Checkmarx One Reviews

We mainly use Checkmarx for accreditation, checking for vulnerabilities, and identifying areas in the code to fix some of the NIST 800 security controls.

The most valuable feature is that it actually identifies the different criteria you can set to meet whatever standards you're trying to get your system accredited for. It's also pretty intuitive and has a lot of good dashboards and metrics.

Checkmarx could be improved with more integration with third-party software.

I've been using Checkmarx for about six months.

We've had no issues with Checkmarx's stability.

I thought Checkmarx was pretty scalable.

My experience with Checkmarx's technical support has been very positive.

Positive

I found the setup pretty straightforward, though it took several days because the system engineers had to go through some different configuration settings to get it done.

We worked with Checkmarx when we ran into issues, and they were pretty responsive.

Checkmarx isn't accredited by the US government for DOD networks, so we've been forced to remove it from the network. I'd rate Checkmarx as seven out of ten.

The primary use that we have for Checkmarx is the evaluation of source code vulnerabilities.

We use Git to connect to Checkmarx. We don't use GitHub. We use our own self-hosted Git. We're just using generic Git. One of the biggest thorns in our side is managing that aspect of it. It wouldn't matter if it was GitHub or Bitbucket or any of the other tools that you can use to connect Git to Checkmarx. The issue is the same. 

The tool is good at telling us what repository we're connected to, but it is horrible in telling us what branch we're connected to.

I haven't been monitoring how well our projects have been at reducing vulnerabilities. Checkmarx is one that you have to actively follow, and my position doesn't require that I do that. I set up the tool, and then I let other people use it.

I'm the system administrator of the tool rather than an active user of it. This product has room for improvement in administration.

Adding users is kind of a pain. We need a more automated way of adding users. User administration for the IDs can be improved, they can make it a more automated feature set so that you can add users more quickly and easily. 

Most tools that I'm dealing with today have a mechanism where people can self-enroll.

I'm more of the admin as opposed to a user of Checkmarx. Overall, the ability to find vulnerabilities in the code is better than the tool that we were using before.

One of the biggest heartaches that we have is that all of our Windows servers are on an automated upgrade. Whenever Windows upgrades, we lose the order of the ciphers and it brings down the Checkmarx webpage. 

Our company policy is that we upgrade our servers at a minimum of once a month, if not more. It's a hassle to keep up on that. The ciphers are such a pain to manage.

To set up a cipher connection, there's a tool out there called IIS Crypto. We just run that tool to set the best practices. It forces us to reboot the server. We haven't figured out how to automate the whole thing yet. 

There have been some Windows updates that haven't triggered this issue where the ciphers get messed up. The only thing we're running is TLS2. At that higher level, everything is just a pain.

All of our servers are built out through code. In other words, we use Ansible and Jenkins to automatically create machines. Everything is virtual these days. It's either virtual in-house or virtual in the cloud. 

The issue with Checkmarx is the next pain point, i.e. their installation procedure is GUI-based. They've got a command line for upgrades. I haven't seen the command line for the initial install.

My last statement on Checkmarx is Windows would not be my choice for any kind of server implementation. I'm not a Windows fan at all. Every other tool in our company is Linux-based and our target systems are Linux as well.

I don't have the experience and the knowledge of working on a Windows system compared to my Linux knowledge. Checkmarx being Windows only is a hindrance as well.

Another problem is: why can't I choose PostgreSQL? I would like to have an additional feature added to the product to support either PostgreSQL or MySQL. Those are the two free databases that are enterprise-ready.

Checkmarx is a stable product, especially based on the number of updates that we receive. Every time we get a new update or a hotfix, I'm very much in the loop on getting that information. Compared to some other products, it doesn't have the churn that others do, i.e. in the number of updates and patches that we have to apply to it.

We're licensed for 100 users. Primarily we use Checkmarx for developers, managers, architects, and maybe some of the design folk, but not QA. This would solely be in the realm of development and architecture. 

There is no plan for us to increase our usage of Checkmarx. We're trying to get as many scans as possible. One of the issues that we have is the concept of an incremental scan. The more of the incremental that you do, the slower the service becomes.

When you go in and you look at the last result: it's your baseline or your full scan, followed by applying each incremental. The more of the incrementals that you have, the slower Checkmarx gets.

