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Fortify Application Defender vs GitLab 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

Fortify Application Defender
Ranking in Application Security Tools
32nd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
GitLab
Ranking in Application Security Tools
6th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
91
Ranking in other categories
Build Automation (2nd), Release Automation (2nd), Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (4th), Rapid Application Development Software (11th), Software Composition Analysis (SCA) (4th), Enterprise Agile Planning Tools (2nd), Fuzz Testing Tools (2nd), DevSecOps (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Application Security Tools category, the mindshare of Fortify Application Defender is 1.5%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of GitLab is 2.0%, down from 3.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Security Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
GitLab2.0%
Fortify Application Defender1.5%
Other96.5%
Application Security Tools
 

Featured Reviews

VS
CTO at Abcl
Useful for fast code review in devOps pipelines
I rate the tool's scalability a seven out of ten. However, I'm concerned about how it handles an increasing number of lines of code. As the complexity grows, so does the time it takes for the tool to review everything. I want more clarity on how Fortify Application Defender handles multiple threats. We have numerous endpoints, but the tool runs in our pipeline, meaning it operates in the cloud. All our code is configured there, and the tool runs integration testing, unit testing, user testing, and final production code tests. It's a day-to-day experience. It's utilized almost every day as part of our pipeline runs. Each team responsible for integration testing, human testing, user access testing, and preproduction testing runs it whenever they take a build.
BasilJiji - PeerSpot reviewer
System engineer at a retailer with 10,001+ employees
Role-based workflows have transformed daily deployments and improve team collaboration
GitLab has role-based access control, so when a team member needs to make a code change, they cannot directly apply it to the environment but must put in a merge request. Once a senior reviews the code and approves it, then it is implemented across the environment, making it safer and allowing everyone to experience the process. The best features GitLab offers are version control and automation, which are the major things that stand out to me. When it comes to access, the login is very smooth, with just one login integrated with our Okta, allowing everyone to log in easily. Deployments become much easier, and that is how GitLab helps. The automation features make my work easier because we use a tool called AWX, which is connected to GitLab. Whenever we run a job on AWX, it directly checks the code and uses it. Since the code is not preserved locally but kept in the cloud, it is safe and nobody can tamper with it. When it comes to safety, that is a major thing. Automation features allow the code to be accessed from any tools we use, so the jobs we run are helping tremendously and doing their work perfectly. For pipeline tasks, we have created a significant amount of pipelines, which are all hosted in GitLab. Running the pipelines has become much easier, and they are doing a perfect job, helping tremendously in our day-to-day activities. GitLab has positively impacted my organization because previously we stored code locally on servers, leading to many risks. Since GitLab came into our environment, our integration and deployments became much easier, helping our work become much smoother. Improvements from GitLab have led to better team collaboration because when several people are working, they can all edit the code and submit it as a merge request, and once approved, it reflects directly to the main branch. Many can work at the same time. When it comes to deployments, deploying has become much faster since we started using GitLab, and even if errors occur, we can spot them easily and troubleshoot, which has helped tremendously.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The information from Fortify Application Defender on how to fix and solve issues is very good compared to other solutions."
"Fortify Application Defender has a few drawbacks, it has its own pros and cons, but it's a good tool to use in any industry."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to automatically feed it rules what it's coupled with the WebInspect dynamic application scanning technology."
"The most valuable feature is that it analyzes data in real-time."
"Fortify Application Defender's most valuable features are machine learning algorithms, real-time remediation, and automatic vulnerability notifications."
"I find the configuration of rules in Fortify Application Defender useful. Its integration is also easy."
"The solution helped us to improve the code quality of our organization."
"The tool's most valuable feature is software composition analysis. This feature works well with my .NET applications, providing a better understanding of library vulnerabilities."
"Continuous integration with deployment is very powerful, which is a significant reason for migrating from TFS to GitLab."
"Git merging allows us to track the details of how and who has done what; this is the best feature which is useful for all companies."
"GitLab is kind of an image of GitHub, so it gives us the flexibility to monitor our changes in the repos."
"The CI/CD pipeline with Helm has significantly improved deployment speed and efficiency."
"Using GitLab is important to help provide a more secure and reliable environment for developers working with information in the cloud."
"The solution's service delivery model is fantastic."
"It speeds up our development, it's faster, safer, and more convenient."
"It's a great toolbox where the CI/CD pipeline is the fundamental component, but there are so many other features that you can pull from, which makes it a very powerful tool. My current client is using AWS, and they can, of course, use AWS CodePipeline, but GitLab is much more mature than that, and it also gives you the freedom to decide to go to another platform or have a multi-cloud strategy and things like that. That freedom for me is also very valuable."
 

