Buyer's Guide: DevSecOps & Application Security Testing

Executive Summary

Application security testing finds vulnerabilities before software ships. Static application security testing (SAST) reads source code. Software composition analysis (SCA) checks the open source components an application imports. Dynamic application security testing (DAST) tests the running application from outside. Secrets scanning finds passwords, keys and tokens committed to code. DevSecOps runs these checks inside the developer workflow: in the IDE, on each pull request and in the CI/CD pipeline.

Buyers now also compare AI-native analyzers with established scanners. AISLE states that, rather than matching patterns, it reasons through your code: how data moves through it, what is reachable, and what an attacker could exploit. AISLE states that you do not have to replace the scanners you already run, and that findings from third-party scanners such as Snyk, Checkmarx, and SonarQube Cloud import straight into AISLE and get triaged in the same workflow. Section 3 sets beside it what three established vendors say about their own use of AI, in their own words.

This guide defines the testing types from OWASP's own pages, lists what to test in a proof of concept, sets out seven approaches to buying, names the eight platforms in the table that represent them, and lists published prices. Software bills of materials and build integrity are covered in the Software Supply Chain Security Buyer Guide. AI review of pull requests is covered in the AI Code Review Buyer Guide.

What Is Application Security Testing?

Static analysis reads code without running it. OWASP states that source code analysis tools, also known as Static Application Security Testing (SAST) tools, can help analyze source code or compiled versions of code to help find security flaws. OWASP states that SAST tools can be added into your IDE, where they can help detect issues during software development. Run in the IDE and on each pull request, a SAST tool reports a flaw to the developer who wrote it while the change is still open.

Composition analysis covers code nobody in your company wrote. OWASP defines Component Analysis as the process of identifying potential areas of risk from the use of third-party and open-source software and hardware components. OWASP states that a software-only subset of Component Analysis with limited scope is commonly referred to as Software Composition Analysis (SCA). OWASP states that having an accurate inventory of all third-party and open source components is pivotal for risk identification. Ask each vendor how it builds that inventory: from manifest files, from lock files or from the built artifact, and whether it follows dependencies of dependencies.

OWASP describes web application vulnerability scanners as automated tools that scan web applications, normally from the outside, to look for vulnerabilities such as cross-site scripting, SQL injection, command injection, path traversal and insecure server configuration, and states that they are frequently referred to as Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) tools. DAST needs a running application and a test environment, so it runs later in the pipeline than SAST or SCA, and it finds flaws that only appear at runtime.

Detection is measured against public lists of weakness types. OWASP describes the OWASP Top 10 as a standard awareness document for developers and web application security that represents a broad consensus about the most critical security risks to web applications. OWASP states that the most current released version is the OWASP Top 10 2025. Ranking decides what gets fixed first. FIRST describes the Exploit Prediction Scoring System (EPSS) as a data-driven machine-learning model that estimates the probability that a published CVE will be exploited in the wild in the next 30 days. Vendors combine EPSS with severity scores, with reachability (whether the application actually calls the vulnerable code) and with exposure in production. Ask each vendor to show which of these it uses and how it weighs them.

How Do AI-Native Analyzers Compare With Established Scanners?

AISLE describes itself as a sovereign AI platform that finds and fixes vulnerabilities autonomously, deployed wherever your code lives, from the cloud to air-gapped networks, using the AI model of your choice. AISLE argues that rule-based SAST finds what someone wrote a rule for, so it misses bugs no one wrote a rule for and creates too much noise when rules are broad. AISLE states that it analyzes source code, dependencies and licenses, secrets, and IaC configs.

AISLE states that you do not have to replace the scanners you already run, and that findings from third-party scanners such as Snyk, Checkmarx, and SonarQube Cloud import straight into AISLE and get triaged in the same workflow. AISLE states that AISLE and Cohere have signed a Letter of Intent for Cohere to acquire AISLE.

Snyk announced Evo Agentic AppSec on October 15, 2026, as a team of AI security agents that finds, fixes and blocks vulnerabilities, with every result verified independently of the agent that produced it. Checkmarx states that Checkmarx One does not force a choice between speed and coverage: deterministic rules catch known vulnerabilities, while AI reasoning adapts to new coding patterns. Veracode states that Veracode Fix for SAST covers over 70% of detected flaws across 10 supported languages, with an architecture that does not retain customer code.

These are the vendors' own descriptions, not test results. To compare them, give each vendor the same repositories, including code with vulnerabilities you have already found and fixed, and count true findings, false findings and the fixes developers accept.

