's reporting and storage could be improved."
"Could include other types of security scanning and statistical analysis"
"One area where Snyk could improve is in providing developers with the line where the error occurs."
"We have seen cases where tools didn't find or recognize certain dependencies. These are known issues, to some extent, due to the complexity in the language or stack that you using. There are some certain circumstances where the tool isn't actually finding what it's supposed to be finding, then it could be misleading."
"We've also had technical issues with blocking newly introduced vulnerabilities in PRs and that was creating a lot of extra work for developers in trying to close and reopen the PR to get rid of some areas. We ended up having to disable that feature altogether because it wasn't really working for us and it was actually slowing down developer velocity."
 

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."
"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."
"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 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."
"The price is good. Snyk had a good price compared to the competition, who had higher pricing than them. Also, their licensing and billing are clear."
"I would rate the pricing of Snyk at two. I'm currently using the free version, which the company offers before buying the full version. So, the price is affordable, especially for an enterprise."
"With Snyk, you get what you pay for. It is not a cheap solution, but you get a comprehensiveness and level of coverage that is very good. The dollars in the security budget only go so far. If I can maximize my value and be able to have some funds left over for other initiatives, I want to do that. That is what drives me to continue to say, "What's out there in the market? Snyk's expensive, but it's good. Is there something as good, but more affordable?" Ultimately, I find we could go cheaper, but we would lose the completeness of vision or scope. I am not willing to do that because Snyk does provide a pretty important benefit for us."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"The pricing is acceptable, especially for enterprises. I don't think it's too much of a concern for our customers. Something like $99 per user is reasonable when the stakes are high."
"We do have some missing licenses issues, especially with non-SPDX compliant one, but we expect this to be fixed soon"
"Pricing-wise, it is not expensive as compared to other tools. If you have a couple of licenses, you can scan a certain number of projects. It just needs to be attached to them."
"Presently, my company uses an open-source version of the solution. The solution's pricing can be considered quite reasonable owing to the features they offer."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
25%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Computer Software Company
10%
Insurance Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Insurance Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Contrast Security Assess?
The product's pricing is low. I would rate it a two out of ten.
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 ...
How does Snyk compare with SonarQube?
Snyk does a great job identifying and reducing vulnerabilities. This solution is fully automated and monitors 24/7 to find any issues reported on the internet. It will store dependencies that you a...
What do you like most about Snyk?
The most effective feature in securing project dependencies stems from its ability to highlight security vulnerabilities.
What needs improvement with Snyk?
There are a lot of false positives that need to be identified and separated. The inclusion of AI to remove false positives would be beneficial. So far, I've not seen any AI features to enhance vuln...
 

Also Known As

Contrast Assess
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Williams-Sonoma, Autodesk, HUAWEI, Chromeriver, RingCentral, Demandware.
StartApp, Segment, Skyscanner, DigitalOcean, Comic Relief
Find out what your peers are saying about Contrast Security Assess vs. Snyk and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.