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Fortify on Demand vs Rapid7 AppSpider 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 on Demand
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
12th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
60
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (15th)
Rapid7 AppSpider
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
27th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of Fortify on Demand is 4.1%, down from 4.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Rapid7 AppSpider is 0.5%, down from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Andrei Bigdan - PeerSpot reviewer
Useful vulnerability reporting data, flexible, and simple implementation
I have had some stability problems but it could be the Microsoft Windows operating system. I found that closing other applications helps with stability. It is helpful to have as much memory as possible, such as eight gigabytes. The more pages being processed the more resources you need. I rate the stability of Rapid7 AppSpider a nine out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Fortify is effective in identifying such oversights, making it a really helpful tool despite its problems."
"The scanning capabilities, particularly for our repositories, have been invaluable."
"The solution scans our code and provides us with a dashboard of all the vulnerabilities and the criticality of the vulnerabilities. It is very useful that they provide right then and there all the information about the vulnerability, including possible fixes, as well as some additional documentation and links to the authoritative sources of why this is an issue and what's the correct way to deal with it."
"It helps deploy and track changes easily as per time-to-time market upgrades."
"What stands out to me is the user-friendliness of each feature."
"While using Micro Focus Fortify on Demand we have been very happy with the results and findings."
"The solution saves us a lot of money. We're trying to reduce exposure and costs related to remediation."
"The most valuable feature of Micro Focus Fortify on Demand is the information it can provide. There is quite a lot of information. It can pinpoint right down to where the problem is, allowing you to know where to fix it. Overall the features are easy to use, you don't have to be a coder. You can be a manager, or in IT operations, et cetera, anyone can use it. It is quite a well-rounded functional solution."
"One of the most valuable features of AppSpider is its broad range of authentication identification, which is a key reason for its utilization."
"The initial deployment is very straightforward and simple. The product is stable if configured properly."
"The entire solution is interactive and has a point-and-click user experience, which makes it easy to find items or drill down on information. You don't need specialized skills to use the product."
"When it is set up properly, it can do scanning on web apps with multiple engines automatically."
"The setup is usually straightforward."
"The most valuable feature is the reporting, which is compliant with international standards."
"It is really accurate and the rate of false positives is very low."
"The solution is highly stable, rated at ten out of ten."
 

Cons

"New technologies and DevOps could be improved. Fortify on Demand can be slow (slower than other vendors) to support new technologies or new software versions."
"I would like the solution to add AI support."
"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."
".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."
"The vulnerability analysis does not always provide guidelines for what the developer should do in order to correct the problem, which means that the code has to be manually inspected and understood."
"It does scanning for all virtual machines and other things, but it doesn't do the scanning for containers. It currently lacks the ability to do the scanning on containers. We're asking their product management team to expand this capability to containers."
"The solution has some issues with latency. Sometimes it takes a while to respond. This issue should be addressed."
"It could have a little bit more streamlined installation procedure. Based on the things that I've done, it could also be a bit more automated. It is kind of taking a bunch of different scanners, and SSC is just kind of managing the results. The scanning doesn't really seem to be fully integrated into the SSC platform. More automation and any kind of integration in the SSC platform would definitely be good. There could be a way to initiate scans from SSC and more functionality on the server-side to initiate desk scans if it is not already available."
"The dashboard and interface are crucial and they need some improvement."
"AppSpider has some problems with the RAM needed while scanning."
"It needs better integration with mobile applications."
"The product needs to be able to scale for large companies, like ours. We have millions of IP addresses that need to be scanned, and the scalability is not great."
"The product should offer a GUI in Japanese and provide Japanese reports for end-users."
"Support response times are slow and can be improved."
"There are some glitches with stability, and it is an area for improvement."
"This price of this solution is a little bit expensive."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Fortify on Demand is affordable, and its licensing comes with a year of support."
"Buying a license would be feasible for regular use. For intermittent use, the cloud-based option can be used (Fortify on Demand)."
"It's a yearly contract, but I don't remember the dollar amount."
"If I exceed one million lines of code, there might be an extra cost or a change in the pricing bracket."
"The solution is a little expensive."
"The solution is expensive and the price could be reduced."
"We make an annual purchase of the licenses we need."
"I believe the rental license is not too expensive, but it provides a lot of information about the vulnerabilities."
"The licensing cost depends on the number of users."
"The price of Rapid7 AppSpider cost 9,000 annually but there is limited usage. Large companies are able to negotiate a better price or a better deal for the usage with the vendor."
"The price is pretty fair."
"It is expensive if you want to buy the Enterprise version that is able to scan multiple applications at once."
"AppSpider is closed-source software and you need to acquire a license in order to use it."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Manufacturing Company
15%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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...
What do you like most about Rapid7 AppSpider?
The most valuable feature of Rapid7 AppSpider is the vulnerability reporting data. Additionally, the data is reported in a convenient way rather than seeing them as a PDF. We are able to generate a...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Rapid7 AppSpider?
The price is not high, but for Japanese customers, localization may incur additional costs.
What needs improvement with Rapid7 AppSpider?
For Japanese customers, localization is needed. The product should offer a GUI in Japanese and provide Japanese reports for end-users.
 

Also Known As

Micro Focus Fortify on Demand
AppSpider
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SAP, Aaron's, British Gas, FICO, Cox Automative, Callcredit Information Group, Vital and more.
Microsoft
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortify on Demand vs. Rapid7 AppSpider and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.