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Checkmarx One vs F5 Distributed Cloud Services comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 4, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Checkmarx One
Ranking in API Security
4th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
81
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (2nd), Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (2nd), Vulnerability Management (15th), Container Security (14th), Static Code Analysis (2nd), Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) (2nd), DevSecOps (2nd), Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (10th), Application Security Posture Management (ASPM) (3rd), AI Security (2nd)
F5 Distributed Cloud Services
Ranking in API Security
7th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
CDN (6th), Web Application Firewall (WAF) (14th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the API Security category, the mindshare of Checkmarx One is 6.5%, up from 5.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of F5 Distributed Cloud Services is 4.2%, down from 5.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
API Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Checkmarx One6.5%
F5 Distributed Cloud Services4.2%
Other89.3%
API Security
 

Featured Reviews

Shahzad Shahzad - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Solution Architect | L3+ Systems & Cloud Engineer | SRE Specialist at Canada Cloud Solution
Enable secure development workflows while identifying opportunities for faster scans and improved AI guidance
Checkmarx One is a very strong platform, but there are several areas where it can improve to support modern DevSecOps workflows even better. For example, better real-time developer guidance is needed. The IDE plugin should offer richer AI-powered auto-fixes similar to SNYK Code or GitHub Copilot Security, as current guidance is good but not deeply contextual for large-scale enterprise codebases. This matters because it reduces developer friction and accelerates shift-left adoption. More transparency control over the correlation engines is another need. The correlation engine is powerful but not fully transparent. Users want to understand why vulnerabilities were correlated or de-prioritized, which helps AppSec teams trust the prioritization logic. Faster SAST scan and more language coverage is needed since SAST scan can still be slow for very large mono-repos and there is limited deep support for new language frameworks like Rust and Go, along with advanced coverage for serverless-specific frameworks. This matters because large organizations want sub-minute scans in CI/CD as cloud-native ecosystems evolve fast. A strong API security module is another area for enhancement. API security scanning could be improved with active testing, API discovery, full Swagger, OpenAPI, drift detection, and schema-based fuzzing. This is important as API attacks are one of the biggest AppSec risks in 2025. Checkmarx One is strong, but I see a few areas for improvement including faster SAST scanning for large mono-repos, deeper language framework support, more transparent correlation logic, and stronger API security that includes discovery and runtime context. The IDE plugin could offer more AI-assisted fixes, and the SBOM lifecycle tracking can evolve further. Enhancing integration with SIEM and SOAR would also make enterprise adoption smoother, and these improvements would help developers and AppSec teams move faster with more accuracy.
Mohan Janarthanan - PeerSpot reviewer
Associate Vice President at Novac Technology Solutions
Centralized security has protected APIs and optimized multi‑cloud traffic management
F5 Distributed Cloud Services has been used for two years for DDoS protection, and there is a particular feature called API protection. Within API protection, there is malicious user mitigation, which is one particular technology that has been implemented. This is a kind of advanced bot attack prevention. Malicious user mitigation is an AI/ML-based technology that was introduced by the F5 team, and this particular MUG protects rate limiting. If some users are having anomaly detection or someone is trying to do a bot attack, it will create a CAPTCHA challenge for that particular user alone and not for all users. For example, if someone is trying to act as a rogue, it will create a CAPTCHA challenge in the backend system on that particular system, so they cannot try again and again at the same time. It is for a concurrent session, and it will give the CAPTCHA challenge. This MUG, malicious user mitigation, prevents bot attacks. F5 Distributed Cloud Services includes the real-time intelligence feature, which helps with threat response strategies from a threat intelligence perspective. For example, if there are geo-restrictions or geo-based restrictions, sometimes people may come in through proxy-based servers, and it will prevent that. The load balancing feature optimizes application performance. Observability is the basic piece where F5 got introduced. This observability piece provides end-to-end visibility on the application performance. It gives complete end-to-end visibility across network latency and application performance issues. Sometimes when it is getting more than 200 pages, it throws errors such as 300, 400, or whatever has been configured, including 500 errors. F5 Distributed Cloud Services has helped improve traffic management efficiency. Most applications are hosted in the Check Point and F5 firewall, F5 web application firewall, where applications and traffic management can be accessed in a single dashboard. Automated threat detection is a basic feature of F5 Distributed Cloud Services meant for that purpose. There are two scenarios with automated threat detection, which is provided by F5. It is a completely machine learning solution that came from the bot defense, and it automatically protects against sophisticated attacks.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Checkmarx One has positively impacted the organization by providing resolution strategies and indicating which vulnerabilities need to be fixed."
"The solution is scalable, but other solutions are better."
"The SAST component was absolutely 100% stable."
"Compared to the solutions we used previously, Checkmarx has reduced our workload by almost 75%."
"Overall, the ability to find vulnerabilities in the code is better than the tool that we were using before."
"The best thing about Checkmarx is the amount of vulnerabilities that it can find compared to other free tools."
"Most valuable features include: ease of use, dashboard. interface and the ability to report."
"What I like best about Checkmarx is that it has fewer false positives than other products, giving you better results."
"F5 is known for being the best load balancer in the market. Customers with an existing module can easily adopt additional modules without investing in new hardware."
"F5 Distributed Cloud Services is the market leader in load balancers and manages traffic really well."
"Technical support from F5 is good compared to Cisco and HP."
"F5 Distributed Cloud Services provides a single unified console for security operations, network operations, and DevOps across all environments."
"F5 Distributed Cloud Services has had a very positive impact on our organization by strengthening security, simplifying networking, and improving visibility across multi-cloud environments."
"The main benefit is Web App Security, offering a complete security package from DDoS to web application firewall, API protection, and bot mitigation."
"In a multi-cloud or distributed cloud, there are many protection possibilities from data to web application or API protection, including bot mitigation."
"Elastic environments are the most valuable features because I can pull these apps and migrate the on-premises environment to the Distributed Cloud environment, and this capability is very strong and the security regarding the apps is really very powerful."
 

