We performed a comparison between Contrast Security Assess and HCL AppScan 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."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."
"This has changed the way that developers are looking at usage of third-party libraries, upfront. It's changing our model of development and our culture of development to ensure that there is more thought being put into the usage of third-party libraries."
"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."
"Assess has an excellent API interface to pull APIs."
"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."
"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."
"I am impressed with the product's identification of alerts and vulnerabilities."
"It identifies all the URLs and domains on its own and then performs tests and provides the results."
"The most valuable feature of HCL AppScan is its integration with the SDLC, particularly during the coding phase."
"The solution is easy to install. I would rate the product's setup between six to seven out of ten. The deployment time depends on the applications that need to be scanned. We have a development and operations team to take care of the product's maintenance."
"It's generally a very user-friendly tool. Anyone can easily learn how to scan"
"It provides a better integration for our ecosystem."
"Usually when we deploy the application, there is a process for ethical hacking. The main benefit is that, the ethical hacking is almost clean, every time. So it's less cost, less effort, less time to production."
"We leverage it as a quality check against code."
"Technical support is helpful."
"The solution should provide more details in the section where it shows that third-party libraries have CVEs or some vulnerabilities."
"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."
"I would like to see them come up with more scanning rules."
"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."
"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."
"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 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."
"They could add a software component analysis tool."
"The penetration testing feature should be included."
"The solution's scalability can be a matter of concern because one license runs on one machine only."
"Scans become slow on large websites."
"IBM Security AppScan Source is rather hard to use."
"The solution could improve by having a mobile version."
"They should have a better UI for dashboards."
"Many silly false positives are produced."
Contrast Security Assess is ranked 31st in Application Security Tools with 11 reviews while HCL AppScan is ranked 15th in Application Security Tools with 40 reviews. Contrast Security Assess is rated 8.8, while HCL AppScan is rated 7.6. 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 HCL AppScan writes " A stable and scalable product useful for application security scanning". Contrast Security Assess is most compared with Veracode, Seeker, Fortify WebInspect, Checkmarx One and SonarQube, whereas HCL AppScan is most compared with SonarQube, Veracode, Acunetix, OWASP Zap and Sonatype Lifecycle. See our Contrast Security Assess vs. HCL AppScan report.
See our list of best Application Security Tools vendors and best Static Application Security Testing (SAST) vendors.
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