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Fortify Application Defender vs Mend.io 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
Mend.io
Ranking in Application Security Tools
18th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
30
Ranking in other categories
Software Composition Analysis (SCA) (7th), Static Code Analysis (4th), Software Supply Chain Security (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Application Security Tools category, the mindshare of Fortify Application Defender is 0.7%, down from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Mend.io is 3.6%, up from 3.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Security Tools
 

Featured Reviews

HisaoOgata - PeerSpot reviewer
Saves time and warns about the vulnerabilities in the software, but the false positive rate should be lower
We use the solution to prevent cyberattacks Based on the alerts created by the solution during development, we modify the software we are developing. The product finds mistakes automatically. It warns us about the vulnerabilities in the software. The product saves us cost and time. The product…
meetharoon - PeerSpot reviewer
Enables smooth management of vulnerabilities and promotes a shift towards a culture of security
We have witnessed Mend.io for its high stability, consistently living up to our expectations in terms of performance and reliability. Our developers have reported very few issues and almost minimal to zero downtime, which is a critical factor for our organization to rely on Mend SCA to secure our applications. We didn't experience any major issues in the stability of the product. This level of dependability is crucial for our hundreds of development teams that need to maintain continuous integration and deployment processes without interruptions. We realize the solution's architecture is designed to support a wide range of use cases, making it suitable for organizations of varying sizes and complexities. As a SaaS (Software as a Service) offering, Mend.io eliminates the need for physical server management, which further contributes to its stability. Users can access the platform without worrying about hardware failures or maintenance issues that can affect on-premises solutions. Moreover, Mend.io's integration capabilities with existing workflows—including IDEs, repositories, and CI/CD pipelines—enhance its stability by providing a seamless user experience. This integration allows teams to incorporate security scanning into their development processes without significant disruptions, which is often a challenge with less stable solutions. Feedback from our developers and architects highlights the tool's effectiveness in reducing open-source software vulnerabilities while maintaining a streamlined development lifecycle. Our organization have experienced improved code quality and faster incident response times as a result of using Mend.io. The platform's intuitive dashboard and management views are also praised by our developers for their usability, contributing to a positive user experience. In short, Mend.io stands out as a dependable and reliable solution in the realm of software composition analysis. Its high stability, combined with robust integration capabilities and user-friendly features, makes it an excellent choice for organizations seeking to enhance their security posture while minimizing operational disruptions.

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 that it analyzes data in real-time."
"Its ability to find security defects is valuable."
"The product saves us cost and time."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to automatically feed it rules what it's coupled with the WebInspect dynamic application scanning technology."
"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."
"I find the configuration of rules in Fortify Application Defender useful. Its integration is also easy."
"The most valuable features of Fortify Application Defender are the code packages that are default."
"Mend has reduced our open-source software vulnerabilities and helped us remediate issues quickly. My company's policy is to ensure that vulnerabilities are fixed before it gets to production."
"Mend.io is very robust in terms of managing third-party dependencies."
"The vulnerability analysis is the best aspect of the solution."
"Enables scanning/collecting third-party libraries and classifying license types. In this way we ensure our third-party software policy is followed."
"WhiteSource is unique in the scanning of open-source licenses. Additionally, the vulnerabilities aspect of the solution is a benefit. We don't use WhiteSource in the whole organization, but we use it for some projects. There we receive a sense of the vulnerabilities of the open-source components, which improves our security work. The reports are automated which is useful."
"Mend.io is very robust in terms of managing third-party dependencies."
"The inventory management as well as the ability to identify security vulnerabilities has been the most valuable for our business."
"The most valuable feature is the inventory, where it compiles a list of all of the third-party libraries that we have on our estate."
 

Cons

"The product should integrate industry-standard code review tools internally with its system. This would streamline the coding process, as developers wouldn't need multiple tools for code review and security checks. Many independent and open-source tools are available, from Apache to various libraries. Using multiple DevOps pipeline tools can slow the turnaround time."
"The solution is quite expensive."
"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."
"Support for older compilers/IDEs is lacking."
"The false positive rate should be lower."
"The solution could improve the time it takes to scan. When comparing it to SonarQube it does it in minutes while in Fortify Application Defender it can take hours."
"The licensing can be a little complex."
"We have been looking at how we could improve the automation to human involvement ratio from 60:40 to 70:30, or even potentially 80:20, as there is room for improvement here. We are discussing this internally and with Mend; they are very accommodating to us. We think they openly receive our feedback and do their best to implement our thoughts into the roadmap."
"It would be nice to have a better way to realize its full potential and translate it within the UI or during onboarding."
"AI integration in code security tools like Mend.io is still in its early stages and relatively immature."
"Mend supports most of the common package managers, but it doesn't support some that we use. I would appreciate it if they can quickly make these changes to add new package managers when necessary."
"The solution lacks the code snippet part."
"WhiteSource Prioritize should be expanded to cover more than Java and JavaScript."
"The turnaround time for upgrading databases for this tool as well as the accuracy could be improved."
"The dashboard UI and UX are problematic."
 

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."
"Fortify Application Defender is very expensive."
"The price of this solution could be less expensive."
"The product’s price is much higher than other tools."
"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 base licensing costs for the SaaS platform is about $900 USD per application, per year."
"Over the last two years, they have tried to add more and more features to their license packages, but the price is a little bit high, comparatively."
"Pricing and licensing are comparable to other tools. When we started, it was less than our existing solution. I can't go into specifics, but it isn't cheap."
"When comparing the price of WhiteSource to the competition it is priced well. The cost for 50 users is approximately $18,000 annually."
"Pricing is competitive."
"It is fairly priced."
"This is an expensive solution."
"The version that we are using, WhiteSource Bolt, is a free integration with Azure DevOps."
"WhiteSource is much more affordable than Veracode."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
22%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Energy/Utilities Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Fortify Application Defender?
I find the configuration of rules in Fortify Application Defender useful. Its integration is also easy.
What needs improvement with Fortify Application Defender?
The product should integrate industry-standard code review tools internally with its system. This would streamline the coding process, as developers wouldn't need multiple tools for code review and...
What is your primary use case for Fortify Application Defender?
We use the solution for fast code review. It is integrated into our DevOps pipeline.
How does WhiteSource compare with SonarQube?
Red Hat Ceph does well in simplifying storage integration by replacing the need for numerous storage solutions. This solution allows for multiple copies of replicated and coded pools to be kept, ea...
How does WhiteSource compare with Black Duck?
We researched Black Duck but ultimately chose WhiteSource when looking for an application security tool. WhiteSource is a software solution that enables agile open source security and license compl...
What do you like most about Mend.io?
The best feature is that the Mend R&D team does their due diligence for all the vulnerabilities. In case they observe any important or critical vulnerabilities, such as the Log4j-related vulner...
 

Also Known As

HPE Fortify Application Defender, Micro Focus Fortify Application Defender
WhiteSource, Mend SCA, Mend.io Supply Chain Defender, Mend SAST
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ServiceMaster, Saltworks, SAP
Microsoft, Autodesk, NCR, Target, IBM, vodafone, Siemens, GE digital, KPMG, LivePerson, Jack Henry and Associates
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortify Application Defender vs. Mend.io and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,963 professionals have used our research since 2012.