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Fortify Application Defender vs Kiuwan 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
Kiuwan
Ranking in Application Security Tools
33rd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (28th)
 

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 Kiuwan is 1.1%, down from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Security Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Kiuwan1.1%
Fortify Application Defender1.5%
Other97.4%
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.
Mustufa Bhavnagarwala - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The product saves us cost and time."
"I find the configuration of rules in Fortify Application Defender useful. Its integration is also easy."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to automatically feed it rules what it's coupled with the WebInspect dynamic application scanning technology."
"The most valuable feature is that it analyzes data in real-time."
"The information from Fortify Application Defender on how to fix and solve issues is very good compared to other solutions."
"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."
"Its ability to find security defects is valuable."
"Fortify Application Defender has a few drawbacks, it has its own pros and cons, but it's a good tool to use in any industry."
"Kiuwan has enabled us to give our customers peace of mind through early identification of code vulnerabilities and remediation before delivery to the customer."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the continuous integration process, which enables us to make the best in terms of security of our solution and not introduce new mistakes, with problems solved step by step."
"We have had an improvement of 20% in our time to market and it significantly improved the quality of our code."
"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."
"We switched because Kiuwan covers the entire SDLC; provides direct information to act upon, for the developer, architects, QA, CIO and CISO, in a few seconds; automatically, fully integrated in any CI/CD setup."
"The solution offers very good technical support."
"In our digital marketing efforts, our app is in continuous integration and having introduced this tool ensures we are always delivering safe code."
"I find it immensely helpful because it's not just about generating code; it's about ensuring efficiency in the execution."
 

Cons

"Fortify Application Defender could improve by supporting more code languages, such as GRAAS and Groovy."
"Fortify Application Defender gives a lot of false positives."
"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 solution is quite expensive."
"The licensing can be a little complex."
"Support for older compilers/IDEs is lacking."
"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."
"I encountered many false positives for Python applications."
"It could improve its scalability abilities."
"The pricing and licensing models are poor."
"The next release should include more flexibility in the reporting."
"The solution seems to give us a lot of false positives. This could be improved quite a bit."
"It would be beneficial to streamline calls and transitions seamlessly for improved functionality."
"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."
"We faced a lot of problems with the initial setup and support gave us difficulties around the installation."
"I would like to see better integration with Azure DevOps in the next release of this solution."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of this solution could be less expensive."
"Fortify Application Defender is very expensive."
"The base licensing costs for the SaaS platform is about $900 USD per application, per year."
"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 recommend contacting a sales person who will create the best plan payment plan for you, as we did."
"This solution is cheaper than other tools."
"Check with your account manager."
"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."
"The price of Kiuwan is lower than that of other tools on the market."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Construction Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Construction Company
12%
University
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing 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 Business16
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise6
 

Also Known As

HPE Fortify Application Defender, Micro Focus Fortify Application Defender
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ServiceMaster, Saltworks, SAP
DHL, BNP Paribas, Zurich, AXA, Ernst & Young, KFC, Santander, Latam, Ferrovial
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortify Application Defender vs. Kiuwan and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.