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Fortify Application Defender vs PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional 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
32nd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
PortSwigger Burp Suite Prof...
Ranking in Application Security Tools
10th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
65
Ranking in other categories
Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (7th), Fuzz Testing Tools (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 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 PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional is 3.4%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Security Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional3.4%
Fortify Application Defender1.5%
Other95.1%
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.
MH
Penetration Tester & Information Security Expert at a comms service provider with 11-50 employees
Dedicated browser and repeater have improved my proxy testing and manual vulnerability checks
I'm hoping perhaps for something to make it easier, such as to define things where if a message or a response is such and such, automatically make a request that is such and such. Perhaps something like this because otherwise, nowadays we have to do it manually. Perhaps they can automate it a bit more. Perhaps they could add some automation to things, to see what we do manually, which it has the tools to do manually, and perhaps enable with a click of a button to do things automatically. I'm not too sure which, but I'm sure they can from a product management point of view, do things that we need to do two, three, or four steps manually regarding specific testing. For instance, we want to check something specific if it's this or if it's that. Perhaps to define it once and have it more automatic, perhaps.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Its ability to find security defects is valuable."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to automatically feed it rules what it's coupled with the WebInspect dynamic application scanning technology."
"Fortify Application Defender's most valuable features are machine learning algorithms, real-time remediation, and automatic vulnerability notifications."
"It is one of those things that once you see it in action, it is pretty impressive."
"The most valuable features of Fortify Application Defender are the code packages that are default."
"The information from Fortify Application Defender on how to fix and solve issues is very good compared to other solutions."
"This is a great tool and the kind of support it provides is very helpful."
"I have found this solution has more plugins than other competitors which is a benefit. You are able to attach different plugins to the security scan to add features. For example, you can check to see if there are any payment systems that exist on a server, or username and password brute force analysis."
"Burp Suite gives you a very good automated scanning tool, which gives you around sixty to seventy percent security coverage without having to use a security resource."
"I found the best value, features and documentation in Burp."
"I rate PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional ten points out of ten."
"If you compare it to more expensive tools like WebInspect or IBM AppScan, you'll realize that, at a very low cost, Burp Suite can provide good results."
"PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional is one of the best user-friendly solutions for getting the proxy set up."
"It is a time-saver application."
"When we compare it to other programs that we have such as OWAP Zap, we found Burp to be more suitable."
 

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."
"The solution is quite expensive."
"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."
"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 false positive rate should be lower."
"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."
"Support for older compilers/IDEs is lacking."
"The use of system memory is an area that can be improved because it uses a lot."
"The biggest drawback is reporting. It's not so good. I can download them, but they're not so informative."
"The number of false positives needs to be reduced on the solution."
"You can have many false positives in Burp Suite. It depends on the scale of the penetration testing."
"There needs to be better documentation provided."
"One area that can be improved, when compared to alternative tools, is that they could provide different reporting options and in different formats like PDF or something like that."
"Improvement should be done as per the requirements of customers."
"There were a lot of false positives there, and we used to spend a lot of time, like, for security reasons, reproducing those bugs for the development team to fix it."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"Fortify Application Defender is very expensive."
"The price of this solution could be less expensive."
"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 base licensing costs for the SaaS platform is about $900 USD per application, per year."
"They should reduce the license cost a little bit. It is $400 per user, and it would be better if they could reduce the licensing fee."
"Pricing is not very high. It was around $200."
"For a country such as Sri Lanka, the pricing is not reasonable."
"The pricing of the solution is reasonable. We only need to pay for the annual subscription. I rate the pricing five out of ten."
"The cost is approximately $500 for a single license, and there are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fees."
"We pay a yearly licensing fee for the solution, which is neither cheap nor expensive."
"The yearly cost is about $300."
"There are different licenses available that include a free version."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
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 Business17
Midsize Enterprise14
Large Enterprise35
 

Questions from the Community

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Is OWASP Zap better than PortSwigger Burp Suite Pro?
OWASP Zap and PortSwigger Burp Suite Pro have many similar features. OWASP Zap has web application scanning available with basic security vulnerabilities while Burp Suite Pro has it available with ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional?
The cost of PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional is reasonable at approximately $500 per year per user.
What needs improvement with PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional?
I'm hoping perhaps for something to make it easier, such as to define things where if a message or a response is such and such, automatically make a request that is such and such. Perhaps something...
 

Also Known As

HPE Fortify Application Defender, Micro Focus Fortify Application Defender
Burp
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ServiceMaster, Saltworks, SAP
Google, Amazon, NASA, FedEx, P&G, Salesforce
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortify Application Defender vs. PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.