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Checkmarx SAST vs GitLab 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 SAST
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
20th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
GitLab
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
91
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (7th), Build Automation (3rd), Release Automation (2nd), Rapid Application Development Software (12th), Software Composition Analysis (SCA) (4th), Enterprise Agile Planning Tools (2nd), Fuzz Testing Tools (2nd), DevSecOps (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of Checkmarx SAST is 2.2%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of GitLab is 2.5%, down from 2.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Static Application Security Testing (SAST) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
GitLab2.5%
Checkmarx SAST2.2%
Other95.3%
Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
 

Featured Reviews

Tharindu Malwenna - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Application Security Engineer at a newspaper with 5,001-10,000 employees
Has supported early vulnerability detection but requires tuning to reduce false positives and scanning delays
When assessing the accuracy and efficiency of Checkmarx SAST scanning capabilities, they are currently recommending that doing the full scan is the main, correct way of scanning the repositories. However, based on the repository size we have, it sometimes takes more than 10 minutes for larger repositories, which is a downside. The accuracy of the results depends on various factors, as some of the test folders tend to give us false positives, which makes a huge impact on the vulnerabilities. Those are the major things that we have to fine-tune from our end. I would rate Checkmarx SAST around a seven, as it does have some false positives we have to work with, which are the major concerning things. The number of false positives is significant because we cannot implement policies because of this.
BasilJiji - PeerSpot reviewer
System engineer at a retailer with 10,001+ employees
Role-based workflows have transformed daily deployments and improve team collaboration
GitLab has role-based access control, so when a team member needs to make a code change, they cannot directly apply it to the environment but must put in a merge request. Once a senior reviews the code and approves it, then it is implemented across the environment, making it safer and allowing everyone to experience the process. The best features GitLab offers are version control and automation, which are the major things that stand out to me. When it comes to access, the login is very smooth, with just one login integrated with our Okta, allowing everyone to log in easily. Deployments become much easier, and that is how GitLab helps. The automation features make my work easier because we use a tool called AWX, which is connected to GitLab. Whenever we run a job on AWX, it directly checks the code and uses it. Since the code is not preserved locally but kept in the cloud, it is safe and nobody can tamper with it. When it comes to safety, that is a major thing. Automation features allow the code to be accessed from any tools we use, so the jobs we run are helping tremendously and doing their work perfectly. For pipeline tasks, we have created a significant amount of pipelines, which are all hosted in GitLab. Running the pipelines has become much easier, and they are doing a perfect job, helping tremendously in our day-to-day activities. GitLab has positively impacted my organization because previously we stored code locally on servers, leading to many risks. Since GitLab came into our environment, our integration and deployments became much easier, helping our work become much smoother. Improvements from GitLab have led to better team collaboration because when several people are working, they can all edit the code and submit it as a merge request, and once approved, it reflects directly to the main branch. Many can work at the same time. When it comes to deployments, deploying has become much faster since we started using GitLab, and even if errors occur, we can spot them easily and troubleshoot, which has helped tremendously.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The CX1 is a unified platform that covers all components such as SAST, SCA, DAST, container scanning, and infrastructure code, which is quite beneficial because some clients need one-stop solutions for all their needs."
"The most important feature is that Checkmarx protects our company against attacks."
"This helps us a lot in identifying vulnerabilities in early stages, and the integration within the IDEs helps developers get the results into their IDE itself, making it easier for them to fix vulnerabilities."
"The detailed reports from Checkmarx SAST help with our security process by showing details about which line is actually vulnerable, which is beneficial for the developers, and I do not have any suggestions or inputs on that area."
"The most important competitive advantage and benefit is the ability to identify vulnerabilities in the source code immediately without needing to complete the coding."
"My understanding is that the product is reliable."
"We have been using this solution for more than five years, and it is deployed on cloud."
"I like that it's easy to deploy our services over GitLab; the customer support is also good with a really active community, and you have a lot of support that you can get online with your stack, which is probably one of the benefits of using GitLab, and it's also really fast."
"We like the automatic deployment for different environments."
"It is a speedy platform compared to the others I have used, and I have also enjoyed using the platform as this solution offers a good user experience."
"If you want to maintain your issues in GitLab and raise your book of work and features, then GitLab is a great tool for collaboration and integration with code deployment and CICD pipelines."
"The most valuable feature of GitLab is its convenience. I am able to trace back most of my changes up to a far distance in time and it helps me to analyze and see the older version of the code."
"GitLab helps me save time and provide financial benefits, as keeping track of the updated version and the changes is money and time-saving."
 

