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Fortify Application Defender vs Snyk comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 4, 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
28th
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
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
48
Ranking in other categories
Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (8th), Cloud Management (14th), Container Security (5th), Software Composition Analysis (SCA) (2nd), Software Development Analytics (2nd), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (16th), DevSecOps (2nd), Application Security Posture Management (ASPM) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Application Security Tools category, the mindshare of Fortify Application Defender is 0.7%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Snyk is 7.5%, down from 8.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
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…
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 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 that it analyzes data in real-time."
"I find the configuration of rules in Fortify Application Defender useful. Its integration is also easy."
"Its ability to find security defects is valuable."
"The solution helped us to improve the code quality of our organization."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to automatically feed it rules what it's coupled with the WebInspect dynamic application scanning technology."
"Fortify Application Defender's most valuable features are machine learning algorithms, real-time remediation, and automatic vulnerability notifications."
"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."
"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."
"It is easy for developers to use. The documentation is clear as well as the APIs are good and easily readable. It's a good solution overall."
"Its reports are nice and provide information about the issue as well as resolution. They also provide a proper fix. If there's an issue, they provide information in detail about how to remediate that issue."
"I am impressed with the product's security vulnerability detection. My peers in security are praising the tool for its accuracy to detect security vulnerabilities. The product is very easy to onboard. It doesn't require a lot of preparation or prerequisites. It's a bit of a plug-and-play as long as you're using a package manager or for example, you are using a GitHub repository. And that is an advantage for this tool because developers don't want to add more tools to what they're currently using."
"I find SCA to be valuable. It can read your libraries, your license and bring the best way to resolve your problem in the best scenario."
"The most valuable features are their GitLab and JIRA integrations. The GitLab integration lets us pull projects in pretty easily, so that it's pretty minimal for developers to get it set up. Using the JIRA integration, it's also pretty easy to get the information that is generated, as a result of that GitLab integration, back to our teams in a non-intrusive way and in a workflow that we are already using."
"It has an accurate database of vulnerabilities with a low amount of false positives."
 

Cons

"The workbench is a little bit complex when you first start using it."
"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 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 could improve by supporting more code languages, such as GRAAS and Groovy."
"I encountered many false positives for Python applications."
"The false positive rate should be lower."
"Compatibility with other products would be great."
"There are some new features that we would like to see added, e.g., more visibility into library usage for the code. Something along the lines where it's doing the identification of where vulnerabilities are used, etc. This would cause them to stand out in the market as a much different platform."
"They were a couple of issues which happened because Snyk lacked some documentation on the integration side. Snyk is lacking a lot of documentation, and I would like to see them improve this. This is where we struggle a bit. For example, if something breaks, we can't figure out how to fix that issue. It may be a very simple thing, but because we don't have the proper documentation around an issue, it takes us a bit longer."
"The feature for automatic fixing of security breaches could be improved."
"They need to improve the Snyk plugins and make it easier to make your optimizations based on your own needs or features."
"We have seen cases where tools didn't find or recognize certain dependencies. These are known issues, to some extent, due to the complexity in the language or stack that you using. There are some certain circumstances where the tool isn't actually finding what it's supposed to be finding, then it could be misleading."
"The product is very expensive."
"Because Snyk has so many integrations and so many things it can do, it's hard to really understand all of them and to get that information to each team that needs it... If there were more self-service, perhaps tutorials or overviews for new teams or developers, so that they could click through and see things themselves, that would help."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product’s price is much higher than other tools."
"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 price of this solution could be less expensive."
"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 base licensing costs for the SaaS platform is about $900 USD per application, per year."
"We do have some missing licenses issues, especially with non-SPDX compliant one, but we expect this to be fixed soon"
"The pricing is reasonable."
"The price is good. Snyk had a good price compared to the competition, who had higher pricing than them. Also, their licensing and billing are clear."
"Cost-wise, it's similar to Veracode, but I don't know the exact cost."
"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."
"It is pretty expensive. It is not a cheap product."
"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."
"You can get a good deal with Snyk for pricing. It's a little expensive, but it is worth it."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Computer Software Company
13%
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
Fugue
 

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: July 2025.
861,490 professionals have used our research since 2012.