They've come up with a recommendation for users to do one full scan a week and maybe six incremental scans. This needs to be worked on to get the performance better on this particular tool.

Checkmarx can scale up very easily. Anything that can be automated can be scaled. If I can automate it, I can scale it. Under the hood, it does the management of the scan engines well.

We have some large code bases, that according to the Checkmarx internal people, based on the number of lines of code, everything is 100% optimized hardware-wise. The fastest that the scan should take is 13 hours. That's a full scan, an incremental is a little different.

The problem with Checkmarx from that standpoint is, in our most active code base, we want it to be scanned frequently. At one point in time, it was taking up to 26 hours to do a single scan. We were scanning twice a week or four times a week. 

That same code base has two separate instances of itself. A long time ago they started as a common code base and then they split. Now, in essence, we have two products based on the same code base. We had to scan them twice a week.

The customer service on the phone so far with Checkmarx has been good. We've had more issues with other projects that have gone into the cloud than with this particular instance. 

It's mostly email until you scream enough with Checkmarx or you go through your salesperson. It's a little bit of a burden to get to them. 

For the most part, the people that I have dealt with know their stuff, and we haven't had any problems. It's been a challenge. We did try to do things that no one else had tried before according to them, and so we ended up having setbacks because of trying new things. 

The tool that we were using before was AppScan.

The initial setup of Checkmarx is straightforward. We did a bunch of things that shot ourselves in the foot that we weren't expecting. We were initially trying to put Checkmarx in the cloud. We were even putting Checkmarx into an Azure system until we found out that Azure, with the Microsoft SQL engine, does not support what Checkmarx requires. 

The Azure implementation of SQL does not allow the USE statement. Extremely odd. Maybe Microsoft figured out if you can't use USE, that means you have to have more databases and so they can charge more. Microsoft Oracle and IBM have been pulling that crap for years. They're making a lot of money.

It probably took us a couple of months to go through all of the issues, basically trying to find a home for SQL. We ended up creating a Microsoft SQL server in Amazon.

With Amazon's RDB, you can use Oracle, PostgreSQL, Sybase, Microsoft SQL, etc. as its RDB engines. Depending on whether you already have a license, or if you want to pay for the license when you set up the instance, you can do either. 

We had the license. We just created an instance in the Amazon cloud.

I've got 100 licenses for Checkmarx. As people come and go, it's a hassle to add and remove them. In this day and age, it's such a meaningless time-waster.

We were previously working with Azure. We switched because of their implementation of SQL Server. Checkmarx uses statements to move from database to database. Azure does not support that in its implementation at this time. 

Time will tell and Microsoft does improve their code over time.

From an administrative standpoint, I would rate Checkmarx with a five out of ten. From what my users are telling me, I'd give it an eight for the tool's ability to report on vulnerabilities in the user experience. 

I would rate Checkmarx with an eight on the user side and a five on the admin side.

Customers need to work with Checkmarx to scale the system for their needs, i.e. work with their recommendations. The best practices that they have there. 

They have this formula to calculate how many CPUs and how much memory you need. The memory requirements are huge. We've got 64 GB machines to scan them.

That's the low end of what they're recommending. Their processes do a lot of number crunching in memory. For a 4 million line code base, it's just going to consume a lot of time and a lot of resources. 

We are only using the source code scanner. We're not using the OSS scanner. We use Artifactory for our OSS repository, and Artifactory comes with its own built-in OSS scanner. We didn't need two OSS scanners.

My team uses this product extensively for application vulnerability assessment. This solution is for static application security testing and is used within our software development process.

As the software developers are creating solutions, they are able to identify vulnerabilities while the application is being written, rather than after the entire development is over.  

We were interested in having the raw source code scanned, so that was the primary requirement and that is where Checkmarx comes in. We do not need any precompiled libraries, or compiled source code, to be checked by the source code analysis solution.

We have a security team that uses this product to scan source code, rather than have the developers handle it. We do not have any developer licenses (i.e. the SDLC Edition). Instead, the security team identifies the vulnerabilities and shares the report with the development team.

The main benefit to using this solution is that we find vulnerabilities in our software before the development cycle is complete.

As an example, an application may contain three hundred thousand lines of code that was written over two or three months. Rather than having to examine the entire product for vulnerabilities, we are able to assess weaknesses and identify vulnerabilities in, say, five hundred or one thousand lines of code. This is really advantageous for us.

