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Kiuwan vs Semgrep comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Kiuwan
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
29th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (34th)
Semgrep
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
10th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
Supply Chain Management Software (4th), Software Composition Analysis (SCA) (9th), Static Code Analysis (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of Kiuwan is 1.0%, down from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Semgrep is 2.4%, down from 3.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Static Application Security Testing (SAST) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Semgrep2.4%
Kiuwan1.0%
Other96.6%
Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Manjunath Maneppagol - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud & Application Security at Sixt SE
Context-aware code analysis has reduced noise and now improves developer experience with actionable security findings
I have consistently observed that their scan time is an issue for mono repos. Sometimes with their AI-based scanning, when you triage that scan, the scan never completes or finishes(, which makes it difficult. Another consistent issue is that whenever you have a new repo to onboard to the platform, the tool ideally should detect the master branch by default. However, sometimes the tool fails to identify it and will never scan it unless manually somebody looks into it and fixes the issue. Although their support team is really good, this issue was present six or eight months ago during the POC and is still present now. If it is affecting multiple customers, it should be prioritized and fixed. I would say that their integration aspects could have been improved. I see a lot of different security solutions that provide flexibility to the security teams based on Jira project, team divisions, Slack, and all those can be very much easily customized. Semgrep needs to work on the enhancement of their notification capabilities. Currently, they are working on identifying business logic vulnerabilities or privilege escalation vulnerabilities by looking at the code, and they should continue to focus on and improve this effort. Regarding stability, whenever you have a mono-repo which is a very large repository, the scan never finishes or the scan never kicks in. At that time, you have to reach out to the support team and ask them to expand the resources in the back end to fix it. This is an issue I keep seeing often on that platform.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution offers very good technical support."
"I've found the reporting features the most helpful."
"We have had an improvement of 20% in our time to market and it significantly improved the quality of our code."
"Lifecycle features, because they permit us to show non-technical people the risk and costs hidden into the code due to bad programming practices."
"We have been using this solution for one and a half years."
"I like that it provides a detailed report that lets you know the risk index and the vulnerability."
"We are using this solution to increase the quality of our software and to test the vulnerabilities in our tools before the customers find them."
"The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that it is quick when processing and giving an output or generating a report."
"Since implementing Semgrep, I have noticed significant outcomes, for example, I can resolve vulnerabilities that previously took four days in under a day, saving both time and money, thus enhancing our return on investment."
"The feature is easy to use, saves a lot of time, and is streamlined in nature."
"The best part of Semgrep is its ease of integration with CI/CD pipelines and how it is a developer-friendly tool."
"In my team, we use Semgrep, which is more efficient for coding purposes, time-saving, and quickly detects issues, and I can say that weekly I save about six to seven hours because of this, making it very time-saving and fostering faster development for my team's products and environment."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to write our custom rules."
"Compared to other competitors in the market, the AI-backed capability is the biggest strength of Semgrep."
"Semgrep has positively impacted our organization by improving code quality and helping us eliminate vulnerabilities in our code."
"Semgrep flourishes with the SAST, secret scanning, and Software Composition Analysis types of scanning."
 

Cons

"We faced a lot of problems with the initial setup and support gave us difficulties around the installation."
"The QA developer and security could be improved."
"DIfferent languages, such Spanish, Portuguese, and so on."
"It would be beneficial to streamline calls and transitions seamlessly for improved functionality."
"The integration process could be improved. It'll also help if it could generate reports automatically. But I'm not sure about the effectiveness of the reports. This is because, in our last project, we still found some key issues that weren't captured by the Kiuwan report."
"For mobile development, we are not too experienced, and it is not the perfect tool because the integration with certain products is very manual."
"The development-to-delivery phase."
"The next release should include more flexibility in the reporting."
"I have consistently observed that their scan time is an issue; sometimes with their AI-based scanning, when you triage that scan, the scan never completes or finishes, which makes it difficult."
"Regarding improvements for Semgrep, I have noticed that it occasionally provides false positive results, although it does not happen consistently."
"There should be more information on how to acquire the system, catering to beginners in application security, to make it more user-friendly."
"However, as a tool it is really complex to maintain and to use, and it has a huge price tag."
"Semgrep can be improved by making it more user-friendly."
"I give Semgrep a six out of 10 simply because there are other tools that are better than this out there."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Check with your account manager."
"The price of Kiuwan is lower than that of other tools on the market."
"This solution is cheaper than other tools."
"It follows a subscription model. I think the price is somewhere in the middle."
"Nothing special. It's a very fair model."
"Kiuwan is an open-source solution and free to use."
"I recommend contacting a sales person who will create the best plan payment plan for you, as we did."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
12%
University
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Outsourcing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise5
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What needs improvement with Semgrep?
Regarding improvements for Semgrep, I have noticed that it occasionally provides false positive results, although it does not happen consistently. That is the only major improvement I can think of,...
What is your primary use case for Semgrep?
Semgrep serves as an open-source static application security testing tool for my organization. We work under a microservices model with multiple repositories, around eight in total. Whenever we mak...
What advice do you have for others considering Semgrep?
Although not directly in the development process, Semgrep has saved substantial time in the review process. For instance, when a developer raises a pull request, Semgrep automatically reviews it be...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
Semgrep Code, Semgrep Supply Chain, Semgrep AppSec Platform
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

DHL, BNP Paribas, Zurich, AXA, Ernst & Young, KFC, Santander, Latam, Ferrovial
Policygenius, Tide, Lyft, Thinkific, FloQast, Vanta, and Fareportal
Find out what your peers are saying about Kiuwan vs. Semgrep and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
913,806 professionals have used our research since 2012.