CAST Application Intelligence Platform vs SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) comparison

CAST and Sonar are both solutions in the Software Development Analytics category. CAST is ranked #3 with an average rating of 7.0, while Sonar is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.2. CAST holds a 10.0% mindshare in SDA, compared to Sonar’s 46.4% mindshare. Additionally, 83% of CAST users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 81% of Sonar users who would recommend it.

CAST Application Intelligen...

Read 4 CAST Application Intelligence Platform reviews

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83% willing to recommend

SonarQube Server (formerly ...

Read 114 SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) reviews

4,224 Views
3,369 Comparison Views

81% willing to recommend

CAST Application Intelligen...

SonarQube Server (formerly ...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 9, 2025

SonarQube Server and CAST Application Intelligence Platform are key products in the software development tool market, focusing on code quality and software intelligence. SonarQube Server is preferred for its ease of use and integration, while CAST offers superior analytical features with detailed insights.

Features: SonarQube Server's strengths include robust support for continuous integration workflows, effective code quality visualization, and immediate feedback for developers. CAST Application Intelligence Platform provides advanced deep-dive application analysis, extensive portfolio management features, and comprehensive software intelligence, ideal for enterprises requiring detailed insights.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SonarQube Server supports a simple deployment process with community-driven support, making it easy to integrate into existing CI/CD pipelines. CAST Application Intelligence Platform requires a more involved setup, needing dedicated IT resources but offers professional support, essential for large-scale enterprise environments.

Pricing and ROI: SonarQube Server presents an affordable entry with open-source options, offering a strong ROI for small to medium enterprises on a budget. CAST Application Intelligence Platform demands higher initial investment, justified by its features and long-term benefits, delivering a higher ROI for enterprises utilizing its advanced capabilities.

To learn more, read our detailed CAST Application Intelligence Platform vs. SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

CAST Application Intelligence Platform vs. SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube)

April 2025

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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

CAST Application Intelligen...

Ranking in Software Development Analytics

3rd

Average Rating

7.0

Reviews Sentiment

8.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

SonarQube Server (formerly ...

Ranking in Software Development Analytics

1st

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

114

Ranking in other categories

Application Security Tools (1st), Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Software Development Analytics category, the mindshare of CAST Application Intelligence Platform is 10.0%, up from 6.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) is 46.4%, down from 48.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Software Development Analytics

Q&A Highlights

Joe Baker

Senior Program Manager at Oasis TE

May 23, 2023

What are the differences between SonarQube and CAST AIP?

Hi Joe - SonarQube is essentially a static code quality tool and has multiple versions (community is free and then we have developer, enterprise, and data center versions which are paid). As per the latest branding from CAST, they don't market AIP as a separate product and are bundled with CAST Imaging. CAST AIP is used to onboard the code base and perform analysis and the actual products are Imaging for architecture analysis and health, engineering, and security dashboards. The dashboards in CAST are richer and have more security features compared to SonarQube. Also, CAST does not have any free community version available. Both of them do static code analysis and do not look at run time code.

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Featured Reviews

Jayanti Rode

Technical Associate Manager at Accenture

Application Intelligence Platform that offers useful insights into violations and improvements

There are different products of the CAST solution that we use for different reasons. For quality improvement, we use CAST AIP which is an Application Intelligence Platform. We have a health dashboard where we can view improvements and violations that have been fixed. Our clients use CAST Highlight…

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Wang Dayong

Senior Software Engineering Manager at Hill

Easy to integrate and has a plug-in that supports both C and C++ languages

The product provides false reports sometimes. It also fails to understand the context of the code. It reports that a line of code has issues without considering its relation with the previous line. The product should improve the report quality. While it asks us to improve the code quality, it would be good if it also suggests how to improve the quality.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Our clients use CAST Highlight for cloud migration. This allows them to remove or remediate the blockers which are highlighted. This part of the solution shows improvement in quality and captures feedback for our clients."

"CAST's risk and security flow detection capabilities are highly effective, particularly in identifying security vulnerabilities. It is one of the most important and valuable features of the platform."