There are many features, but first is the fact that it is easy to use, and not complicated.

One of the cool features is that it identifies the development technology that we are using on its own, whether it is Java or .NET or otherwise, it identifies it by itself.

The most important aspect is that it shows us exactly, on which particular line, the vulnerability is.

The user interface is very intuitive and it offers help on the fly.

The reports are good, but they still need to be improved considering what the UI offers. For example, the UI will suggest the "best-fix location", whereas this information is not captured in the reports.

We have not observed any issues, such as the application crashing, with respect to the stability of this solution.

The solution is quite scalable. We are not using the SDLC edition, but with that version, the developers can use different plugins and initiate the scan from their own development environment.

There are three or four members in our security team who use this tool. At the current time, we are happy with this solution and do not plan to increase its usage to the point where we need a different license.

We have found the technical support to be good. Whenever anyone has an issue, we write directly to Checkmarx.com and they issue a support ID. Most of the time we receive a quick response.

We are currently based in India, and they have increased their team size in India with a couple of people providing support. It covers the Indian subcontinent as well. With this increase, our tickets are answered very quickly as compared to what we used to get.

I do not have recent, hands-on experience with this tool but, I have used it in the past and my team now uses it extensively. We did not use a tool previous to this one, and we plan to continue using this because we are getting good results.

We use this solution for static application security testing. For dynamic testing, we use the Netsparker solution.

The initial setup is pretty simple and straightforward, and it does not take more than fifteen minutes, maximum. The entire deployment was completed in not more than half an hour.

Not many people are required for deployment or maintenance. We have not done much since the original installation. When a new version comes in, any member of the security team can update the solution. In that way, a single person can maintain it. Within my team, it is a Senior Security Analyst who maintains this solution for us.

It is a very simple tool and we do not have a complex environment. It is installed on a standalone machine.

We do not have an integrated solution. This is a standalone solution that is used with the Security Gate. The installation was completed in-house, by our team only.

We have seen ROI, but quantifying it in terms of the numbers is difficult. The biggest advantage we have seen is that we're able to develop and deliver secure solutions, in a faster time. We used to test our applications efficiently, and we still do, but there used to be a period of rework required. Now, that does not happen. We are able to identify the issues and address them while the development is in progress.

We have a subscription license that is on a yearly basis, and it's a pretty competitive solution. I don't know of any additional costs, beyond the standard licensing fees, for our version of the software.

In the case of the SDLC edition, which is a higher version, there may be some professional support that is required. Otherwise, any license that they provide is just an annual subscription fee.

We evaluated the Fortify Static Code Analyzer and IBM Security AppScan, but our evaluation was not fully completed. We were happy with what we were seeing with Checkmarx, so we did not go ahead with the others.

My advice to any software development team using a different set of tools is to look at Checkmarx. It's a very good product. It's a great product, in fact. Any organization spending money on a subscription license should not look at it as a cost, rather, it should be seen as an investment. The Checkmarx solution can act as a resource that can help the development team to secure their application delivery. Be it an internal application for their own use, or applications being written for their customers.

This solution tells us where, in our code, the "best-fix location" is. To put this into perspective, consider a particular piece of code where there are ten vulnerabilities detected. Perhaps it is an SQL injection vulnerability. This tool gives you specific locations and informs that if you fix the code in certain areas (e.g. in three specific locations) then the subsequent vulnerabilities will automatically be addressed. Therefore, you save on development effort because you do not need to fix all ten vulnerabilities specifically and independently.

I would rate this product a nine out of ten.

We use the solution on a developing project. Before we bring the code to production, we have to ensure its quality, and we use this solution. 

It's easy to use. The configuration is easy. 

It has all the features we need. 

We haven't had any issues with the solution so far. It is not missing any features. 

It takes too much time to check the code. The validation process needs to be sped up. 

There have been some configuration issues. We sometimes have failures. 

I've been using the solution for two and a half years at this point. 

We've had to deal with errors. When we blacklist or whitelist, we do have some issues. There are a few configuration issues. I'd rate the stability seven out of ten. It could be improved. 

I can't speak to the scalability. I don't deal with scaling. The usage is limited. We aren't attempting to expand it. We only do two to three processes at the same time. 

