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Fortify Application Defender vs GitLab 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

Fortify Application Defender
Ranking in Application Security Tools
34th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
GitLab
Ranking in Application Security Tools
7th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
91
Ranking in other categories
Build Automation (3rd), Release Automation (2nd), Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (4th), 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 Application Security Tools category, the mindshare of Fortify Application Defender is 1.5%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of GitLab is 2.3%, down from 2.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Security Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
GitLab2.3%
Fortify Application Defender1.5%
Other96.2%
Application Security Tools
 

Featured Reviews

VS
CTO at Abcl
Useful for fast code review in devOps pipelines
I rate the tool's scalability a seven out of ten. However, I'm concerned about how it handles an increasing number of lines of code. As the complexity grows, so does the time it takes for the tool to review everything. I want more clarity on how Fortify Application Defender handles multiple threats. We have numerous endpoints, but the tool runs in our pipeline, meaning it operates in the cloud. All our code is configured there, and the tool runs integration testing, unit testing, user testing, and final production code tests. It's a day-to-day experience. It's utilized almost every day as part of our pipeline runs. Each team responsible for integration testing, human testing, user access testing, and preproduction testing runs it whenever they take a build.
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 most valuable feature is the ability to automatically feed it rules what it's coupled with the WebInspect dynamic application scanning technology."
"The tool's most valuable feature is software composition analysis. This feature works well with my .NET applications, providing a better understanding of library vulnerabilities."
"I find the configuration of rules in Fortify Application Defender useful. Its integration is also easy."
"The product saves us cost and time."
"The most valuable feature is that it analyzes data in real-time."
"The most valuable features of Fortify Application Defender are the code packages that are default."
"It is one of those things that once you see it in action, it is pretty impressive."
"The solution helped us to improve the code quality of our organization."
"The most valuable feature of GitLab is its security."
"Everything is easy to configure and easy to work with."
"We also found the straightforward setup, stability, and scalability of GitLab valuable."
"Because of the simplicity of the product, GitLab is better than Jenkins."
"GitLab is a very good solution because you can completely maintain your code and have a number of developers working on the same project."
"Previously we used Team Foundation Server, but GitLab is better for local cloud deployment."
"I have found the most valuable feature is security control. I also like the branching and cloning software."
"The feature I appreciate the most about GitLab is its ease of use and compatibility, which allows for straightforward building and deployment processes."
 

Cons

"Support for older compilers/IDEs is lacking."
"The licensing can be a little complex."
"The false positive rate should be lower."
"The solution could improve the time it takes to scan. When comparing it to SonarQube it does it in minutes while in Fortify Application Defender it can take hours."
"The biggest complaint that I have heard concerns additional platform support because right now, it only supports applications that are written in .NET and Java."
"The workbench is a little bit complex when you first start using it."
"I encountered many false positives for Python applications."
"Fortify Application Defender could improve by supporting more code languages, such as GRAAS and Groovy."
"The documentation could be improved to help newcomers better understand things like creating new branches."
"The documentation in GitLab could be improved a bit."
"As GitLab is not perfect, what needs improvement in the solution is the Wiki feature of the groups or the repertories because currently, it's not searchable by default. You'll need an indexing service such as Elasticsearch to make it searchable, and that requires too much work, so for me, it's the main feature that should be improved in GitLab. In the next version of the solution, from the top of my head, the documentation could be improved. Besides the Wiki, it would be good if there's documentation that would be automatically generated based on the code repository. In other words, there should be some tutorials from GitLab for developers in the next release."
"Atlassian offers more products than GitLab. GitLab offers source control management, version control and collaboration between developers. Atlassian offers features on top of this as well as more integration points for developers."
"GitLab can improve the integration with third-party applications. It could be made easier. Additionally, having API control from my application could be helpful."
"We have only seen a couple of issues on Gitlab, which we use for building some of the applications."
"While GitLab is a great tool for developers, it lacks project planner features. Roadmaps and Gantt charts in GitLab are not as advanced as in Jira, and changing start and end dates is more laborious in GitLab."
"The solution could improve by providing more integration into the CI/CD pipeline, an autocomplete search tool, and more supporting documentation."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of this solution could be less expensive."
"The base licensing costs for the SaaS platform is about $900 USD per application, per year."
"Fortify Application Defender is very expensive."
"I rate the solution's pricing a five out of ten. It comes as an annual cloud subscription. The tool's pricing is around 50 lakhs."
"The product’s price is much higher than other tools."
"The licensing is very complex, it's project based and can range from $10,000 to $200,000+ depending on the project type and size."
"I'm not sure if they have some kind of discount. I've been negotiating with them on prices before, and I believe they weren't too happy to give discounts, but list prices are $19 per user, per month for Premium and $99 per user, per month for Ultimate. So, the difference between Premium and Ultimate is a bit bigger, and in most companies, you need to build some type of business case."
"The price of GitLab could be better, it is expensive."
"This is an open-source solution."
"Regarding pricing, I would rate GitLab as moderately priced, maybe around a seven or eight out of ten. It could be more flexible for clients but generally offers good value."
"The solution is based on a subscription model and is reasonably priced."
"The solution's standard license is paid annually. They have changed the pricing model and it used to be better. There is a free version available."
"It is very expensive. We can't bear it now, and we have to find another solution. We have a yearly subscription in which we can increase the number of licenses, but we have to pay at the end of the year."
"GitLab is comparatively expensive, but it provides value because it's feature-rich."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Construction Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business38
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise49
 

Questions from the Community

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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...
 

Also Known As

HPE Fortify Application Defender, Micro Focus Fortify Application Defender
Fuzzit
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ServiceMaster, Saltworks, SAP
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 Fortify Application Defender vs. GitLab and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.