Contrast Security Assess vs Kiuwan comparison

Contrast Security and Kiuwan are both solutions in the Application Security Tools category. Contrast Security is ranked #30, while Kiuwan is ranked #29. Contrast Security holds a 1.3% mindshare in AS, compared to Kiuwan’s 1.2% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Contrast Security users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 93% of Kiuwan users who would recommend it.

Contrast Security Assess

Read 11 Contrast Security Assess reviews

1,990 Views
1,313 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Kiuwan

Read 23 Kiuwan reviews

2,016 Views
1,633 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

Contrast Security Assess

Kiuwan

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 8, 2024

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Kiuwan and Contrast Security Assess are leaders in application security analysis tools. Contrast Security Assess seems to have the upper hand, favored for its robust feature set despite higher costs.

Features: Kiuwan users value its comprehensive coding rule checks, timely updates, and competitive pricing. Contrast Security Assess provides continuous real-time analysis, integration options, and seamless workflow integration.

Room for Improvement: Users of Kiuwan see a need for better reporting dashboards, improved language support, and enhanced configuration flexibility. Contrast Security Assess users often request more advanced configuration, better documentation, and expanded language support.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Kiuwan is noted for its smooth deployment, responsive support, and high customer satisfaction. Contrast Security Assess offers flexible deployment models and effective customer service, although some users experience initial setup complexities.

Pricing and ROI: Kiuwan is recognized for its competitive setup costs and favorable ROI, seen as cost-effective. Contrast Security Assess presents a higher initial investment but provides a rewarding ROI due to its advanced features, justifying the cost for many users.

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To learn more, read our detailed Contrast Security Assess vs. Kiuwan Report (Updated: February 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Contrast Security Assess vs. Kiuwan

February 2026

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Helped 881,733 peers since 2012

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 Application Security Tools

30th

Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

27th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Kiuwan

Ranking in Application Security Tools

29th

Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

26th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Application Security Tools category, the mindshare of Contrast Security Assess is 1.3%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Kiuwan is 1.2%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Security Tools Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Kiuwan	1.2%
Contrast Security Assess	1.3%
Other	97.5%

Application Security Tools

Featured Reviews

reviewer1605099

Director of Threat and Vulnerability Management at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees

We're gathering vulnerability data from multiple environments in real time, fundamentally changing how we identify issues in applications

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. Assess also provides the option of helping developers incorporate security elements while they're writing code. It depends on whether individual developers decide to utilize the information that's provided to them from the solution, but it definitely gives them visibility into more environments. It gives them an opportunity to remediate vulnerabilities well before production deployments.

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Mustufa Bhavnagarwala

CyberRisk Solution Advisor at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees

Though a stable tool, the UI needs improvement

Kiuwan can improve its UI a little more. The user experience can be made better. Kiuwan offers a user interface that is similar to the one offered by Windows 7 or Windows 98, which I saw when I ran the tool and tried to scan the repository to find the security issues. The product's UI has certain shortcomings, where improvements are required.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"By far, the thing that was able to provide value was the immediate response while testing ahead of release, in real-time."

"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."

"When we access the application, it continuously monitors and detects vulnerabilities."

"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."

"The accuracy of the solution in identifying vulnerabilities is better than any other product we've used, far and away. In our internal comparisons among different tools, Contrast consistently finds more impactful vulnerabilities, and also identifies vulnerabilities that are nearly guaranteed to be there, meaning that the chance of false positives is very low."

"Assess has an excellent API interface to pull APIs."

"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."

More Contrast Security Assess pros

"I've tried many open source applications and the remediation or correction actions that were provided by Kiuwan were very good in comparison."

"I've found the reporting features the most helpful."

"I have found the security and QA in the source code to be most valuable."

"I find it immensely helpful because it's not just about generating code; it's about ensuring efficiency in the execution."

"The solution has a continuous integration process."

"The most valuable feature is the time to resolution, where it tells you how long it is going to take to get to a zero-base or a five-star security rating."

"I like that I can scan the code without sending it to the Kiuwan cloud. I can do it locally on my device. When the local analyzer finishes, the results display on the dashboard in the cloud. It's essential for security purposes to be able to scan my code locally."

