Deep reports for the audit team. Nothing for the AI coding agent.
Checkmarx was built when developers shipped 200 LOC/day. AI agents ship 5,000. The math no longer works.
What Checkmarx does well
Industry-leading SAST depth, compliance-grade reports, broad CWE coverage, proven in Fortune 500 procurement cycles.
But:
Up to 99% false positives in some deployments. Multi-week professional services onboarding. Six-figure enterprise contracts. Zero AI agent integration. No reachability analysis. No business-logic detection.
CybeDefend vs Checkmarx
| Feature | CybeDefend | Checkmarx |
|---|---|---|
Detection× 10 | ||
| Agent-time scanning | ✓ | ✗ |
| SAST | ✓ | ✓ |
| SCA | ✓ | ✓ |
| IaC scanning | ✓ | ✓ |
| Container scanning | ✓ | ~ |
| Secret detection | ✓ | ✓ |
| Business logic flaws | ✓ | ✗ |
| Reachability analysis | ✓ | ✗ |
| AI-BOM — AI component inventory (EU AI Act + NIST AI RMF) | ✓ | ✗ |
| Prompt injection & LLM-misuse scanner (OWASP LLM Top 10) | ✓ | ✗ |
AI & Agent× 7 | ||
| MCP-native (Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf…) | ✓ | ✗ |
| IDE security copilot | ✓ | ~ |
| AI-generated verified patches | ✓ | ✗ |
| Auto-fix → ready-to-merge PR | ✓ | ✗ |
| Security Code Knowledge Graph | ✓ | ✗ |
| VibeDefend — security rules distributed to AI coding agents | ✓ | ✗ |
| Coding agent sandbox policy (allow/deny/warn before every write) | ✓ | ✗ |
Operations× 5 | ||
| CI/CD pipeline gate | ✓ | ✓ |
| Low false-positive rate | ✓ | ✗ |
| Setup under 5 minutes | ✓ | ✗ |
| CybeRisk Score — 0-100 score + AI-generated weekly Top 10 brief | ✓ | ✗ |
| EU/US sovereign deployment | ✓ | ~ |
✓ = Yes - ✗ = No - ~ = Partial
The false positive problem
Checkmarx is known for producing thousands of alerts per scan. AppSec engineers spend more time triaging noise than fixing real vulnerabilities. CybeDefend's graph-based analysis correlates findings across the codebase — only surfacing what is reachable, exploitable, and relevant to the code being written.
Pricing that doesn't require a procurement cycle
Checkmarx is designed for enterprise procurement: professional services, multi-year contracts, dedicated CSMs. CybeDefend has a free tier, transparent per-seat pricing, and a setup time measured in minutes, not months. No procurement. No PS fees. No lock-in.
Agent-time vs. pipeline-time: a 5,000-line gap
Checkmarx sits in your CI pipeline, downstream of the AI agent. By the time it reports a finding, the code is already committed. CybeDefend intercepts at the MCP layer — the flaw is fixed or blocked before the agent's write even reaches the file system.
Agent writes code
CybeDefend scans
PR opens clean
A fraction of the price. One-tenth the noise. Results in the agent's context window, not a 3,000-line PDF.
Pricing at a glance
Transparent pricing is a core CybeDefend value. See how we compare.
CybeDefend
- Developer€204/year
- Team — 5–10 users€1,644/year – €2,844/year
- Scale — 15–25 users€6,588/year – €8,988/year
- EnterpriseContact sales
Checkmarx
- Talk to salesStarts at +$40K
- PricingPer product
* Checkmarx does not publish public pricing — contact their sales team for a quote.
Prices as of 2025. Always verify on vendor websites before purchasing.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CybeDefend a drop-in replacement for Checkmarx?
For teams using Checkmarx primarily for SAST in CI/CD, CybeDefend is a capable replacement with broader coverage (MCP-native, business logic, Knowledge Graph) at a lower price point. For compliance-specific reporting (FedRAMP, PCI-DSS audit trails), evaluate whether CybeDefend's export formats meet your auditor's requirements.
How long does CybeDefend take to set up?
CybeDefend connects to your first AI coding agent in under 15 minutes. 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 in your AI agent. First scan in 5 minutes.
No credit card. No setup call. Pick your agent, paste the command, and Cybe enforces your rules from the very next prompt.
claude mcp add cybedefend --transport http https://mcp-eu.cybedefend.com/mcpHosted by us, no install. Just point your agent at the VibeDefend endpoint.