SAST Evaluation Criteria
The scorecard dimensions and weighted criteria framework for comparing SAST tools — detection accuracy, coverage, integration, deployment, analyst experience, and total cost of ownership — with scoring rubrics and weight assignment guidance.
Primary question: What weighted criteria and scorecard dimensions should be used to compare SAST tools?
Direct answer
SAST evaluation criteria should be organized into weighted scorecard dimensions — detection accuracy (precision and recall), coverage breadth (languages, frameworks, CWE classes), integration capabilities (CI/CD, issue tracking, API), deployment model (cloud, on-premises, hybrid), analyst experience (findings quality, remediation guidance, reporting usability), and total cost of ownership — with each dimension weighted according to organizational priorities.
SAST evaluation criteria should be organized into dimensions such as detection accuracy, coverage breadth, integration capabilities, deployment model, analyst experience, and total cost of ownership.
Each organization should weight these criteria based on its specific priorities, constraints, and existing security workflow.
Definitions
Evaluation scorecard
A structured scoring framework that assigns weights to each evaluation criterion and scores each candidate tool against those criteria, producing a quantitative comparison.
Detection accuracy
The ability of a SAST tool to correctly identify genuine vulnerabilities (recall) and avoid reporting non-vulnerabilities (precision), measured against known ground truth on representative codebases.
Coverage breadth
The extent to which a SAST tool can analyze different programming languages, frameworks, vulnerability classes (CWE), and code patterns relevant to the organization's technology stack.
Integration capabilities
The ability of a SAST tool to integrate with existing development and security tooling — CI/CD pipelines, issue tracking systems, code repositories, and security dashboards.
Analyst experience
The quality of the findings produced by a SAST tool, including the clarity of vulnerability descriptions, actionability of remediation guidance, false positive rate, and overall usability of the tool's interface and reporting.
Total cost of ownership
The complete cost of a SAST tool including licensing, deployment, training, maintenance, tuning effort, and ongoing operational costs over the tool's lifecycle.
The engineering problem
Organizations may use vendor-provided criteria or benchmark scores without customizing weights to their own priorities, resulting in evaluations that favor tools with strong marketing over tools that best fit their needs.
Detection accuracy is often over-weighted in evaluations, while integration complexity, analyst experience, and total cost of ownership are under-weighted, leading to tools that detect well but are impractical to operate.
Coverage breadth is difficult to quantify objectively. A tool may claim broad coverage but have shallow analysis for some languages or frameworks.
Security controls
Each control inspects a different artifact and produces evidence for an engineering decision.
Weighted criteria assignment
Criteria weighting- Artifact
- A scorecard with each evaluation criterion assigned a weight reflecting organizational priority (e.g., detection accuracy 30%, coverage 25%, integration 15%, deployment 10%, analyst experience 15%, TCO 5%).
- Risk
- Equal weighting of all criteria regardless of organizational priorities.
- Output
- Approved weight assignment with documented justification.
Evidence:
Scoring rubric
Scoring framework- Artifact
- A defined scoring scale (e.g., 1-5) with clear descriptors for each score level for each criterion, ensuring consistent scoring across evaluators.
- Risk
- Subjective scoring without a defined rubric, leading to inconsistent results.
- Output
- Approved scoring rubric with score descriptors.
Evidence:
Score aggregation and comparison
Score comparison- Artifact
- A completed scorecard with all candidate tools scored against the weighted criteria, producing a quantitative comparison with clear ranking.
- Risk
- Aggregating scores without considering individual criterion failures (e.g., a tool with excellent overall score but failing a critical minimum requirement).
- Output
- Ranked comparison with documented trade-offs.
Evidence:
Verification workflow
- Define evaluation criteria based on organizational requirements.
- Assign weights to each criterion based on organizational priorities.
- Define scoring rubric with clear descriptors for each score level.
- Score each candidate tool against each criterion using the rubric.
- Aggregate scores using the assigned weights.
- Check for minimum requirement failures — tools that fail any critical criterion should be eliminated regardless of overall score.
- Review scored results with the evaluation committee — discuss trade-offs and qualitative factors.
- Produce a final scorecard comparison with ranking and documented rationale.
DerScanner · Enterprise
Relationship to DerScanner
DerScanner provides SAST analysis with coverage of multiple programming languages and frameworks, CI/CD integration, on-premises deployment options, and comprehensive reporting. DerScanner can serve as an additional analysis tool alongside incumbent scanners.
DerScanner provides static analysis with coverage of multiple programming languages and frameworks, CI/CD integration, on-premises deployment options, and comprehensive reporting. DerScanner can serve as an additional analysis tool alongside incumbent scanners. [derscanner-sast]
Limits of verification
- Evaluation criteria may need to be adjusted as organizational priorities, technology stack, or development practices change.
- Weighted scoring systems may not capture the full complexity of SAST tool selection, especially when criteria are interdependent.
- No single evaluation methodology can guarantee that the selected tool will perform optimally in all production scenarios.
Related knowledge
How to Evaluate SAST Tools
The broader methodology for evaluating SAST tools
Relationship: related-toSAST Proof of Concept
How to structure a SAST proof of concept evaluation
Relationship: related-toMulti-SAST Strategy
Using multiple SAST tools in a security workflow
Relationship: related-toApplication Security Assurance
Building comprehensive application security assurance
Relationship: related-toCanonical terms used: SAST evaluation criteria; SAST tool comparison; Detection accuracy; Coverage breadth.
Evidence and references
- DerScanner SAST documentationDerScanner SAST analyzes supported source and binary formats, configuration files, and reporting and comparison of analysis results, with command-line interaction with CI systems and SSDLC integration.
derscanner-sast
SAST evaluation