We performed a comparison between Contrast Security Assess and Qualys Web Application Scanning based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Application Security Tools solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."In our most critical applications, we have a deep dive in the code evaluation, which was something we usually did with periodic vulnerability assessments, code reviews, etc. Now, we have real time access to it. It's something that has greatly enhanced our code's quality. We have actually embedded a KPI in regards to the improvement of our code shell. For example, Contrast provides a baseline where libraries and the usability of the code are evaluated, and they produce a score. We always aim to improve that score. On a quarterly basis, we have added this to our KPIs."
"It is a stable solution...Contrast Security Assess is one of the first players in this market, so they have experience and customers, especially abroad. Overall, it's a good product."
"No other tool does the runtime scanning like Contrast does. Other static analysis tools do static scanning, but Contrast is runtime analysis, when the routes are exercised. That's when the scan happens. This is a tool that has a very unique capability compared to other tools. That's what I like most about Contrast, that it's runtime."
"We use the Contrast OSS feature that allows us to look at third-party, open-source software libraries, because it has a cool interface where you can look at all the different libraries. It has some really cool additional features where it gives us how many instances in which something has been used... It tells us it has been used 10 times out of 20 workloads, for example. Then we know for sure that OSS is being used."
"The solution is very accurate in identifying vulnerabilities. In cases where we are performing application assessment using Contrast Assess, and also using legacy application security testing tools, Contrast successfully identifies the same vulnerabilities that the other tools have identified but it also identifies significantly more. In addition, it has visibility into application components that other testing methodologies are unaware of."
"The most valuable feature is the continuous monitoring aspect: the fact that we don't have to wait for scans to complete for the tool to identify vulnerabilities. They're automatically identified through developers' business-as-usual processes."
"By far, the thing that was able to provide value was the immediate response while testing ahead of release, in real-time."
"Assess has an excellent API interface to pull APIs."
"QualysGuard web-based scanner is very useful for performing external penetration and PCI scans from remote locations."
"The feature that I have found most valuable is the progressive scan. It is good. It's done in 24 hours."
"The vulnerability management feature is a strong one. And also the patch management feature."
"I have found the detection of vulnerabilities tool thorough with good results and the graphical display output to be wonderful and full of colors. It allows many types of outputs, such as bar and chart previews."
"Licensing is the most valuable. Qualys provides the best licensing for companies. It is the best product for the development purposes of web applications. The product has a lot of integrations."
"It is easy to use."
"It works with many different products."
"Qualys Web Application Scanning has multiple features like threat protection and container security scanning in one box."
"Contrast Security Assess covers a wide range of applications like .NET Framework, Java, PSP, Node.js, etc. But there are some like Ubuntu and the .NET Core which are not covered. They have it in their roadmap to have these agents. If they have that, we will have complete coverage."
"Contrast's ability to support upgrades on the actual agents that get deployed is limited. Our environment is pretty much entirely Java. There are no updates associated with that. You have to actually download a new version of the .jar file and push that out to your servers where your app is hosted. That can be quite cumbersome from a change-management perspective."
"To instrument an agent, it has to be running on a type of application technology that the agent recognizes and understands. It's excellent when it works. If we're using an application that is using an unsupported technology, then we can't instrument it at all. We do use PHP and Contrast presently doesn't support that, although it's on their roadmap. My primary hurdle is that it doesn't support all of the technologies that we use."
"I think there was activity underway to support the centralized configuration control. There are ways to do it, but I think they were productizing more of that."
"The out-of-the-box reporting could be improved. We need to write our own APIs to make the reporting more robust."
"Personalization of the board and how to make it appealing to an organization is something that could be done on their end. The reports could be adaptable to the customer's preferences."
"I would like to see them come up with more scanning rules."
"The solution should provide more details in the section where it shows that third-party libraries have CVEs or some vulnerabilities."
"We procured around 110 licenses for Web Application Scanning, but we have issues running concurrent scans. I don't currently have the option to trigger scans for all 100-plus websites. The default limit is around 10 conference scans. It's not very scalable, to be honest, because of the limitation that they put on concurrent scans."
"It should have better automatic reporting."
"The solution needs to adjust its pricing. They should make it more affordable."
"The GUI could be a little less complicated as it opens a lot of new windows for creating search lists, templates, reports, or for scanning purposes."
"There should be better visibility into the application."
"In certain cases, this product does have false positives, which the company should work on."
"In terms of the Policy Compliance model which they currently have, not all the platforms are being covered. If they could improve on the Policy Compliance model, since there are policies which are benchmarked against it, this will be helpful for us."
"We receive false positives sometimes when using a solution that could be improved. However, the technical team provides us with the exact explanation why it was giving us that kind of error."
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Contrast Security Assess is ranked 32nd in Application Security Tools with 11 reviews while Qualys Web Application Scanning is ranked 19th in Application Security Tools with 31 reviews. Contrast Security Assess is rated 8.8, while Qualys Web Application Scanning is rated 7.8. The top reviewer of Contrast Security Assess writes "We're gathering vulnerability data from multiple environments in real time, fundamentally changing how we identify issues in applications". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Qualys Web Application Scanning writes "A stable solution that can be used for infrastructure vulnerability scanning and web application scanning". Contrast Security Assess is most compared with Veracode, Seeker, Fortify WebInspect, HCL AppScan and Snyk, whereas Qualys Web Application Scanning is most compared with OWASP Zap, Veracode, SonarQube, PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional and Fortify WebInspect. See our Contrast Security Assess vs. Qualys Web Application Scanning report.
See our list of best Application Security Tools vendors and best Static Application Security Testing (SAST) vendors.
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