We performed a comparison between Contrast Security Assess and PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional 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."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."
"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."
"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."
"When we access the application, it continuously monitors and detects vulnerabilities."
"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."
"Assess has an excellent API interface to pull APIs."
"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."
"The Spider is the most useful feature. It helps to analyze the entire web application, and it finds all the passes and offers an automated identification of security issues."
"It is useful for scanning and tracing activities."
"I find the attack model quite amazing, where I can write my scripts and load my scripts as well, which helps quite a bit. All the active scanning that it can do is also quite a lot helpful. It speeds up our vulnerability assessment and penetration testing. Right now, I am enjoying its in-browser, which also helps quite a bit. I'm always confused about setting up some proxy, but it really is the big solution we all want."
"You can download different plugins if you don't have them in the standard edition."
"The automated scan is what I find most useful because a lot of customers will need it. Not every domain will be looking for complete security, they just need a stamp on the security key. For these kinds of customers, the scan works really well."
"PortSwigger Burp Suite does not hamper the node of the server, and it does not shut down the server if it is running."
"Enables automation of different tasks such as authorization testing."
"The solution has a great user interface."
"I would like to see them come up with more scanning rules."
"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."
"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."
"Regarding the solution's OSS feature, the one drawback that we do have is that it does not have client-side support. We'll be missing identification of libraries like jQuery or JavaScript, and such, that are client-side."
"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."
"The solution should provide more details in the section where it shows that third-party libraries have CVEs or some vulnerabilities."
"The product's retesting part needs improvement. The tool also needs improvement in the suggestions provided for fixing vulnerabilities. It relies more on documentation rather than on quick fixes."
"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."
"The biggest drawback is reporting. It's not so good. I can download them, but they're not so informative."
"Scanning needs to be improved in enterprise and professional versions."
"There could be an improvement in the API security testing. There is another tool called Postman and if we had a built-in portal similar to Postman which captures the API, we would be able to generate the API traffic. Right now we need a Postman tool and the Burp Suite for performing API tests. It would be a huge benefit to be able to do it in a single UI."
"The biggest improvement that I would like to see from PortSwigger that today many people see as an issue in their testing. There might be a feature which might be desired."
"The solution is not easy to set it up. You need a lot of knowledge."
"We'd like to have more integration potential across all versions of the product."
"You can have many false positives in Burp Suite. It depends on the scale of the penetration testing."
"The price could be better. The rest is fine."
More PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional Pricing and Cost Advice →
Contrast Security Assess is ranked 31st in Application Security Tools with 11 reviews while PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional is ranked 9th in Application Security Tools with 57 reviews. Contrast Security Assess is rated 8.8, while PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional is rated 8.6. 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 PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional writes "The solution is versatile and easy to deploy, but it needs to give more detailed security reports". Contrast Security Assess is most compared with Veracode, Seeker, Fortify WebInspect, HCL AppScan and Checkmarx One, whereas PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional is most compared with OWASP Zap, Fortify WebInspect, Acunetix, HCL AppScan and Qualys Web Application Scanning. See our Contrast Security Assess vs. PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional report.
See our list of best Application Security Tools vendors and best Static Application Security Testing (SAST) vendors.
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