What Should You Test in an Application Security Platform?

Start with false positives. OWASP lists among the weaknesses of SAST tools high numbers of false positives, being frequently unable to find configuration issues, since they are not represented in the code, and difficulty proving that an identified security issue is an actual vulnerability. Give each vendor the same three repositories, one in each of your main languages, and have a developer label every finding as real or not.

Use OWASP's list as the test plan. OWASP lists selection criteria that include false positive and false negative rates, the requirement for buildable source code, the ability to run against binaries, availability as a plugin into developer IDEs, license cost, and interoperability of output through OASIS SARIF. Ask whether the SAST engine needs code that compiles. A scan that needs a full build is harder to run on every pull request.

Check prioritization next. Ask which signals rank a finding: severity, EPSS, reachability, exposure in production and your own list of business-critical applications. Ask the vendor to show why one finding ranked above another in your results.

Test secrets detection on a repository seeded with test credentials: one in current code, one in old commit history and one in a CI log. Ask whether the product blocks a push that contains a secret, and whether it checks that a detected secret is still valid.

Ask for the evidence your customers and regulators will request. OWASP recommends contractually requiring SBOMs from vendors and embedding their acquisition in the procurement process. CISA released the Secure Software Development Attestation Form on March 11, 2024, taking a major step in the implementation of its requirement that producers of software used by the Federal Government attest to the adoption of secure development practices. CISA describes its Secure by Demand Guide as concise and usable by any customer of software during procurement discussions with third party resellers or service providers.

Vendors in DevSecOps & Application Security Testing

Representative vendors include Apiiro, Black Duck (formerly Synopsys Software Integrity Group), Checkmarx, GitHub Advanced Security, Semgrep, Snyk, Sonar / SonarQube and Veracode. The list is alphabetical, is not a ranking, and is not for sale. How we choose vendors

The approaches below follow two questions: where the product started, and where it runs. One approach holds two platforms.

A developer-first security platform starts in the IDE and the pull request. Snyk states that its AI Security Platform finds and fixes security issues across code, dependencies, containers, and cloud infrastructure. Snyk states that its prioritization creates a Risk Score from over a dozen objective and contextual factors, including reachability, exploit maturity, and EPSS/CVSS scores.

An enterprise testing platform sells SAST, SCA, DAST and related testing under one contract, with one view of risk. Checkmarx states that in Checkmarx One, AI agents find and fix issues in real time, hybrid scanning covers every attack surface, and unified risk intelligence delivers contextual insights. Checkmarx states that Checkmarx One ASPM correlates SAST, SCA, IaC, API, secrets, containers, DAST and third-party signals into one risk intelligence view. Checkmarx announced on April 16, 2020 that Hellman & Friedman had completed the acquisition of Checkmarx from Insight Partners. Veracode states that it scans first-party source code alongside third-party or proprietary code when source is not available. Veracode states that its detection engine can analyze raw source code without compilation, for immediate feedback. Veracode states that it secures web applications and APIs at scale, scanning hundreds of assets across environments, including those behind your firewall. Veracode states that Veracode Package Firewall is engineered to proactively block vulnerabilities, malware, and policy violations before they reach development pipelines. Veracode announced on January 6, 2025 that it had acquired certain assets of Phylum, Inc., including its malicious package analysis, detection, and mitigation technology.

A portfolio built on composition analysis and static analysis adds both to a single SaaS platform. Black Duck announced on Oct. 1, 2024 that the former Synopsys Software Integrity Group had rebranded as Black Duck Software, Inc., a newly independent application security company. Synopsys announced on May 6, 2024 a definitive agreement to sell its Software Integrity Group business to Clearlake Capital Group and Francisco Partners, two global private equity firms. Black Duck states that Polaris combines its SAST, SCA, and DAST engines with IaC analysis and secrets detection into a single SaaS platform. Black Duck states that Coverity's new AI capabilities are designed to run on the customer's own LLM of choice. Black Duck states that it combines cloud and on-prem testing.

Testing built into the code host runs where the code is stored. GitHub states that its Advanced Security products are GitHub Secret Protection, which includes features such as secret scanning and push protection, and GitHub Code Security, which includes features like code scanning, premium Dependabot features, and dependency review. GitHub states that you must be on a GitHub Team or GitHub Enterprise plan to purchase GitHub Code Security or GitHub Secret Protection. GitHub states that CodeQL catches known patterns fast and at low cost, with the same answer every run. GitHub states that AI Scan uses AI to find vulnerabilities, including in languages that CodeQL does not support, and that it reviews every pull request.