"The most valuable feature of the CAST Application Intelligence Platform is its security dashboard which is a dedicated dashboard that's pretty helpful because it gives compliance checks based on some of the leading frameworks in the industry, such as ISO 5055, OWASP, CWE Top 25, and NIST security guidelines. I find the security dashboard of the solution and the information it provides pretty useful. The security dashboard of the CAST Application Intelligence Platform is a feature that stands out."

"Used for controlling the technical debt and code quality."

"It supports most programming languages."

"The static code analysis of the solution is the most important aspect for us. When it comes to security breaches within the code, we can leverage some rules to allow us to identify the repetition in our code and the possible targets that we may have. It makes it very easy to review our code for security purposes."

"This solution has the capability to analyze source code in almost all the languages in the market."

"It is a very good tool for analysis despite its limitations."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is that it is free."

"Some of the static code analysis capabilities are the most beneficial."

"The most valuable features are the segregation containment and the suspension of product services."

"The most valuable features are the wide array of languages, multiple languages per project, the breakdown of bugs, and the description of vulnerabilities and code smells (best practices)."

"The most valuable function is its usability."

More SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) pros

Cons

"The integration of this solution could be improved."

"The overall coverage of rules could be improved in the CAST Application Intelligence Platform because it does not cater to or cover all. For example, 2022 CWE coverage is still not available in the CAST Application Intelligence Platform. The solution also covers some NIST rules, but it does not cater to all rules. An additional feature I'd like to see in the next update of the CAST Application Intelligence Platform is for it to provide source code developer and contributor details, especially information on which areas of code were touched. This would be a good insight as the CAST Application Intelligence Platform looks into the source code."

"Implementation could be made more simpler as it is complex."

"It has very few plugins to access different code repositories, so source code has to be fed."

"Areas for improvement in CAST AIP include enhancing support for implementation in complex environments and improving technical support to address organizational challenges alongside engineering issues."

"When we have a thousand products published over it, we expect it to be more efficient in terms of serving requests from the browser."

"We did have some trouble with the LDAP integration for the console."

"If there was an official Docker image of SonarQube that could easily integrate into the pipeline would help the user to plug in and plug out and use it directly without any custom configuration. I am not sure if this is being offered already in an update but it would be very helpful."

"Lacks sufficient visibility and documentation."

"During the setup process, we only had one issue related to the number of available files. To perform the analysis, you have quite a lot of available file handles, so we had to increase that limit."

"The learning curve can be fairly steep at first, but then, it's not an entry-level type of application. It's not like an introduction to C programming. You should know not just C programming and how to make projects but also how to apply its findings to the bigger picture. I've had users who said that they wish it was easier to understand how to configure, but I don't know if that's doable because what it's doing is a very complicated thing. I don't know if it is possible to make a complicated thing trivially simple."

"The pricing could be reduced a bit. It's a little expensive."

"I have found this solution creates more noise than competitors."

More SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I do know how the CAST Application Intelligence Platform is licensed, but I'm not able to give the cost because the price is not listed. My company works with individual vendors, so pricing is on a case-to-case basis, but the vendors give specialized pricing because of the enterprise deployment, though my team is aware of product pricing based on lines of code, based on the number of applications, etc., I'm unable to give the exact licensing costs of the CAST Application Intelligence Platform. My company doesn't have to pay extra for some features or services because all are included as part of the enterprise license. On a scale of one to five, with five being very cheap and one being very expensive, I would rate the CAST Application Intelligence Platform as three out of five."

"There are many different packages with different pricing options available. We are able to try what we have and if we need extra features we can upgrade the license."

"It is very expensive. Its price should be improved."

"SonarQube is a cost-effective solution."

"I use the full trial version of SonarQube."

"This product is open source and very convenient."

"For the Community edition, there is no extra cost. It's totally free. The Enterprise edition, Data Center edition, and Developer edition are the paid versions."

"This solution is free."

"The licence is standard open source licensing"

More SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

29%

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Insurance Company

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

15%

Manufacturing Company

13%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about CAST Application Intelligence Platform?

CAST's risk and security flow detection capabilities are highly effective, particularly in identifying security vulnerabilities. It is one of the most important and valuable features of the platfor...

See all answers

What needs improvement with CAST Application Intelligence Platform?

Areas for improvement in CAST AIP include enhancing support for implementation in complex environments and improving technical support to address organizational challenges alongside engineering iss...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for CAST Application Intelligence Platform?