Cons

"Support for older compilers/IDEs is lacking."
"The licensing can be a little complex."
"The licensing is very complex, it's project based and can range from $10,000 to $200,000+ depending on the project type and size."
"The solution is quite expensive."
"The workbench is a little bit complex when you first start using it."
"The false positive rate should be lower."
"Fortify Application Defender gives a lot of false positives."
"The biggest complaint that I have heard concerns additional platform support because right now, it only supports applications that are written in .NET and Java."
"Its security features are very expensive. The Ultimate version is very expensive."
"It could have more security integrations and the ability to check the vulnerability of the code. I don't think it is a responsibility of Gitlab, but it would be nice to have more options to integrate with."
"We would like to have easier tutorials. Their tutorials are too technical for a user to understand. They should be more detailed but less technical."
"I would like to see static analysis also embedded in GitLab. That would also help us. If there's something that it does internally by GitLab and then that is already tied up with your pipeline and then it can tell you that you're coding is good or your code is not great. Based on that, it would pass or fail. That should be streamlined. I would think that would help to a greater extent, in terms of having one solution rather than depending on multiple vendors."
"It's more related to the supporting layer of features, such as issue management and issue tracking. We tend to always use, for example, Jira next to it. That doesn't mean that GitLab should build something similar to Jira because that will always have its place, but they could grow a bit in those kinds of supporting features. I see some, for example, covering ITSM on a DevOps team level, and that's one of the things that I and my current client would find really helpful. It's understandably not going to be their main focus and their core, and whenever you are with a company that needs a bit more advanced features on that specific topic, you're probably still going to integrate with another tool like Jira Service Management, for example. However, some basic features on things like that could be really helpful."
"The pricing has been substantially increased, which is a major concern."
"The licensing model could be improved to be more accommodating in terms of user numbers and costs."
"I would like to see AI support in GitLab."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I rate the solution's pricing a five out of ten. It comes as an annual cloud subscription. The tool's pricing is around 50 lakhs."
"The base licensing costs for the SaaS platform is about $900 USD per application, per year."
"Fortify Application Defender is very expensive."
"The licensing is very complex, it's project based and can range from $10,000 to $200,000+ depending on the project type and size."
"The product’s price is much higher than other tools."
"The price of this solution could be less expensive."
"The solution is based on a subscription model and is reasonably priced."
"The price is okay."
"The solution's pricing is acceptable."
"This product is not very expensive but the price can be better."
"My company uses the free version of GitLab, which is GitLab Community Edition. There is a licensed version also available for GitLab."
"There are different licensing options available, including a free limited-user license."
"GitLab is cheap."
"The solution is free."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Construction Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business38
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise49
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for GitLab?
The setup cost for GitLab is minimal since the team has its own minimal resource balancing. The costing falls into an intermediate stage and is impactful across all results within the team. It allo...
What needs improvement with GitLab?
There are many improvements that GitLab can implement, such as addressing the issue of caching. Currently, when I have multiple tasks to merge or attempt multiple merges, the CI/CD and overall GitL...
What is your primary use case for GitLab?
My main use case for GitLab is as a version control system that we are using. Currently, I am working on an end-to-end AI pipeline, and I have deployed my whole code using GitLab so that all things...
 

Also Known As

HPE Fortify Application Defender, Micro Focus Fortify Application Defender
Fuzzit
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ServiceMaster, Saltworks, SAP
1. NASA  2. IBM  3. Sony  4. Alibaba  5. CERN  6. Siemens  7. Volkswagen  8. ING  9. Ticketmaster  10. SpaceX  11. Adobe  12. Intuit  13. Autodesk  14. Rakuten  15. Unity Technologies  16. Pandora  17. Electronic Arts  18. Nordstrom  19. Verizon  20. Comcast  21. Philips  22. Deutsche Telekom  23. Orange  24. Fujitsu  25. Ericsson  26. Nokia  27. General Electric  28. Cisco  29. Accenture  30. Deloitte  31. PwC  32. KPMG
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortify Application Defender vs. GitLab and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,270 professionals have used our research since 2012.