Technical support is okay. We are mostly happy with the help we get. We can directly connect with them.

Neutral

I'm also using SonarQube.

I did not handle the deployment directly. We have a team that manages the tool. I'm not aware of how many people are needed to maintain and deploy the solution. 

I don't deal with the pricing directly. I don't know the exact cost. 

I'm a customer and end-user.

I would recommend the solution to other users. I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. 

I am using it for software assurance focused on security. I am using its latest version.

I use both the static code analysis and the open-source analysis engine. It gives visibility into weaknesses and the software that may be there in the source code and static analysis. It also gives some insights into the open source vulnerabilities that may be there in the codebase.

I like that you don't have to compile the code in order to execute static code analysis. So, it's very handy. Typically when using SCA tools on C/C++ and C# you must compile the software for SCA to work. CX doesn’t require any compilation due to the way the tool does synthetic compilation to help find errors in code. Many times 3rd party assurance providers don’t have all the files to compile so CX comes in handy. 

They should make it more container-friendly and optimized for the CI pipeline. They should make it a little less heavy. Right now, it requires a SQL database, and the way the tool works is that it has an engine and then it has an analysis database in which it stores the information. So, it is pretty heavy from that perspective because you have to have a full SQL Server. They're working on something called Checkmarx Light, which is a slim-down version. They haven't released it yet, but that's what we need. There should be something a little more slimmed down that can just run the analysis and output the results in a format that's readable as opposed to having a full, really big, and thick deployment with a full database server.

I had several issues with the installation. It should just work out of the box.

I have been using it off and on for about a year.

I've run into a few bugs here and there but i would recommend installing on virtual machine and snapshoting a working install. 

My setup is standalone. They do have a scalable version, but it's not something I need.

We're not using it a lot. Its usage is once a month. The way our organization works is that we don't do static code analysis every day. It's more on an as-needed basis. So, it's no fault of the Checkmarx tool. It's just not something that we've been working on.

They were pretty good. I would rate them a four out of five, but I was using their salespeople. It wasn't their traditional tech support, so I can't really evaluate their traditional tech support. When they're selling something, they give you a lot more service instead of having to go through the support system.

I still use other tools, so I just added it to the tool chest. I have Fortify, CodeSonar, etc  and I added Checkmarx as a different tool.

I installed it. It's straightforward to install, but I had several issues with the installation. I don't know if it was with my environment or not. If it works properly, it's a simple install, but in my example, it did not work right off the bat. There was some troubleshooting that had to go on, which was a little frustrating.

It took weeks. It required back and forth communication with support for a couple of days, but I wasn't actively working on it for days. I would run into a bug, send the log file, and go back and forth. It wasn't anything crazy, but it was a little frustrating. It should just work out of the box. It should be pretty straightforward where you just click the installer and go, but it wasn't.

It was implemented in-house, and then I had to call support when needed.

In terms of maintenance, it is pretty self-sustaining. You update it whenever it needs to be updated.

There hasn't been much return yet because we haven't used it much, but I have enough faith in it that I committed to it for multiple years. We are starting to use it more but not enough to state ROI yet

I would rate it a seven out of ten. It's not the best tool on the market, but it provides some good capability for what it is.

Checkmarx is used to check the code from programmers and vulnerabilities in third-party software.

Checkmarx can be deployed on the cloud and on-premise. However, it depends on the version.

Checkmarx detected code sections that did not adhere to best practices. After being informed, the programmers were able to rectify some of the issues. Without Checkmarx, it is unlikely we would have identified these issues.

Utilizing the SCA module, I gained valuable insights into the vulnerabilities present in open-source Python libraries that individuals desire to use. As an information security consultant, I advise against employing Python libraries that contain known vulnerabilities. The SCA solution proved to be helpful in this regard.

The most valuable features of Checkmarx are the SCA module and the code-checking module. Additionally, the solutions are explanatory and helpful.

Checkmarx could improve the solution reports and false positives. The false positives could be reduced. For example, we have alerts that are tagged as vulnerabilities but when you drill down they are not. 

In a future release, the SCA module could have better documentation. It was difficult to know how to check the names of all the modules. It took me a lot of time and I needed help to be able to write the requirements file. More clarification would be helpful in the documentation, such as examples.

I have been using Checkmarx for approximately six months.

The stability is great.