CAST AIP is a valuable solution for quality metrics and application security. It is beneficial for software architecture detection.

See all answers

Is SonarQube the best tool for static analysis?

I am not very familiar with SonarQube and their solutions, so I can not answer. But if you are asking me about which tools that are the best for for Static Code Analysis, I suggest you have a look...

See all answers

Which gives you more for your money - SonarQube or Veracode?

SonarQube is easy to deploy and configure, and also integrates well with other tools to do quality code analysis. SonarQube has a great community edition, which is open-source and free. Easy to use...

See all answers

How would you decide between Coverity and Sonarqube?

We researched Coverity, but in the end, we chose SonarQube. SonarQube is a tool for reviewing code quality and security. It helps to guide our development teams during code reviews by providing rem...

See all answers

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Compared 13% of the time

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Compared 12% of the time

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Compared 10% of the time

GitHub Advanced Security vs SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube)

Compared 10% of the time

Veracode vs SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube)

Compared 7% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

CAST Application Intelligence Platform vs. SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube)

April 2025

CAST Application Intelligence Platform report

Download CAST Application Intelligence Platform product report

Buyer's Guide

SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube)

March 2025

SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) report

Download SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) product report

Also Known As

CAST AIP

Sonar

Interactive Demo

Demo not available

CAST

Sonar

Overview

CAST Application Intelligence Platform (AIP), a result of over $130M in R&D investment over two decades, is an enterprise-grade software measurement and quality analysis solution designed to analyze multi-tiered, multi-technology applications for technical vulnerabilities and adherence to architectural and coding standards and then provide business relevant information to the IT organization through various dashboards and products built with end users in mind.

Application Analytics Dashboard (CAST AAD): Provides IT executives with accurate business relevant analytics to drive their organization
Application Engineering Dashboard (CAST AED): Provides engineering and QA teams with powerful code and system level structural flaw insight and remediation guidance
Enlighten: Delivers to developers a powerful deep understanding of their application’s structure
Architecture Checker: Gives architects a reliable, automated solution to enforce architectures that deliver stability and performance of their critical applications

CAST’s underlying system-level analysis technology assesses both the health of an application, as measured through numerous health factors, as well as specific structural and system-level defects that drive performance and stability issues providing true system level analysis.

CAST

SonarQube Server enhances code quality and security via static code analysis. It detects vulnerabilities, improves standards, and reduces technical debt, integrating into CI/CD pipelines.

SonarQube Server is a comprehensive tool for enhancing code quality and security. It offers static code analysis to identify vulnerabilities, improve coding standards, and reduce technical debt. By integrating into CI/CD pipelines, it provides automated checks for adherence to best practices. Organizations use it for code inspection, security testing, and compliance, ensuring development environments with better maintainability and fewer issues.

What are the key features of SonarQube Server?

Support for 20+ languages: Extensive programming language support suitable for diverse coding environments.
Custom coding rules: Allows for tailored rule sets to match specific coding standards.
Flexible quality gates: Define criteria for code acceptance at various intervals.
CI/CD integration: Seamless integration with Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment tools.
Rich interface: User-friendly dashboard with detailed visual insights.

What benefits should users expect from SonarQube Server?

Improved code quality: Enhanced analysis contributes to fewer bugs and improved coding practices.
Security enhancements: Identifies and mitigates security vulnerabilities pre-emptively.
Maintainability: Reduces technical debt, yielding long-term development efficiency.
Customizable: Flexibility in configuration aligns with specific project needs.

Many industries implement SonarQube Server to uphold coding standards, maintain security protocols, and streamline their software development lifecycle. In sectors like finance and healthcare, adhering to regulations and ensuring reliable software is critical, making SonarQube Server invaluable. It is often integrated into CI/CD pipelines, ensuring that code changes meet set standards before deployment. This approach enhances productivity and maintains compliance with industry-specific requirements.

Sonar

Sample Customers

Steria, T-Systems MMS, Atos Origin, Accenture, Capgemini

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

CAST Application Intelligence Platform vs. SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube)

April 2025

Free Report: CAST Application Intelligence Platform vs. SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube)

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