Both work inside the AI agent now. Only one checks your business rules.

Checkmarx Developer Assist, generally available since August 2025, scans and fixes code in Cursor, Windsurf, VS Code, JetBrains and Claude Code while it is being written. CybeDefend works at the same moment and also checks each change against the business rules your team wrote.

What Checkmarx does well

Deep enterprise SAST with broad CWE coverage, SCA with Exploitable Path reachability, DAST, API, container and IaC scanning, an AI-BOM of the models and AI components in your code, and Developer Assist, which detects, fixes and verifies issues in the IDE and in AI coding agents as code is written.

Where it stops

Nothing Checkmarx announces checks a change against the business rules your team wrote, such as who may approve a refund, or allows and blocks an agent's shell commands and file reads before they run. No public prices: each bundle is quoted by sales, based on developers, apps and usage.

Feature by feature

22 features, checked on Checkmarx's own site and documentation in September 2026.

Feature	CybeDefend	Checkmarx
Detection
Agent-time scanning	Yes	Yes
SAST	Yes	Yes
SCA	Yes	Yes
IaC scanning	Yes	Yes
Container scanning	Yes	Yes
Secret detection	Yes	Yes
Business logic flaws	Yes	No
Reachability analysis	Yes	Yes
AI-BOM: AI component inventory (EU AI Act + NIST AI RMF)	Yes	Yes
Prompt injection & LLM-misuse scanner (OWASP LLM Top 10)	Yes	No
AI & Agent
Agent-time (Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf…)	Yes	Yes
IDE security copilot	Yes	Yes
AI-generated verified patches	Yes	Yes
Auto-fix → ready-to-merge PR	Yes	Partial
Security Code Knowledge Graph	Yes	No
VibeDefend: security rules distributed to AI coding agents	Yes	Partial
Coding agent sandbox policy (allow/deny/warn before every write)	Yes	No
Operations
CI/CD pipeline gate	Yes	Yes
Low false-positive rate	Yes	Partial
Fast self-serve setup	Yes	Partial
CybeRisk Score: 0-100 score + AI-generated weekly Top 10 brief	Yes	No
EU/US sovereign deployment	Yes	Partial

Yes NoPartial

Where we win

Two ways to cut the noise

Checkmarx cuts noise with Exploitable Path, which traces whether vulnerable open-source code can actually be called, and with Triage Assist, which weighs exploitability and reachability before a finding reaches a developer. CybeDefend prioritises with a knowledge graph of your codebase that also knows owners, data flows and business rules. The fair test: run the same repository through both and count what survives triage.

Precision filter850 raw → 1 actionable

SQLi: /api/user?id=Critical
X-Frame-Options missinglow
console.log() in prodinfo
Unused import: lodashinfo
846 similar low-noise…noise

1 actionable849 filteredIllustrative example, not a measurement

Try it before the first call

Checkmarx builds a quote for each customer from the engines you choose, your developers, your apps and your usage. CybeDefend Platform is free to self-host and VibeDefend is free to try with no card, so a team can test it on a real repository before any procurement conversation.

Claude Code is writingapi/users.ts

router.post("/api/users", async (req, res) => {
  const { id } = req.body;
  const user = await db.query(
    "SELECT * FROM users WHERE id = ?", [id]
  );
  return res.json(user);
});

Parameterise every query that mixes user input.

OWASP Top 10

Ready to merge

Same moment, different questions

Checkmarx Developer Assist and CybeDefend both act while the agent writes, before the commit. Developer Assist looks for vulnerabilities, risky packages, secrets, IaC and container issues. CybeDefend runs its own SAST, SCA, secrets and IaC checks in the loop, then asks two more questions: does this change break a business rule your team wrote, and should the agent be allowed to run the command it is about to run?

SQL injection, found while the agent writes

CWE-89

const id = parseInt(req.query.id, 10)

PR opens clean

Both products now meet the AI agent while it writes. CybeDefend also checks the change against your written business rules, decides what the agent may run, and can be tried free before any quote.

Pricing at a glance

Our platform is free to self-host, or priced per active developer on Cloud. VibeDefend is free to try, then priced with you after a pilot.

CybeDefend

CommunityFree, on your servers
CloudPriced per active developer
EnterpriseOn quote
VibeDefendFree to try, then a price set with you

See full pricing

Checkmarx

EnterpriseContact sales

Checkmarx does not publish public pricing. Contact their sales team for a quote.

Competitor prices: the lowest annual list price published for the plan shown, taken from the vendor's website or its own marketplace listing and checked in September 2026. Always verify before purchasing.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is CybeDefend a drop-in replacement for Checkmarx?

It depends on what you use Checkmarx for. For SAST and SCA on your repositories and inside the AI agent, CybeDefend covers that ground and adds business-logic detection and a Security Knowledge Graph. If you rely on Checkmarx DAST, API security or audit-specific reports (FedRAMP, PCI-DSS trails), check that CybeDefend's scope and export formats meet those needs before you switch.

How long does CybeDefend take to set up?

CybeDefend connects to your AI coding agents with one command. No professional services. No YAML configuration. You install the MCP server and your rules are enforced immediately.

What about Checkmarx's DAST capabilities?

CybeDefend focuses on agent-time and code-level security (SAST, SCA, IaC, container, secrets, business logic). DAST is out of scope. CybeDefend operates before deployment, not against a running application.

Install VibeDefend

One command wires every coding agent on this machine to your rules and your guards.

npx -y @cybedefend/vibedefend@latest install