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

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
34th
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
9th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
65
Ranking in other categories
Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (6th), Fuzz Testing Tools (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 PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional is 3.5%, 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 Professional3.5%
Fortify Application Defender1.5%
Other95.0%
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

"The most valuable feature is the ability to automatically feed it rules what it's coupled with the WebInspect dynamic application scanning technology."
"The solution helped us to improve the code quality of our organization."
"I find the configuration of rules in Fortify Application Defender useful. Its integration is also easy."
"It is one of those things that once you see it in action, it is pretty impressive."
"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."
"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 features are Burp Intruder and Burp Scanner."
"Since we began this practice for every application, our clients are really happy and value our work."
"I personally love its capability to automatically and accurately detect vulnerabilities. So, I would say it is the Burp scanner that is THE most powerful, valuable, and an awesome feature."
"Currently, we're trying to import the solution to implement it to other applications for our website."
"The feature that we have found most valuable is that it comes with pre-set configurations, with a set of predefined options where you can pick one and start scanning, and we also have the option of creating our own configurations, such as how often the applications need to be scanned, along with good reporting and dashboards that integrate well with other task management applications we are using."
"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."
"The solution has a limited range of functions, which is good for small companies. This is because, in small companies, websites are less complex. They also have single services which makes the solution good enough for them. However, the most advantageous aspect of the solution is its affordable price."
"Burp has several good features; it's cheaper than other solutions and you can scan any number of applications and it updates its database."
 

Cons

"Fortify Application Defender gives a lot of false positives."
"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 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 solution is quite expensive."
"The workbench is a little bit complex when you first start using it."
"Support for older compilers/IDEs is lacking."
"Fortify Application Defender could improve by supporting more code languages, such as GRAAS and Groovy."
"I would like to see the return of the spider mechanism instead of the crawling feature. Burp Suite's earlier version 1.7 had an excellent spider option, and it would be beneficial if Burp incorporated those features into the current version. The crawling techniques used in the current version are not as efficient as those used in earlier versions."
"The professional edition of Burp Suite provides some automated pen-testing scripts to detect application vulnerabilities, like SQL injection, XSS, etc. However, this component is not extremely useful."
"Integration is a big problem."
"There is room for improvement in composition and improvements could be made."
"Spidering large websites can use a lot of memory and might result in a crash on systems with lower RAM."
"You can have many false positives in Burp Suite. It depends on the scale of the penetration testing."
"There is not much automation in the tool."
"Mitigating the issues and low confluence issues needs some improvement. Implementing demand with the ChatGPT under the web solution is an additional feature I would like to see in the next release."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"Fortify Application Defender is very expensive."
"The price of this solution could be less expensive."
"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."
"There are multiple versions available of PortSwigger Burp Suite, such as enterprise, commercial, professional, and beginners."
"We pay a yearly licensing fee for the solution, which is neither cheap nor expensive."
"PortSwigger is a bit expensive."
"We have one license. The price is very nominal."
"It is expensive for us in Brazil because the currency exchange rate from a dollar to a Brazilian Real is quite steep."
"It is a cheap solution, but it may not be cheaper than other solutions."
"I rate the pricing a four out of ten."
"The pricing of the solution is reasonable. We only need to pay for the annual subscription. I rate the pricing five out of ten."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Security Tools solutions are best for your needs.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Construction Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
9%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Construction 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

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
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: August 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.