Cons

"The accuracy of the results depends on various factors, as some of the test folders tend to give us false positives, which makes a huge impact on the vulnerabilities."
"The on-premises version is more expensive compared to the cloud version."
"The main challenge with Checkmarx SAST is the price. The price is a challenge because Checkmarx SAST is a very big brand, and many mid-sized companies cannot afford it as they are very price-conscious."
"I believe that nothing in particular could be improved about Checkmarx SAST, only the turnaround time and the fact that technical account managers keep moving around, which leads to some lag in communication."
"We had some issues where Checkmarx did not recognize a vulnerability. We had to talk with the vendor, and they had to include an improvement in the tool to resolve this issue."
"There are occasions where we usually see a lot of outages using GitLab; it happens at least once a week or something like that."
"I'm new to GitLab, so I would appreciate more documentation about the code and commands."
"It is a little complex to set up the pipelines within the solution."
"I've noticed an area for improvement in GitLab, particularly needing to go through many steps to push the code to the repository. Resolving that issue would make the product better. My team quickly fixed it by writing a small script, then double-clicking or enabling the script to take care of the issue. However, that quick fix was from my team and not the GitLab team, so in the next release, if an automatic deployment feature would be available in GitLab, then that would be good because, in Visual Studio, you can do that with just one click of a button."
"Their RBAC is role-based access, which is fine but not very good."
"The solution should expand features to match other tools such as Coverity, Veracode, or SonarQube with its static code analysis tool so third-party integrations are not required."
"We'd like to see better integration with the Atlassian ecosystem. There needs to be better and native integration."
"We'd always like to see better pricing on the product."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"We are using its free version, and we are evaluating its Premium version. Its Ultimate version is very expensive."
"My company uses the free version of GitLab, which is GitLab Community Edition. There is a licensed version also available for GitLab."
"GitLab's pricing is good compared to others on the market."
"I don't mind the price because I use the free version."
"The solution is based on a subscription model and is reasonably priced."
"It seems reasonable. Our IT team manages the licenses."
"We are currently using the open-source version."
"GitLab is a free solution to use."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business38
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise49
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Checkmarx SAST?
We were users in a small country, and we paid one consolidated bill for all the tools, so I don't know the specific amount for Checkmarx.
What needs improvement with Checkmarx SAST?
I believe that nothing in particular could be improved about Checkmarx SAST, only the turnaround time and the fact that technical account managers keep moving around, which leads to some lag in com...
What is your primary use case for Checkmarx SAST?
I manage the application security side of the products here, currently utilizing solutions such as Checkmarx, Akamai, Traceable, and Invicti, which are the security scanning tools that we use. In t...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for GitLab?
The setup cost for GitLab is minimal since the team has its own minimal resource balancing. The costing falls into an intermediate stage and is impactful across all results within the team. It allo...
What needs improvement with GitLab?
There are many improvements that GitLab can implement, such as addressing the issue of caching. Currently, when I have multiple tasks to merge or attempt multiple merges, the CI/CD and overall GitL...
What is your primary use case for GitLab?
My main use case for GitLab is as a version control system that we are using. Currently, I am working on an end-to-end AI pipeline, and I have deployed my whole code using GitLab so that all things...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

SAST
Fuzzit
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
1. NASA  2. IBM  3. Sony  4. Alibaba  5. CERN  6. Siemens  7. Volkswagen  8. ING  9. Ticketmaster  10. SpaceX  11. Adobe  12. Intuit  13. Autodesk  14. Rakuten  15. Unity Technologies  16. Pandora  17. Electronic Arts  18. Nordstrom  19. Verizon  20. Comcast  21. Philips  22. Deutsche Telekom  23. Orange  24. Fujitsu  25. Ericsson  26. Nokia  27. General Electric  28. Cisco  29. Accenture  30. Deloitte  31. PwC  32. KPMG
Find out what your peers are saying about Checkmarx SAST vs. GitLab and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,800 professionals have used our research since 2012.