No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Fortify Application Defender vs Mend.io comparison

Why PeerSpot?
 

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
33rd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Mend.io
Ranking in Application Security Tools
10th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
35
Ranking in other categories
Software Composition Analysis (SCA) (5th), Static Code Analysis (4th), Software Supply Chain Security (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 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 Mend.io is 2.4%, down from 3.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Security Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Mend.io2.4%
Fortify Application Defender1.5%
Other96.1%
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.
meetharoon - PeerSpot reviewer
CEO at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
Centralized security monitoring has reduced false positives and improves dependency governance
The only area for improvement I would say is that the false positives are nearly zero; everything is mostly like 99 to 99.99% or we can say 100% accurate. There were a few areas for improvement just from the last time I saw; I think the user experience had a little problem. We wanted to have certain reports based on our kind of scenario, but the tool did not allow us to create custom reports. We had asked for some facility and some ability for us to create some custom reports. That would be awesome if they allow us to create custom reports the way we wanted. There is one small area which I don't know whether we should call a tool limitation or a wish list; if I use a library and I don't use all the capabilities of the library but only a portion of it and that portion is not vulnerable, but there is a component which is outdated, that is a problem, even though I don't use that component. Mend.io will discover there is a problem in the whole library; that is correct. That's a valid discovery, but in my case, for example, if I don't use that particular portion, then it actually is not making sense for me, but that's not a limitation of Mend.io; I think that's a general problem with any tool in the market because no tool in the market will actually know what portion of the code I'm actually using from that particular library if it is vulnerable or not.

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."
"The most valuable feature is that it analyzes data in real-time."
"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."
"Fortify Application Defender's most valuable features are machine learning algorithms, real-time remediation, and automatic vulnerability notifications."
"This is a great tool and the kind of support it provides is very helpful."
"The most valuable features of Fortify Application Defender are the code packages that are default."
"I find the configuration of rules in Fortify Application Defender useful. Its integration is also easy."
"The information from Fortify Application Defender on how to fix and solve issues is very good compared to other solutions."
"WhiteSource is very easy to run and use, and it reduced significantly the time our developers used to spend on issues in open-source libraries."
"WhiteSource helped reduce our mean time to resolution since the adoption of the product."
"The best feature is that the Mend R&D team does their due diligence for all the vulnerabilities. In case they observe any important or critical vulnerabilities, such as the Log4j-related vulnerability, we usually get a dedicated email from our R&D team saying that this particular vulnerability has been exploited in the world, and we should definitely check our project for this and take corrective actions."
"The solution is only cloud-based, not on-premises; it is user-friendly."
"For us, the most valuable tool was open-source licensing analysis."
"We moved from Black Duck to WhiteSource as it was a more modern and scalable solution, with better integration support to various build and source environments."
"Mend has reduced our open-source software vulnerabilities and helped us remediate issues quickly. My company's policy is to ensure that vulnerabilities are fixed before it gets to production."
"I would recommend using WhiteSource."
 

Cons

"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."
"Fortify Application Defender could improve by supporting more code languages, such as GRAAS and Groovy."
"The workbench is a little bit complex when you first start using it."
"The product should integrate industry-standard code review tools internally with its system. This would streamline the coding process, as developers wouldn't need multiple tools for code review and security checks. Many independent and open-source tools are available, from Apache to various libraries. Using multiple DevOps pipeline tools can slow the turnaround time."
"I encountered many false positives for Python applications."
"The false positive rate should be lower."
"The solution is quite expensive."
"Support for older compilers/IDEs is lacking."
"Up until now, we were convinced that the return of investment was not really the case."
"On the reporting side, they could make some improvements. They are making the reports better and better, but sometimes it takes a lot of time to generate a report for our entire organization."
"With respect to improvements with Mend.io, as I mentioned, today it is not supporting the threat intelligence."
"Some detected libraries do not specify a location of where in the source they were matched from, which is something that should be enhanced to enable quicker troubleshooting."
"We wanted to have certain reports based on our kind of scenario, but the tool did not allow us to create custom reports."
"It would be good if it can do dynamic code analysis. It is not necessarily in that space, but it can do more because we have too many tools. Their partner relationship support is a little bit confusing. They haven't really streamlined the support process when we buy through a reseller. They should improve their process."
"If anything, I would spend more time making this more user-friendly, better documenting the CLI, and adding more examples to help expand the current documentation."
"At times, the latency of getting items out of the findings after they're remediated is higher than it should be."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The product’s price is much higher than other tools."
"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 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."
"This is an expensive solution."
"Mend is costly but not overly expensive. The license was quite expensive this year, but we managed to negotiate the price down to the same as last year. At the same time, it's a good value. We're getting what we're paying for and still not using all the features. We could probably get more out of the tool and make it more valuable. At the moment, we don't have the capacity to do that."
"It is fairly priced."
"We always negotiate for the best price possible, and as far as I know, Mend has done an excellent job with their pricing. Our management is happy with the pricing, which has led to renewals."
"Over the last two years, they have tried to add more and more features to their license packages, but the price is a little bit high, comparatively."
"WhiteSource is much more affordable than Veracode."
"Its pricing model is per developer. It depends on the number of developers in the company. The license is for a minimum of 20 developers. So, even if you are a small startup with less than 10 developers, you have to buy a license for 20 developers on a yearly subscription, which makes it quite expensive for startup customers. I provide consultation to startup accelerators. They're small at the beginning, and only once they grow to 20 developers, they can afford this tool. As a result, WhiteSource is missing this target audience. Their licensing is not flexible."
"Pricing is competitive."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Security Tools solutions are best for your needs.
913,806 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Construction Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
7%
 

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 Business10
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise22
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
How does WhiteSource compare with SonarQube?
Red Hat Ceph does well in simplifying storage integration by replacing the need for numerous storage solutions. This solution allows for multiple copies of replicated and coded pools to be kept, ea...
How does WhiteSource compare with Black Duck?
We researched Black Duck but ultimately chose WhiteSource when looking for an application security tool. WhiteSource is a software solution that enables agile open source security and license compl...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Mend.io?
Mend.io SCA offers a competitive pricing structure that is relatively affordable compared to similar solutions in the market. This makes it an attractive option for organizations looking to enhance...
 

Also Known As

HPE Fortify Application Defender, Micro Focus Fortify Application Defender
WhiteSource, Mend SCA, Mend.io Supply Chain Defender, Mend SAST
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ServiceMaster, Saltworks, SAP
Microsoft, Autodesk, NCR, Target, IBM, vodafone, Siemens, GE digital, KPMG, LivePerson, Jack Henry and Associates
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortify Application Defender vs. Mend.io and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
913,806 professionals have used our research since 2012.