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."By far, the thing that was able to provide value was the immediate response while testing ahead of release, in real-time."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"AppScan is stable."
"The most valuable feature of HCL AppScan is scanning QR codes."
"We are now deploying less defects to production."
"It comes with all of the templates that we need. For example, we are a company that is regulated by PCI. In order to be PCI compliant, we have a lot of checks and procedures to which we have to comply."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is Postman."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the scanning or security part."
"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."
"I like the recording feature."
"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."
"I would like to see them come up with more scanning rules."
"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 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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"I would love to see more containers. Many of the tools are great, they require an amount of configuration, setup and infrastructure. If most the applications were in a container, I think everything would be a little bit faster, because all our clients are now using containers."
"They could add a software component analysis tool."
"We would like to see a check in the specific vulnerabilities in mobile applications or rooted devices, such as jailbreaking devices."
"I would like to see the roadmap for this product. We are still waiting to see it as we have only so many resources."
"They have to improve support."
"Scans become slow on large websites."
"The solution could improve by having a mobile version."
"AppScan is too complicated and should be made more user-friendly."
Contrast Security Assess is ranked 32nd in Application Security Tools with 11 reviews while HCL AppScan is ranked 14th in Application Security Tools with 41 reviews. Contrast Security Assess is rated 8.8, while HCL AppScan 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 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 and OWASP Zap. 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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