I rate the stability of Checkmarx a ten out of ten.

The scalability of the solution is great. Everything I send to the solution is processed quickly.

We have five information security analysts and programmers using this solution.

We plan to increase our usage. We will install it on more networks.

I rate the scalability of Checkmarx a ten out of ten.

I found someone in the evening that logged in and answered my issues. They are responsive.

I rate the support of Checkmarx a ten out of ten.

Positive

We have one person for the maintenance of the solution but it is minimal and is not a full-time job.

I would advise others to ask for a demo of the solution and if it works well for their use case then purchase it.

I rate Checkmarx a nine out of ten.

We are using Checkmarx for analyzing threats.

We are not using the latest version of Checkmarx because we faced some issues.

Checkmarx needs to improve the false positives and provide more accuracy in identifying vulnerabilities. It misses important vulnerabilities.

SonarCube functions better in these areas.

I have used Checkmarx within the last 24 months.

The stability of Checkmarx could improve.

I would rate the stability of Checkmarx a six out of ten.

The solution is scalable, but other solutions are better.

We have 20 developers using this solution. We have a few projects left to use this solution and then we will move to something else next year.

The support could improve, it takes a long time for a response. The service we received was poor.

I am using Checkmarx in parallel with SonarQube.

We didn't like how long they took to implement the product. The installation was not intuitive. We were constantly having meetings and installation additional things.

The implementation process should improve.

We were helped by both the local partner and the vendor for the implementation.

We have two developers for the maintenance and support of Checkmarx.

We're using a commercial version of Checkmarx, and we paid for the solution for two years. The price is high and could be reduced.

The local distributor charges two times higher than in other countries.

The purchase of this solution was a mistake.

I would advise others to deploy the solution and to test all of the functionality before buying and do not trust the marketing from Checkmarx.

I rate Checkmarx a four out of ten.

We use this solution to check our systems for any vulnerabilities in our applications. Currently, I'm working on a banking tool, which is aligned with the menu. Our system was created 30 years ago and still is running in the market and doing well. However, currently, there are so many changes happening. Any solution coming into the technology needs to have a security check to ensure everything is safe. 

The reporting on the solution is very good. The reports we get are very self-explanatory. They aren't complex or confusing. They will tell us if we are facing vulnerabilities and where. From the reporting, it's quite easy to find the problems and fix them.

The solution overall is very good at detecting and pinpointing vulnerabilities in the code.

The user interface is excellent. It's very user friendly.

The solution offers good training documentation so we know how to handle problems as they arise.

Honestly speaking, we do not have much experience in this tool yet as we just started using it a couple of months ago. I personally am still just diving into the data. It may be too early to tell if there are improvements that need to be made.

The tool is currently quite static in terms of finding security vulnerabilities. It would be great if it was more dynamic and we had even more tools at our disposal to keep us safe. It would help if there was more scanning or if the process was more automated.

I've only been using the solution for three months. It hasn't been too long yet. I'm new to the position. My organization, however, has been using the solution for quite a while.

We have different team members on the solution in the UK and India. It's only available to those directly involved in the security aspects of our company.

We have our own in-house team that manages a lot of issues that may come up on the solution. 

The thing is, security is a major concern for us. We cannot exactly contact their team about a lot of things as we do have process guidelines and we need to follow these processes if we run into issues. If we have problems, we have an expert that can sit right next to us and figure out a solution. This helps us better manage the tool and the security surrounding it, rather than, for example, calling up the company and having a random help desk technician try and assist us.

For our purposes, the initial set up was not complex. It was fairly easy to plug the solution into our build processes and pipelines. We haven't had any issues with configurations or anything like that. It's been very straightforward.

The deployment is very fast and only takes about 15 minutes or so.

We manage the solution ourselves. However, if I personally want to access it, I do need to contact specific team members. Only specific individuals have access. It's not accessible to everyone in the organization. 

A specific team in our organization handled the initial setup and holds the license for the product.

I've looked at SonarQube. The basic difference between the two solutions is that Checkmarx is a bit more intelligent and can detect vulnerabilities better and faster than SonarQube. SonarQube is more focused on code and style formatting or code complexity. It depends on the priorities of the organization, as each has its own unique benefits.

I don't recall the exact version of the solution we are using.

I would recommend the solution. I'd rate it eight out of ten.