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Fortify Application Defender vs OpenText Core Application Security comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 21, 2025

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
24th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
OpenText Core Application S...
Ranking in Application Security Tools
13th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
60
Ranking in other categories
Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2025, in the Application Security Tools category, the mindshare of Fortify Application Defender is 0.8%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OpenText Core Application Security is 3.6%, down from 5.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Security Tools Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
OpenText Core Application Security3.6%
Fortify Application Defender0.8%
Other95.6%
Application Security Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Saroj-Patnaik - PeerSpot reviewer
Reliable solution with excellent machine learning algorithms but expensive and lacking support
I primarily use Fortify Application Defender to assess whether our products can defend against applications Fortify Application Defender's most valuable features are machine learning algorithms, real-time remediation, and automatic vulnerability notifications. Fortify Application Defender gives…
Jonathan Steyn - PeerSpot reviewer
Source code analyzer, FPR file generation, reduction of false positives and generates compliance reports, for in-depth analysis
Not challenges with the product itself. The product is very reliable. It does have a steep learning curve. But, again, one thing that Fortify or OpenText does very well is training. There are a lot of free resources and training in the community forums, free training as well as commercial training where users can train on how to use the back-end systems and the scanning engines and how to use command-line arguments because some of the procedures or some of the tools do require a bit of a learning curve. That's the only challenge I've really seen for customers because you have to learn how to use the tool effectively. But Fortify has, in fact, improved its user interface and the way users engage the dashboards and the interfaces. It is intuitive. It's easy to understand. But in some regards, the cybersecurity specialist or AppSec would need a bit of training to engage the user interface and to understand how it functions. But from the point of the reliability index and how powerful the tool is, there's no challenge there. But it's just from a learning perspective; users might need a bit more skill to use the tool. The user interface isn't that tedious. It's not that difficult to understand. When I initially learned how to use the interfaces, I was able to master it within a week and was able to use it quite effectively. So training is required. All skills are needed to learn how to use the tool. I would like to see more enhancements in the dashboards. Dashboards are available. They do need some configuration and settings. But I would like to see more business intelligence capabilities within the tool. It's not particularly a cybersecurity function, but, for instance, business impact analysis or other features where you can actually use business intelligence capabilities within your security tool. That would be remarkable because not only do you have a cybersecurity tool, but you also have a tool that can give you business impact analysis and some other measurements. A bit more intelligence in terms of that from a cybersecurity perspective would be remarkable.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We are able to provide out customers with a secure application after development. They are no longer left wondering if they are vulnerable to different threats within the market following deployment."
"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."
"The most valuable features of Fortify Application Defender are the code packages that are default."
"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."
"Its ability to find security defects is valuable."
"Fortify Application Defender's most valuable features are machine learning algorithms, real-time remediation, and automatic vulnerability notifications."
"It's a stable and scalable solution."
"The feature that I find the most useful is being able to just see the vulnerabilities online while checking the code and then checking suggestions for fixing them."
"It is a very easy tool for developers to use in parallel while they're doing the coding. It does auto scanning as we are progressing with the CI/CD pipeline. It has got very simple and efficient API support."
"The most valuable feature is the capacity to be able to check vulnerabilities during the development process. The development team can check whether the code they are using is vulnerable to some type of attack or there is some type of vulnerability so that they can mitigate it. It helps us in achieving a more secure approach towards internal applications. It is an intuitive solution. It gives all the information that a developer needs to remediate a vulnerability in the coding process. It also gives you some examples of how to remediate a vulnerability in different programming languages. This solution is pretty much what we were searching for."
"This product is top-notch solution and the technology is the best on the market."
"What stands out to me is the user-friendliness of each feature."
"The features that I have found most valuable include its security scan, the vulnerability finds, and the web interface to search and review the issues."
"Each bank may have its own core banking applications with proprietary support for different programming languages. This makes Fortify particularly relevant and advantageous in those cases."
 

Cons

"The workbench is a little bit complex when you first start using it."
"I encountered many false positives for Python applications."
"Support for older compilers/IDEs is lacking."
"Fortify Application Defender gives a lot of false positives."
"The solution is quite expensive."
"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 licensing can be a little complex."
"Fortify Application Defender could improve by supporting more code languages, such as GRAAS and Groovy."
"This solution would be improved if the code-quality perspective were added to it, on top of the security aspect."
"I would like to see improvement in CI integration and integration with GitLab or Jenkins. It needs to be more simple."
"Primarily for a complex, advanced website, they don't really understand some of the functionalities. So for instance, they could tell us that there is a vulnerability because somebody could possibly do something, but they don't really understand the code to realize that we actually negate that vulnerability through some other mechanism in the program. In addition, the technical support is just not there. We have open tickets. They don't respond. Even if they respond, we're not seeing eye to eye. As the company got sold and bought, the support got worse."
"Fortify on Demand could be improved with support in Russia."
".NET code scanning is still dependent on building the code base before running any scan. Also, it's dependent on an IDE such as Visual Studio."
"They have a release coming out, which is full of new features. Based on their roadmap, there's nothing that I would suggest for them to put in it that they haven't already suggested. However, I am a customer, so I always think the pricing is something that could be improved. I am working with them on that, and they're very flexible. They work with their customers and kind of tailor the product to the customer's needs. So far, I am very happy with what they're able to provide. Their subscriptions could use a little bit of a reworking, but that would be about it."
"During development, when our developer makes changes to their code, they typically use GitHub or GitLab to track those changes. However, proper integration between Fortify on Demand and GitHub and GitLab is not there yet. Improved integration would be very valuable to us."
"Sometimes when we run a full scan, we have a bunch of issues in the code. We should not have any issues."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The base licensing costs for the SaaS platform is about $900 USD per application, per year."
"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."
"Fortify Application Defender is very expensive."
"The product’s price is much higher than other tools."
"The price of this solution could be less expensive."
"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."
"It is quite expensive. Pricing and the licensing model could be improved."
"Micro Focus Fortify on Demand licenses are managed by our IT team and the license model is user-based."
"The solution is a little expensive."
"It's a yearly contract, but I don't remember the dollar amount."
"Their subscriptions could use a little bit of a reworking, but I am very happy with what they're able to provide."
"The product's cost depends on the type of license."
"The licensing was good because the licenses have the heavy centralized server."
"There are different costs for Micro Focus Fortify on Demand depending on the assessments you want to use. There is only a standard license needed to use the solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Manufacturing Company
15%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
8%
 

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 Business16
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise43
 

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.
What do you like most about Micro Focus Fortify on Demand?
It helps deploy and track changes easily as per time-to-time market upgrades.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Micro Focus Fortify on Demand?
In comparison with other tools, they're competitive. It is not more expensive than other solutions, but their pricing is competitive. The licenses for Fortify On Demand are generally bought in unit...
What needs improvement with Micro Focus Fortify on Demand?
There are frequent complaints about false positives from Fortify. One day it may pass a scan with no issues, and the next day, without any code changes, it will report vulnerabilities such as passw...
 

Also Known As

HPE Fortify Application Defender, Micro Focus Fortify Application Defender
Micro Focus Fortify on Demand
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ServiceMaster, Saltworks, SAP
SAP, Aaron's, British Gas, FICO, Cox Automative, Callcredit Information Group, Vital and more.
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortify Application Defender vs. OpenText Core Application Security and other solutions. Updated: November 2025.
873,085 professionals have used our research since 2012.