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Contrast Security Assess vs Cycode comparison

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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

Contrast Security Assess
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
19th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (24th)
Cycode
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
22nd
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Software Composition Analysis (SCA) (15th), Software Supply Chain Security (11th), Application Security Posture Management (ASPM) (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of Contrast Security Assess is 1.4%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cycode is 1.4%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Static Application Security Testing (SAST) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Contrast Security Assess1.4%
Cycode1.4%
Other97.2%
Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
 

Featured Reviews

Eucharia Okafor - PeerSpot reviewer
Dev Ops Engineer at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
Continuous in-app security has transformed our development workflow and has reduced manual checks
Contrast Security Assess changes how the team thinks about security. Instead of us waiting for a security audit at the end of any sprint, vulnerabilities surface as developers are writing and testing code. That shift is significant because fixing a bug in development costs more than fixing it later. It captures everything right there and remediates it because it catches vulnerability and remediates immediately while the application is running. It improves our collaboration between development and security teams, as developers get clear actionable findings immediately. We get continuous visibility into our application risk posture. Ultimately, it helps us to shift fast and save money, which is usually a trade-off, but Contrast Security Assess makes both possible. The feature that stands out most to me in Contrast Security Assess is the ability to capture vulnerability while the application is running. Another standout feature is the real-time detection that finds vulnerabilities as code runs. It has fewer false positives and works continuously in the application; you install it and it is there. It captures issues during development quickly and is easily integrated with a CI/CD pipeline, especially if you are using GitLab or GitHub. The real-time detection feature of Contrast Security Assess helps us very well compared to traditional SAST tools. Traditional tools scan from the outside and guess where problems might be. Contrast Security Assess works from the inside because it is embedded into the application. The agent lives inside the running application, allowing it to see exactly what is happening in real-time. This means we are getting accurate alerts instead of a long list of potential issues that require manual investigation. When it comes to the CI/CD pipeline, Contrast Security Assess really shines for our daily work, as it plugs directly into tools like Jenkins, GitHub, or Azure DevOps. When a developer commits code and triggers a build, Contrast Security Assess is already testing it in the background. If there is any vulnerability, the pipeline automatically flags or stops the application before bad code reaches production. This means security becomes everyone's responsibility, not just the security team's, and it gives us real-time, accurate security that fits into how our team already works.
reviewer2014131 - PeerSpot reviewer
DevSecOps Security Engineer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Secret scanning has strengthened our code security and now needs better container integration
Regarding container scanning, Cycode can be improved as it does not have a CLI. As a DevSecOps professional, having a CLI is a must-have for any tool to integrate it into systems. Although Cycode does have a CLI, specifically for the container scanning module, a CLI does not exist. This is why all the modules that Cycode offers cannot be fully leveraged. A CLI for the container scanning module is believed to be on Cycode's roadmap, but it is not available today. As a big enterprise dealing with many assets, Cycode being faster would be beneficial. With many assets on-boarded on Cycode, the tool sometimes becomes slow. Making Cycode faster would definitely help. Other than that, things are good.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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 brought our development time down because it helps create code the first time."
"Assess has an excellent API interface to pull APIs."
"Contrast Security Assess has positively impacted my organization by providing more control over secure software development."
"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."
"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."
"From a percentage perspective, somewhere around 90 percent of the time we used to spend has been given back to our team, because the false positive rate with Contrast is less than 5 percent."
"You cannot get much better than Contrast Security Assess for large deployments of applications and also critical applications."
"Cycode has positively impacted the organization by saving time in the pipeline and providing one platform for secret scanning, SAST, and Infrastructure as Code facilities."
"Cycode excels in secret scanning and is brilliant at finding and identifying secrets within code."
"In my experience as an integrator with Cycode, the biggest advantage is that it is platform agnostic and language agnostic."
 

Cons

"Regarding Contrast Security Assess's AI capabilities, I think they are missing a huge opportunity because they could lead the way in automatic testing and AI security testing, but currently, they do not offer this functionality, which is a shame."
"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."
"I do find that here and there with Contrast Security Assess there are user interface issues, particularly with how they work with libraries."
"The solution needs to improve flexibility...The scalability of the product is a problem in the solution, especially from a commercial perspective."
"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 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."
"Contrast Security Assess could improve in the reporting and the dashboard experience."
"Regarding container scanning, Cycode can be improved as it does not have a CLI."
"Currently, Cycode does not have good container security, and while it is a full solution, companies desiring a single platform must seek additional tools to scan container images."
"While I appreciate the advantages of Cycode, one area for improvement is the machine learning aspect and how it can assist during AI operations."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"You only get one license for an application. Ours are very big, monolithic applications with millions of lines of code. We were able to apply one license to one monolithic application, which is great. We are happy with the licensing. Pricing-wise, they are industry-standard, which is fine."
"The solution is expensive."
"The product's pricing is low. I would rate it a two out of ten."
"I like the per-application licensing model... We just license the app and we look at different vulnerabilities on that app and we remediate within the app. It's simpler."
"It's a tiered licensing model. The more you buy, as you cross certain quantity thresholds, the pricing changes. If you have a smaller environment, your licensing costs are going to be different than a larger environment... The licensing is primarily per application. An application can be as many agents as you need. If you've got 10 development servers and 20 production servers and 50 QA servers, all of those agents can be reporting as a single application that utilizes one license."
"For what it offers, it's a very reasonable cost. The way that it is priced is extremely straightforward. It works on the number of applications that you use, and you license a server. It is something that is extremely fair, because it doesn't take into consideration the number of requests, etc. It is only priced based on the number of onboarded applications. It suits our model as well, because we have huge traffic. Our number of applications is not that large, so the pricing works great for us."
"The good news is that the agent itself comes in two different forms: the unlicensed form and the licensed form. Unlicensed gives use of that software composition analysis for free. Thereafter, if you apply a license to that same agent, that's when the instrumentation takes hold. So one of my suggestions is to do what we're doing: Deploy the agent to as many applications as possible, with just the SCA feature turned on with no license applied, and then you can be more choosy and pick which teams will get the license applied."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Construction Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
26%
Financial Services Firm
12%
University
6%
Construction Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise10
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Contrast Security Assess?
I was not involved in the negotiation of pricing for Contrast Security Assess, but I am somewhat familiar with setup cost and licensing. Licensing costs are fairly high compared to other DAST and S...
What needs improvement with Contrast Security Assess?
I do find that here and there with Contrast Security Assess there are user interface issues, particularly with how they work with libraries. The way that it works is people have access to library d...
What advice do you have for others considering Contrast Security Assess?
I would give Contrast Security Assess a score of 8 out of 10. That is a small little issue, but it is a great product and I would recommend it to others. There are a couple things that could be imp...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cycode?
I find the pricing of Cycode to be reasonable for the work being done, although I haven't compared it with other tools to provide detailed feedback about its affordability.
What needs improvement with Cycode?
While I appreciate the advantages of Cycode, one area for improvement is the machine learning aspect and how it can assist during AI operations. This tool needs capabilities for monitoring cloud co...
What is your primary use case for Cycode?
Cycode is used for our software development, maintaining clean code quality, and managing secrets within our enterprise. We write secure code by adhering to secure coding principles, ensuring that ...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Contrast Assess
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Williams-Sonoma, Autodesk, HUAWEI, Chromeriver, RingCentral, Demandware.
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Contrast Security Assess vs. Cycode and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
913,924 professionals have used our research since 2012.