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HCL AppScan vs Harness comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
7.3
Harness enhanced deployment efficiency and error reduction, yielding significant ROI through automation and AI-driven cost-saving strategies.
Sentiment score
1.7
HCL AppScan enhances architecture with fewer errors and improved security, achieving 50% return and 20% cost savings.
The AI features that they have and with which we can rewrite the pipeline and troubleshoot issues significantly saved time.
Cloud Architect at a outsourcing company with 51-200 employees
By adopting templates and various different pipelines across our own IDP platform, we have saved upwards of 30 to 40% of development time.
Technical Associate at ZS
With Harness, the release process decreased from three or four hours to one or two hours, making deployments much quicker.
Software Engineer at Citi
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.7
Harness offers reliable, responsive customer service and well-structured documentation, providing efficient issue resolution and high user satisfaction.
Sentiment score
5.6
HCL AppScan's support is responsive with mixed reviews, facing regional challenges and lagging behind competitors like Veracode.
We have rarely faced issues with Harness tech support.
IT Analyst | Aws Cloud Ops | Dev Ops | Fin Ops at Tata Consultancy
We have not faced any customer support issues, with tickets resolved in less than a four-day SLA.
Quality Engineering Lead at a logistics company with 51-200 employees
There was an instance when I faced issues with third-party plugins, and after raising a support ticket, they responded in a few hours with a documentation link that resolved my issue.
Senior Software Engineer 2 at Porch
Veracode provides excellent assistance and regularly scheduled calls to address customer concerns and updates.
Associate Principal, Software Engineering at LTI - Larsen & Toubro Infotech
There is still room for improvement when it comes to the speed of response.
Founder Director at Techsa Services
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
Harness effectively scales SaaS environments, supports complex workflows, but may face stability issues with simultaneous service integrations.
Sentiment score
3.9
HCL AppScan is scalable yet varies by license, integration issues, infrastructure compatibility, and CI/CD pipeline design effectiveness.
Our entire organization uses it with hundreds of applications, and it supports this scale effectively.
Senior Software Engineer at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
It is able to work on our infrastructure side, which is EKS, and we are able to handle our organization growth effectively for an enterprise use case.
Technical Associate at ZS
When I integrated Harness to more than 20 applications in one place, it becomes less stable.
Software Engineer at Citi
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.1
Harness is considered stable and reliable, although integration with many applications may occasionally affect stability.
Sentiment score
7.2
HCL AppScan is stable and reliable, with minor hardware issues, improved by recent upgrades enhancing performance and stability.
Harness is completely stable, and we are using it in production without facing any stability issues at all.
Quality Engineering Lead at a logistics company with 51-200 employees
We have rarely faced issues with Harness tech support.
IT Analyst | Aws Cloud Ops | Dev Ops | Fin Ops at Tata Consultancy
Harness is decently stable.
Technical Associate at ZS
Since we've been using HCL AppScan for about three months, we really have not encountered a false positive.
Founder Director at Techsa Services
 

Room For Improvement

Simplify configuration, improve UI, expand features, clarify pricing, and enhance security to improve accessibility and functionality for smaller teams.
HCL AppScan requires improvements in vulnerability detection, usability, integration, performance, support, pricing, and language/codebase compatibility to stay competitive.
There is not a lot of good support for pipeline as code, and I often find myself not using pipeline as code the way other platforms such as GitHub Actions or Jenkins integrate pipeline as code.
Technical Associate at ZS
Improved documentation and onboarding tutorials would help accelerate adoption.
Cloud Platform at Futurescape
Harness can be improved by providing more clarity on the credits it issues for Harness Cloud, as it has a tiered pricing structure involving license and credit costs, which can get confusing.
Quality Engineering Lead at a logistics company with 51-200 employees
If I'm scanning a web application, it shows me the various components being used. It tells me whether I have Java libraries, .NET frameworks, or other log management libraries such as Log4j, and what versions of those specific components are present.
Founder Director at Techsa Services
 

Setup Cost

Harness pricing is higher than open-source but justified by benefits, with room for improvement in licensing cost noted.
HCL AppScan is considered expensive but cost-effective, with varied pricing opinions influenced by its premium features and discounts.
From what I understand with respect to Harness, licensing and setup costs were relatively low for an enterprise, and the pricing was more catered toward enterprises who would invest in the technology.
Technical Associate at ZS
The licensing cost is a little bit too high.
Cloud Architect at a outsourcing company with 51-200 employees
Companies often choose based on budget constraints, with Veracode being on the higher end cost-wise.
Associate Principal, Software Engineering at LTI - Larsen & Toubro Infotech
 

