Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Contrast Security Protect vs Fortify on Demand comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 8, 2024

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 Protect
Ranking in Application Security Tools
33rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.8
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Fortify on Demand
Ranking in Application Security Tools
15th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
60
Ranking in other categories
Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (12th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Application Security Tools category, the mindshare of Contrast Security Protect is 0.5%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortify on Demand is 4.5%, down from 4.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Security Tools
 

Featured Reviews

ToddMcAlister - PeerSpot reviewer
It provides us with more in-depth visibility into ongoing attacks.
I rate Contrast Security Protect eight out of 10. Overall, it's a solid product, but I deduct a couple of points because of the interface and some shortcomings in the reporting. If you have a large enterprise where you're dealing with a lot of servers, then it makes sense not to use the internal MySQL database. You should use something like Oracle or Microsoft SQL, but if you don't have many transactions, the embedded MySQL database works great.
Jonathan Steyn - PeerSpot reviewer
Source code analyzer, FPR file generation, reduction of false positives and generates compliance reports, for in-depth analysis
Not challenges with the product itself. The product is very reliable. It does have a steep learning curve. But, again, one thing that Fortify or OpenText does very well is training. There are a lot of free resources and training in the community forums, free training as well as commercial training where users can train on how to use the back-end systems and the scanning engines and how to use command-line arguments because some of the procedures or some of the tools do require a bit of a learning curve. That's the only challenge I've really seen for customers because you have to learn how to use the tool effectively. But Fortify has, in fact, improved its user interface and the way users engage the dashboards and the interfaces. It is intuitive. It's easy to understand. But in some regards, the cybersecurity specialist or AppSec would need a bit of training to engage the user interface and to understand how it functions. But from the point of the reliability index and how powerful the tool is, there's no challenge there. But it's just from a learning perspective; users might need a bit more skill to use the tool. The user interface isn't that tedious. It's not that difficult to understand. When I initially learned how to use the interfaces, I was able to master it within a week and was able to use it quite effectively. So training is required. All skills are needed to learn how to use the tool. I would like to see more enhancements in the dashboards. Dashboards are available. They do need some configuration and settings. But I would like to see more business intelligence capabilities within the tool. It's not particularly a cybersecurity function, but, for instance, business impact analysis or other features where you can actually use business intelligence capabilities within your security tool. That would be remarkable because not only do you have a cybersecurity tool, but you also have a tool that can give you business impact analysis and some other measurements. A bit more intelligence in terms of that from a cybersecurity perspective would be remarkable.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Protect provides us with more in-depth visibility into ongoing attacks."
"The product gives a few false positives. We get 99 percent true positives."
"The solution has excellent real-time capabilities."
"We have the option to test applications with or without credentials."
"The solution is user-friendly."
"The most valuable feature is that it connects with your development platforms, such as Microsoft Information Server and Jira."
"Fortify helps us to stay updated with the newest languages and versions coming out."
"Almost all the features are good. This solution has simplified designing and architecting for our solutions. We were early adopters of microservices. Their documentation is good. You don't need to put in much effort in setting it up and learning stuff from scratch and start using it. The learning curve is not too much."
"I use the solution in my company for security code scans."
"Each bank may have its own core banking applications with proprietary support for different programming languages. This makes Fortify particularly relevant and advantageous in those cases."
"The most valuable feature is the capacity to be able to check vulnerabilities during the development process. The development team can check whether the code they are using is vulnerable to some type of attack or there is some type of vulnerability so that they can mitigate it. It helps us in achieving a more secure approach towards internal applications. It is an intuitive solution. It gives all the information that a developer needs to remediate a vulnerability in the coding process. It also gives you some examples of how to remediate a vulnerability in different programming languages. This solution is pretty much what we were searching for."
 

Cons

"Protect's reporting GUI is very basic. To get all statuses from the APIs, we needed to write our own KPI dashboard to provide reports."
"Contrast Security Protect needs to improve integration."
"There's room for improvement in the initial setup."
"The cybersecurity specialist or AppSec would need a bit of training to engage the user interface and to understand how it functions."
"There are frequent complaints about false positives from Fortify. One day it may pass a scan with no issues, and the next day, without any code changes, it will report vulnerabilities such as password exposure."
"They have very good support, but there is always room for improvement."
"There are lots of limitations with code technology. It cannot scan .net properly either."
"There are frequent complaints about false positives from Fortify."
"During development, when our developer makes changes to their code, they typically use GitHub or GitLab to track those changes. However, proper integration between Fortify on Demand and GitHub and GitLab is not there yet. Improved integration would be very valuable to us."
"The technical support is actually a problem that needs to be addressed. Since the acquisition and merger with Hewlett Packard, it has been really hard to know who the technical or salesperson to talk to."
"If you have a continuous integration in place, for example, and you want it to run along with your build and you want it to be fast, you're not going to get it. It adds to your development time."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"Buying a license would be feasible for regular use. For intermittent use, the cloud-based option can be used (Fortify on Demand)."
"It's a yearly contract, but I don't remember the dollar amount."
"It is quite expensive. Pricing and the licensing model could be improved."
"We are still using the trial version at this point but I can already see from the trial version alone that it is a good product. For others, I would say that Fortify on Demand might look expensive at the beginning, but it is very powerful and so you shouldn't be put off by the price."
"The solution is a little expensive."
"I'd rate it an eight out of ten in terms of pricing."
"The product's cost depends on the type of license."
"The pricing can be improved because it is complex when compared to the competition."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Security Tools solutions are best for your needs.
845,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
28%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Insurance Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Manufacturing Company
15%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Contrast Security Protect?
The product gives a few false positives. We get 99 percent true positives.
What needs improvement with Contrast Security Protect?
Contrast Security Protect needs to improve integration.
What do you like most about Micro Focus Fortify on Demand?
It helps deploy and track changes easily as per time-to-time market upgrades.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Micro Focus Fortify on Demand?
In comparison with other tools, they're competitive. It is not more expensive than other solutions, but their pricing is competitive. The licenses for Fortify On Demand are generally bought in unit...
What needs improvement with Micro Focus Fortify on Demand?
There are frequent complaints about false positives from Fortify. One day it may pass a scan with no issues, and the next day, without any code changes, it will report vulnerabilities such as passw...
 

Also Known As

Contrast Protect
Micro Focus Fortify on Demand
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Williams-Sonoma, Autodesk, HUAWEI, Chromeriver, RingCentral, Demandware.
SAP, Aaron's, British Gas, FICO, Cox Automative, Callcredit Information Group, Vital and more.
Find out what your peers are saying about Contrast Security Protect vs. Fortify on Demand and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.