An open source rules engine lets a security team write its own rules and run them anywhere. Semgrep states that Semgrep CE is a deterministic rules engine trained to analyze programming language syntax, and that Semgrep Rules are downloaded from the Semgrep Registry to evaluate source code for patterns of what insecure code looks like. Semgrep states that its multimodal detection uses deterministic SAST to catch classic issues like XSS and SQL injection, and AI-powered analysis to uncover complex flaws like IDOR and business-logic vulnerabilities. Semgrep describes Semgrep Supply Chain as protecting dependencies with Software Composition Analysis (SCA).

A code quality platform with security gates each merge on quality and security together. Sonar states that it helps developers deliver high quality and secure software by analyzing code they write, AI-generated code, and code from third parties such as open source libraries. Sonar states that quality gates decide what merges and record every check. Sonar states that Advanced Security uses advanced SAST and SCA to review AI code, first-party code, and open-source dependencies. Sonar states that Advanced Security is available on SonarQube Cloud (Team plan and Enterprise) and SonarQube Server Enterprise. Sonar states that SonarQube Server is self-managed inside your perimeter and runs on your infrastructure, including air-gapped.

Application security posture management (ASPM) sits above the scanners and correlates what they find. Apiiro states that it secures agentic development with one Guardian Agent, built on a Context Graph. Apiiro describes the Apiiro Guardian CLI as a command-line interface for the Apiiro Guardian Agent, which is used to discover inventory, assess risk, detect vulnerabilities, fix risk, and prevent risk. Apiiro states that its MCP server connects AI assistants to Apiiro's security analysis platform, providing real-time security insights during development.

Two more vendors appear in searches for this category. An AI-native analyzer uses models to reason over code instead of rules. AISLE states that, rather than matching patterns, it reasons through your code: how data moves through it, what is reachable, and what an attacker could exploit. AISLE states that AISLE and Cohere have signed a Letter of Intent for Cohere to acquire AISLE. Secrets detection and machine identity governance are sold as a category of their own. GitGuardian defines a Non-Human Identity (NHI), also referred to as machine identity, as a digital reference used to authenticate and access other systems, specifically for machines, bots, or workloads. GitGuardian states that its unified NHI Security platform detects both internal sprawl and external leaks of secrets and equips security and IAM teams with deep visibility into the lifecycle of associated NHIs.

Eight platforms across seven approaches; Checkmarx and Veracode share one. The seven approaches were set before any platform was chosen, and all eight rows are platforms the previous edition evaluated. A row in this table is not for sale. AISLE and GitGuardian, named above, and other application security vendors can make their own case in the Spotlight below.

How Is Application Security Testing Priced?

Vendors here charge per developer, per active committer, per contributor, per line of code or from a prepaid credit balance. Convert each quote to the cost for your own number of developers and repositories before you compare.

Per developer or contributor. Snyk lists a Free plan at $0 a month and a Team plan, for development teams of up to 10 developers, starting at $25 a month. Semgrep lists its Free Edition at no charge for up to 10 contributors. Semgrep lists its Teams tier at $30 a month per contributor for Code, $30 a month per contributor for Supply Chain and $15 a month per contributor for Secrets. GitGuardian lists a free Starter plan at $0 for up to 25 developers.

Per active committer, as an add-on to the code host. GitHub lists GitHub Secret Protection as an add-on at $19 per active committer per month. GitHub lists GitHub Code Security as an add-on at $30 per active committer per month.

Per line of code. Sonar states that SonarQube plan pricing starts at $34 monthly for analysis of up to 100k LOC, and that its free tier covers private projects up to a maximum of 50k LoC. Lines of code grow with every repository added, so ask how the count is measured before you sign.

Credits and quotes. Snyk offers flat-rate access for small teams and a credit-based platform for enterprise, where customers buy credits and access any capability. Checkmarx states that Fusion, Triage Assist and Remediation Assist are used by purchasing Checkmarx Credits. Checkmarx states that a Checkmarx expert will help identify the right solution and packaging for your environment. Where a vendor in the table publishes no price, the price is a quote. All prices are US list prices as published when this guide was checked in November 2026.

How long does implementation take for DevSecOps & Application Security Testing?

Most of the work is deciding which findings block a merge and who fixes them. Agree that with engineering leads before the first scan reaches a developer.

What should you ask vendors about DevSecOps & Application Security Testing?

Ask each vendor to answer in writing and to demonstrate on your own repositories.

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