"The feature that I have found the most valuable in Kiuwan is the speed of scanning. Compared to other SaaS tools I have used, Kiuwan is much quicker in performing scans. I have not yet used it on a large code base, but from what I have experienced, it is efficient and accurate. Additionally, I have used it both manually and in an automated pipeline, and both methods have been effective. The speed of scanning is what makes it valuable to me."

More Kiuwan pros

Cons

"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."

"To instrument an agent, it has to be running on a type of application technology that the agent recognizes and understands. It's excellent when it works. If we're using an application that is using an unsupported technology, then we can't instrument it at all. We do use PHP and Contrast presently doesn't support that, although it's on their roadmap. My primary hurdle is that it doesn't support all of the technologies that we use."

"The setup of the solution is different for each application. That's the one thing that has been a challenge for us. The deployment itself is simple, but it's tough to automate because each application is different, so each installation process for Contrast is different."

"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 needs to improve flexibility...The scalability of the product is a problem in the solution, especially from a commercial perspective."

More Contrast Security Assess cons

"It could improve its scalability abilities."

"I would like to see additional languages supported."

"The QA developer and security could be improved."

"In Kiuwan there are sometimes duplicates found in the dependency scan under the "insights" tab. It's unclear to me why these duplicates are appearing, and it would be helpful if the application teams could investigate further."

"The configuration hasn't been that good."

"The integration process could be improved. It'll also help if it could generate reports automatically. But I'm not sure about the effectiveness of the reports. This is because, in our last project, we still found some key issues that weren't captured by the Kiuwan report."

"Perhaps more languages supported."

"I would like to see better integration with Azure DevOps in the next release of this solution."

More Kiuwan cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"The product's pricing is low. I would rate it a two out of ten."

"The solution is expensive."

"This solution is cheaper than other tools."

"Check with your account manager."

"The price of Kiuwan is lower than that of other tools on the market."

"I recommend contacting a sales person who will create the best plan payment plan for you, as we did."

"Kiuwan is an open-source solution and free to use."

"Nothing special. It's a very fair model."

"It follows a subscription model. I think the price is somewhere in the middle."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

22%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Computer Software Company

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

11%

University

10%

Financial Services Firm

Consumer Goods Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	2
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	6

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	16
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	6

Comparisons

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Compared 5% of the time

Veracode vs Contrast Security Assess

Compared 5% of the time

Seeker Interactive vs Contrast Security Assess

Compared 4% of the time

Digital.ai Application Security vs Contrast Security Assess

Compared 4% of the time

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SonarQube vs Kiuwan

Compared 32% of the time

Checkmarx One vs Kiuwan

Compared 10% of the time

Veracode vs Kiuwan

Compared 8% of the time

Snyk vs Kiuwan

Compared 6% of the time

Digital.ai Application Security vs Kiuwan

Compared 3% of the time

More Kiuwan Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Contrast Security Assess

February 2026

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Buyer's Guide

Kiuwan

January 2026

Download Kiuwan product report

Also Known As

Contrast Assess

No data available

Overview

Contrast Security is the world’s leading provider of security technology that enables software applications to protect themselves against cyberattacks, heralding the new era of self-protecting software. Contrast's patented deep security instrumentation is the breakthrough technology that enables highly accurate assessment and always-on protection of an entire application portfolio, without disruptive scanning or expensive security experts. Only Contrast has sensors that work actively inside applications to uncover vulnerabilities, prevent data breaches, and secure the entire enterprise from development, to operations, to production.

Contrast Security

Software analytics technology with a breadth of third party integrations that takes into account the wealth of applications your teams are currently using.

We facilitate and encourage work between unlocalized teams. We understand the complexity of working on multi technology environments, constantly striving to increase the number of programming languages and technologies we support.

Kiuwan

Sample Customers

Williams-Sonoma, Autodesk, HUAWEI, Chromeriver, RingCentral, Demandware.

DHL, BNP Paribas, Zurich, AXA, Ernst & Young, KFC, Santander, Latam, Ferrovial

Buyer's Guide

Contrast Security Assess vs. Kiuwan

February 2026

Free Report: Contrast Security Assess vs. Kiuwan

Find out what your peers are saying about Contrast Security Assess vs. Kiuwan and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.

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