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Fortify Application Defender vs PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional 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
PortSwigger Burp Suite Prof...
Ranking in Application Security Tools
10th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
65
Ranking in other categories
Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (7th), Fuzz Testing Tools (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 PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional is 3.4%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Security Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional3.4%
Fortify Application Defender1.5%
Other95.1%
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.
MH
Penetration Tester & Information Security Expert at a comms service provider with 11-50 employees
Dedicated browser and repeater have improved my proxy testing and manual vulnerability checks
I'm hoping perhaps for something to make it easier, such as to define things where if a message or a response is such and such, automatically make a request that is such and such. Perhaps something like this because otherwise, nowadays we have to do it manually. Perhaps they can automate it a bit more. Perhaps they could add some automation to things, to see what we do manually, which it has the tools to do manually, and perhaps enable with a click of a button to do things automatically. I'm not too sure which, but I'm sure they can from a product management point of view, do things that we need to do two, three, or four steps manually regarding specific testing. For instance, we want to check something specific if it's this or if it's that. Perhaps to define it once and have it more automatic, perhaps.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Its ability to find security defects is valuable."
"This is a great tool and the kind of support it provides is very helpful."
"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 product saves us cost and time."
"The information from Fortify Application Defender on how to fix and solve issues is very good compared to other solutions."
"The most valuable feature is that it analyzes data in real-time."
"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 solution helped us to improve the code quality of our organization."
"The solution helped us discover vulnerabilities in our applications."
"The feature that we have found most valuable is that it comes with pre-set configurations, with a set of predefined options where you can pick one and start scanning, and we also have the option of creating our own configurations, such as how often the applications need to be scanned, along with good reporting and dashboards that integrate well with other task management applications we are using."
"This is a very nice tool and anybody can use it, from beginner to expert level."
"We found PortSwigger to be the best match for our business."
"The solution helps to find different security issues, and it helps identify many, many security issues quickly, and that's what makes it such a useful tool."
"There is no other tool like it. I like the intuitiveness and the plugins that are available."
"This solution has helped a lot in finding bugs and vulnerabilities, and the scanner is good enough for simple web apps."
"The most valuable feature of PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional is the Burp Intruder tool."
 

Cons

"I encountered many false positives for Python applications."
"The false positive rate should be lower."
"The workbench is a little bit complex when you first start using it."
"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."
"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."
"Support for older compilers/IDEs is lacking."
"Fortify Application Defender gives a lot of false positives."
"The solution is quite expensive."
"We've faced lots of challenges, including slowing down of the tool, and a lot of error messages, sometimes because of the interface."
"One thing that is not up to the mark in PortSwigger is web application testing. I found some issues with its performance and reporting. They should work on these and give us a better outcome."
"BurpSuite has some issues regarding authentication with OAT tokens that need to be improved."
"There is a lot to this product, and it would be good if when you purchase the tool, they can provide us with a more extensive user manual."
"I need the solution to be more user-friendly. The solution needs to be user-friendly."
"The technical support team's response time is mostly delayed and should be improved."
"In general, there's not much to complain about but the stability of the tool is not good enough."
"The biggest improvement that I would like to see from PortSwigger that today many people see as an issue in their testing. There might be a feature which might be desired."
 

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 product’s price is much higher than other tools."
"The price of this solution could be less expensive."
"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 solution used to be expensive. However, they have reduced the price to approximately $400.00 which is reasonable."
"The platform's pricing is reasonable."
"They should reduce the license cost a little bit. It is $400 per user, and it would be better if they could reduce the licensing fee."
"It's a lower priced tool that we can rely on with good standard mechanisms."
"The pricing of the solution is reasonable. We only need to pay for the annual subscription. I rate the pricing five out of ten."
"Our licensing cost is approximately $400 USD per year."
"PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional is an expensive solution."
"We are using the community version, which 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
10%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
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 Business17
Midsize Enterprise14
Large Enterprise35
 

Questions from the Community

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Is OWASP Zap better than PortSwigger Burp Suite Pro?
OWASP Zap and PortSwigger Burp Suite Pro have many similar features. OWASP Zap has web application scanning available with basic security vulnerabilities while Burp Suite Pro has it available with ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional?
The cost of PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional is reasonable at approximately $500 per year per user.
What needs improvement with PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional?
I'm hoping perhaps for something to make it easier, such as to define things where if a message or a response is such and such, automatically make a request that is such and such. Perhaps something...
 

Also Known As

HPE Fortify Application Defender, Micro Focus Fortify Application Defender
Burp
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ServiceMaster, Saltworks, SAP
Google, Amazon, NASA, FedEx, P&G, Salesforce
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortify Application Defender vs. PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,270 professionals have used our research since 2012.