Valuable Features

Harness simplifies CI/CD automation with AI-driven processes, enhancing deployment speed and reliability while reducing risks and manual effort.
HCL AppScan detects vulnerabilities, integrates with agile processes, offers scalability, user-friendly features, and AI-enhanced rapid scanning for security.
Harness uses AI to suggest errors in case of deployment failures.
Senior Software Engineer at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
The platform also supports cloud-native environments and Kubernetes deployments, making pipeline management easier, and its automation capabilities significantly improve speed and reliability.
Cloud Platform at Futurescape
If something goes wrong, I can use AI troubleshooting to build or test my fails and analyze the logs, suggesting the fixes.
Cloud Architect at a outsourcing company with 51-200 employees
AppScan's most valuable features include its ability to identify vulnerabilities accurately, provide detailed remediation steps, and the newly introduced AI-powered features that enhance its functionality further.
Associate Principal, Software Engineering at LTI - Larsen & Toubro Infotech
I have utilized its interactive application security testing, as well as both static application security testing, dynamic application security testing, and IAST.
Founder Director at Techsa Services
 

Categories and Ranking

Harness
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Build Automation (5th), Cloud Cost Management (6th), Feature Management (2nd)
HCL AppScan
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
18th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (23rd), Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of Harness is 0.7%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HCL AppScan is 2.7%, down from 2.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Static Application Security Testing (SAST) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Harness0.7%
HCL AppScan2.7%
Other96.6%
Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
 

Featured Reviews

MK
Technical Associate at ZS
Templatized pipelines have improved efficiency while limitations in code-based development remain
Harness UI can do a lot of good things. Harness's UI should not feel very complicated. At the current stage, it feels very commercialized and compared to other platforms such as Argo CD or Jenkins, which feel much more lively and much more simple. Infrastructure as code or pipeline as code is something that Harness severely lacks. There is not a lot of good support for pipeline as code, and I often find myself not using pipeline as code the way other platforms such as GitHub Actions or Jenkins integrate pipeline as code. Pipeline as code is definitely one of the disadvantages when it comes to Harness. Additionally, the entire platform feels very commercialized, which is something that a lot of developers, especially open-source enthusiasts, might not appreciate even within the organization. One of the very important key factors I observed was that there is no way to execute nested pipelines, which means that we cannot execute child pipelines within child pipelines and child pipelines even within those child pipelines. There is no way to execute nested pipeline execution, which may or may not be required based on the use case, but it is definitely one of those features that I wish the platform had.
Ravi Khanchandani - PeerSpot reviewer
Founder Director at Techsa Services
Has improved identification of encryption and authentication issues across cloud and on-prem applications
During the learning curve of onboarding HCL AppScan, we learned that HCL has altered the portfolio and now offers HCL AppScan 360, which has a much better look and feel with an improved user interface. However, there is one feature called SCA, which stands for Software Composition Analysis, that could be improved. When I'm doing an application scan, HCL AppScan has the ability to generate information about what components are in use. For example, if I'm scanning a web application, it shows me the various components being used. It tells me whether I have Java libraries, .NET frameworks, or other log management libraries such as Log4j, and what versions of those specific components are present. I would like to see more detailed reports from the tool. Currently, you can find out the components belonging to a specific software, but if detailed reporting became available, you would be in a better position to identify vulnerabilities. For instance, I could identify that I had the Log4j vulnerability and know that I need to fix my application accordingly. If they add the features I'm describing, I would consider giving them a higher rating. However, I've only been experienced with the product for three months.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
25%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Construction Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise10
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise31
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Harness?
There are some UI components that can be improved. The needed UI improvements include more graphs, more history, the ability to create pipelines through the UI, and more interactions, with UI compo...
What is your primary use case for Harness?
My main use case for Harness is to create pipelines, deploy applications, and manage security pipelines. I use Harness to deploy applications to EC2 instances and Kubernetes instances, and I create...
What advice do you have for others considering Harness?
My advice for others looking into using Harness is to use AI capabilities, create pipelines, and then use it to deploy. Harness is a good tool. I would rate this review a nine out of ten.
What needs improvement with HCL AppScan?
During the learning curve of onboarding HCL AppScan, we learned that HCL has altered the portfolio and now offers HCL AppScan 360, which has a much better look and feel with an improved user interf...
What is your primary use case for HCL AppScan?
I'm currently working with BigFix and HCL AppScan. At least three people in my company are using HCL AppScan. Since we are a reseller, we run it in both lab environments and live production applica...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HCL AppScan?
AppScan is considered more cost-effective than Veracode, although I have not updated the exact pricing details. Companies often choose based on budget constraints, with Veracode being on the higher...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Armory
IBM Security AppScan, Rational AppScan, AppScan
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Linedata, Openbank, Home Depot, Advanced
Essex Technology Group Inc., Cisco, West Virginia University, APIS IT
Find out what your peers are saying about HCL AppScan vs. Harness and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.