Cons

"Dynamic testing. If it had that feature I would have liked to see more consideration of framework validations that we don't have to duplicate. These flags are false positives."
"For Checkmarx One, I think that adding repositories and scanning impromptu code could improve it."
"They can support the remaining languages that are currently not supported. They can also create a different model that can identify zero-day attacks. They can work on different patterns to identify and detect zero-day vulnerability attacks."
"This product requires you to create your own rulesets. You have to do a lot of customization."
"C, C++, VB and T-SQL are not supported by this product. Although, C and C++ were advertised as being supported."
"Checkmarx needs improvement in its Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) and API security features."
"Checkmarx is not good because it has too many false positive issues."
"It needs better role management."
"For small players, it is completely not worth it."
"Last year there was a downtime of 30 minutes across the cloud distributed console, and that was the only impact observed."
"The pricing could be adjusted to better meet the needs of typical customers in regions like Poland, where the product is considered too expensive."
"The worst experience is that with so many solutions available, it is very complicated to know all of the solution modules, and the offers from F5 Distributed Cloud Services are vast."
"The main issue is integration with other parts or products of F5, like on-premise WAF. There are some problems, mainly from the perspective of implementation and customer expectations, which sometimes differ from reality."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is a good product but a little overpriced."
"The solution is costly."
"It is not expensive, but sometimes, their pricing model or licensing model is not very clear. There are similar variables, such as projects or developers, and sometimes, it is a little bit confusing."
"The tool's pricing is fine."
"The average deal size was usually anywhere between $120K to $175K on an annual basis, which could be divided across 12 months."
"This solution is expensive. The customized package allows you to buy additional users at any time."
"The pricing is competitive and provides a lower TCO (total cost of ownership) for achieving application security."
"Most of my customers opted for a perpetual license. They prefer to pay the highest amount up front for the perpetual license and then pay for additional support annually."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
5%
Construction Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Insurance Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise46
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise4
 

Questions from the Community

What alternatives are there for Fortify WebInspect and Fortify SCA?
I would like to recommend Checkmarx. With Checkmarx, you are able to have an all in one solution for SAST and SCA as well. Veracode is only a cloud solution. Hope this helps.
What is the biggest difference between Veracode and Checkmarx?
According to my experience of using both the tools in different organizations Veracode is a Cloud-native, managed AppSec platform with strong focus on ease of use, it is SaaS delivery, and provide...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Checkmarx?
Checkmarx One is a premium solution, so budget accordingly. Make sure you understand how licensing scales with additional applications and users. I advise negotiating multi-year contracts or bundle...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for F5 Distributed Cloud Services?
F5 Distributed Cloud Services is affordable. I think it is very affordable. I do not think it is expensive.
What needs improvement with F5 Distributed Cloud Services?
I need to think about this for the future. F5 Distributed Cloud Services needs to create links with Amazon and Google Cloud or other platforms. At this moment, it does not have integrated steps to ...
What is your primary use case for F5 Distributed Cloud Services?
I collect reviews for F5 Distributed Cloud Services and F5 Silverline Managed Services. I work with F5 Distributed Cloud Services as a consultant in the implementation environment. I have already i...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

YIT, Salesforce, Coca-Cola, SAP, U.S. Army, Liveperson, Playtech Case Study: Liveperson Implements Innovative Secure SDLC
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Find out what your peers are saying about Checkmarx One vs. F5 Distributed Cloud Services and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.