Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Fortify Application Defender 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

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
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 Fortify Application Defender is 0.7%, down from 0.8% 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

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
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

"The information from Fortify Application Defender on how to fix and solve issues is very good compared to other solutions."
"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 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."
"Fortify Application Defender's most valuable features are machine learning algorithms, real-time remediation, and automatic vulnerability notifications."
"The most valuable features of Fortify Application Defender are the code packages that are default."
"The product saves us cost and time."
"Its ability to find security defects is valuable."
"Snyk helps me pinpoint security errors in my code."
"It is a stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"Our overall security has improved. We are running fewer severities and vulnerabilities in our packages. We fixed a lot of the vulnerabilities that we didn't know were there."
"The valuable aspect is its security capabilities."
"Snyk categorizes the level of vulnerability into high, medium, and low, which helps organizations prioritize which issues to tackle first."
"The dependency checks of the libraries are very valuable, but the licensing part is also very important because, with open source components, licensing can be all over the place. Our project is not an open source project, but we do use quite a lot of open source components and we want to make sure that we don't have surprises in there."
"I think all the standard features are quite useful when it comes to software component scanning, but I also like the new features they're coming out with, such as container scanning, secrets scanning, and static analysis with SAST."
"Snyk has given us really good results because it is fully automated. We don't have to scan projects every time to find vulnerabilities, as it already stores the dependencies that we are using. It monitors 24/7 to find out if there are any issues that have been reported out on the Internet."
 

Cons

"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 false positive rate should be lower."
"Support for older compilers/IDEs is lacking."
"Fortify Application Defender gives a lot of false positives."
"I encountered many false positives for Python applications."
"The licensing can be a little complex."
"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 workbench is a little bit complex when you first start using it."
"We use Bamboo for CI.CD, and we had problems integrating Snyk with it. Ultimately, we got the two solutions to work together, but it was difficult."
"We would like to have upfront knowledge on how easy it should be to just pull in an upgraded dependency, e.g., even introduce full automation for dependencies supposed to have no impact on the business side of things. Therefore, we would like some output when you get the report with the dependencies. We want to get additional information on the expected impact of the business code that is using the dependency with the newer version. This probably won't be easy to add, but it would be helpful."
"The tool needs improvement in license compliance. I would like to see the integration of better policy management in the product's future release. When it comes to the organization that I work for, there are a lot of business units since we are a group of companies. Each of these companies has its specific requirements and its own appetite for risk. This should be able to reflect in flexible policies. We need to be able to configure policies that can be adjusted later or overridden by the business unit that is using the product."
"The reporting mechanism of Snyk could improve. The reporting mechanism is available only on the higher level of license. Adjusting the policy of the current setup of recording this report is something that can improve. For instance, if you have a certain license, you receive a rating, and the rating of this license remains the same for any use case. No matter if you are using it internally or using it externally, you cannot make the adjustment to your use case. It will always alert as a risky license. The areas of licenses in the reporting and adjustments can be improve"
"The solution could improve the reports. They have been working on improving the reports but more work could be done."
"It lists projects. So, if you have a number of microservices in an enterprise, then you could have pages of findings. Developers will then spend zero time going through the pages of reports to figure out, "Is there something I need to fix?" While it may make sense to list all the projects and issues in these very long lists for completeness, Snyk could do a better job of bubbling up and grouping items, e.g., a higher level dashboard that draws attention to things that are new, the highest priority things, or things trending in the wrong direction. That would make it a lot easier. They don't quite have that yet in container security."
"The tool should provide more flexibility and guidance to help us fix the top vulnerabilities before we go into production."
"We had some issues integrating into our pipeline, however, they were resolved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of this solution could be less 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."
"Fortify Application Defender is very 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."
"The base licensing costs for the SaaS platform is about $900 USD per application, per year."
"The product has good pricing."
"The solution is less expensive than Black Duck."
"On a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the pricing a three. It is a cheap solution."
"For what Snyk offers, it has the best cost-benefit I have ever seen because you're buying the license per user."
"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."
"Their licensing model is fairly robust and scalable for our needs. I believe we have reached a reasonable agreement on the licensing to enable hundreds of developers to participate in this product offering. The solution is very tailored towards developers and its licensing model works well for us."
"The license model is based on the number of contributing developers. Snyk is expensive, for a startup company will most likely use the community edition, while larger companies will buy the licensed version. The price of Snyk is more than other SLA tools."
"We are using the open-source version for the scans."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Security Tools solutions are best for your needs.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
22%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Government
9%
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 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 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

HPE Fortify Application Defender, Micro Focus Fortify Application Defender
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ServiceMaster, Saltworks, SAP
StartApp, Segment, Skyscanner, DigitalOcean, Comic Relief
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortify Application Defender vs. Snyk and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.