No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Checkmarx One vs w3af comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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 Application Security Tools
2nd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
81
Ranking in other categories
Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (2nd), Vulnerability Management (15th), Container Security (14th), Static Code Analysis (2nd), API Security (4th), Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) (2nd), DevSecOps (2nd), Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (10th), Application Security Posture Management (ASPM) (3rd), AI Security (2nd)
w3af
Ranking in Application Security Tools
42nd
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Application Security Tools category, the mindshare of Checkmarx One is 8.3%, down from 10.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of w3af is 0.7%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Security Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Checkmarx One8.3%
w3af0.7%
Other91.0%
Application Security Tools
 

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.
OS
Information Security Advisor, CISO & CIO, Docutek Services at Docutek Services
It's buggy and seems to try to do too many things, but having this on a USB drive has been valuable.
I tried to install this on numerous systems and eventually, with help, I got it running. It needs far too many dependencies installed and there's too much messing about to be of much use. Once running, it's buggy and begs the question can it be relied upon? Even within Kali it reports website time-outs, yet Zap or Burp are able to do a successful scan. I wanted this to work so much and be able to use it as an additional check of my results but have now binned it.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We were using HPE Security Fortify to scan code for security vulnerabilities, but it can scan only after a successful compile, and if the code has dependencies or build errors the scan fails, while with Checkmarx pre-compile scanning is seamless and allows us to scan more code."
"Our static operation security has been able to identify more security issues since implementing this solution."
"The solution allows us to create custom rules for code checks."
"What I like best about Checkmarx is that it has fewer false positives than other products, giving you better results."
"It is very useful because it fits our requirements. It is also easy to use. It is not complex, and we are satisfied with the results."
"Even if there are multiple vulnerabilities in the source coding, Checkmarx is able to identify which lines need to be corrected and then proceeds to automatically remediate the situation."
"Checkmarx is a nice, pleasant, and relatively easy company to work with."
"The initial setup was very easy."
"The best free software for pen testing web applications."
 

Cons

"We had to lock the number of CPUs used to not crash the Checkmarx Audit."
"You can't use it in the continuous delivery pipeline because the scanning takes too much time."
"It takes around 30 to 40 minutes for checking a build. If you can make it within five minutes or 10 minutes, that would be great."
"We have received some feedback from our customers who are receiving a large number of false positives."
"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."
"The integration could improve by including, for example, DevSecOps."
"The stability of Checkmarx could improve. We're having issues with it, and the scan reliability is sometimes impacted so we sometimes have to restart the services to allow scans out of the queue."
"The cost per user is high and should be reduced."
"Unfortunately, once you get around the seemingly strict set of pre-requisites to install it, it is incredibly buggy."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"​Checkmarx is not a cheap scanning tool, but none of the security tools are cheap. Checkmarx is a powerful scanning tool, and it’s essential to have one of these products."
"The solution is costly."
"We have a subscription license that is on a yearly basis, and it's a pretty competitive solution."
"It's relatively expensive."
"The solution's price is high and you pay based on the number of users."
"I would rate the solution’s pricing an eight out of ten. The tool’s pricing is higher than others and it is for the license alone."
"I believe pricing is better compared to other commercial tools."
"This solution is expensive. The customized package allows you to buy additional users at any time."
Information not available
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Security Tools solutions are best for your needs.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
5%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise46
No data available
 

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...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

YIT, Salesforce, Coca-Cola, SAP, U.S. Army, Liveperson, Playtech Case Study: Liveperson Implements Innovative Secure SDLC
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about SonarSource Sàrl, Checkmarx, Veracode and others in Application Security Tools. Updated: June 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.