Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Coverity vs Fortify Application Defender comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Coverity
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
43
Ranking in other categories
Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (5th)
Fortify Application Defender
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (28th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Coverity and Fortify Application Defender aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Coverity is designed for Static Application Security Testing (SAST) and holds a mindshare of 7.2%, up 6.7% compared to last year.
Fortify Application Defender, on the other hand, focuses on Application Security Tools, holds 0.7% mindshare, up 0.7% since last year.
Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
Application Security Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Jaile Sebes - PeerSpot reviewer
Resolving critical software issues demands faster implementation and better integration
We use Coverity primarily to find issues such as software bugs and memory leaks, especially in C++ and C# projects. It helps us identify deadlocks, synchronization issues, and product crashes Coverity has been instrumental in resolving product crashes by detecting various issues like deadlocks.…
Saroj-Patnaik - PeerSpot reviewer
Reliable solution with excellent machine learning algorithms but expensive and lacking support
I primarily use Fortify Application Defender to assess whether our products can defend against applications Fortify Application Defender's most valuable features are machine learning algorithms, real-time remediation, and automatic vulnerability notifications. Fortify Application Defender gives…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"In my opinion, the most effective Coverity feature for identifying critical vulnerabilities is the extra checks, which offers deep analysis."
"The most valuable feature of Coverity is the wrapper. We use the wrapper to build the C++ component, then we use the other code analysis to analyze the code to the build object, and then send back the result to the SonarQube server. Additionally, it is a powerful capabilities solution."
"I encountered a bug with Coverity, and I opened a ticket. Support provided me with a workaround. So it's working at the moment, or at least it seems to be."
"We were very comfortable with the initial setup."
"The most valuable feature of Coverity is its interprocedural analysis, which is advantageous because it compares favorably with other tools in terms of security and code analysis."
"What I find most effective about Coverity is its low rate of false positives. I've seen other platforms with many false positives, but with Coverity, most vulnerabilities it identifies are genuine. This allows me to focus on real issues."
"It is a scalable solution."
"Coverity integrates with issue-tracking systems like Jira and provides email notifications, alerts, and other features."
"Its ability to find security defects is valuable."
"The most valuable feature is that it analyzes data in real-time."
"Fortify Application Defender's most valuable features are machine learning algorithms, real-time remediation, and automatic vulnerability notifications."
"The information from Fortify Application Defender on how to fix and solve issues is very good compared to other solutions."
"We are able to provide out customers with a secure application after development. They are no longer left wondering if they are vulnerable to different threats within the market following deployment."
"The product saves us cost and time."
"The solution helped us to improve the code quality of our organization."
"The tool's most valuable feature is software composition analysis. This feature works well with my .NET applications, providing a better understanding of library vulnerabilities."
 

Cons

"There is an extra step in my organization that involves uploading to servers, which adds overhead."
"The product should include more customization options. The analytics is not as deep as compared to SonarQube."
"We actually specified several checkers, but we found some checkers had a higher false positive rate. I think this is a problem. Because we have to waste some time is really the issue because the issue is not an issue. I mean, the tool pauses or an issue, but the same issue is the filter now.Some check checkers cannot find some issues, but sometimes they find issues that are not relevant, right, that are not really issues. Some customisation mechanism can be added in the next release so that we can define our Checker. The Modelling feature provided by Coverity helps in finding more information for potential issues but it is not mature enough, it should be mature. The fast testing feature for security testing campaign can be added as well. So if you correctly integrate it with the training team, maybe you can help us to find more potential issues."
"The level of vulnerability that this solution covers could be improved compared to other open source tools."
"There should be additional IDE support."
"Coverity's implementation cycle is very slow when integrating changes, especially for problems related to event handling and memory leaks."
"Coverity takes a lot of time to dereference null pointers."
"The solution needs to improve its false positives."
"The product should integrate industry-standard code review tools internally with its system. This would streamline the coding process, as developers wouldn't need multiple tools for code review and security checks. Many independent and open-source tools are available, from Apache to various libraries. Using multiple DevOps pipeline tools can slow the turnaround time."
"The false positive rate should be lower."
"The solution is quite expensive."
"The licensing can be a little complex."
"Support for older compilers/IDEs is lacking."
"Fortify Application Defender could improve by supporting more code languages, such as GRAAS and Groovy."
"I encountered many false positives for Python applications."
"The workbench is a little bit complex when you first start using it."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I would rate the tool's pricing a one out of ten."
"Coverity is very expensive."
"This is a pretty expensive solution. The overall value of the solution could be improved if the price was reduced. Licensing is done on an annual basis."
"Depending on the usage types, one has to opt for different types of licenses from Coverity, especially to be able to use areas like report viewing or report generation."
"I rate Coverity's price a ten on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive."
"Coverity is quite expensive."
"The solution's pricing is comparable to other products."
"The price is competitive with other solutions."
"I rate the solution's pricing a five out of ten. It comes as an annual cloud subscription. The tool's pricing is around 50 lakhs."
"Fortify Application Defender is very expensive."
"The base licensing costs for the SaaS platform is about $900 USD per application, per year."
"The price of this solution could be less expensive."
"The product’s price is much higher than other tools."
"The licensing is very complex, it's project based and can range from $10,000 to $200,000+ depending on the project type and size."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Static Application Security Testing (SAST) solutions are best for your needs.
861,524 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
32%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Government
4%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Manufacturing Company
15%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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...
What do you like most about Coverity?
The solution has improved our code quality and security very well.
What do you like most about Fortify Application Defender?
I find the configuration of rules in Fortify Application Defender useful. Its integration is also easy.
What needs improvement with Fortify Application Defender?
The product should integrate industry-standard code review tools internally with its system. This would streamline the coding process, as developers wouldn't need multiple tools for code review and...
What is your primary use case for Fortify Application Defender?
We use the solution for fast code review. It is integrated into our DevOps pipeline.
 

Also Known As

Synopsys Static Analysis
HPE Fortify Application Defender, Micro Focus Fortify Application Defender
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SAP, Mega International, Thales Alenia Space
ServiceMaster, Saltworks, SAP
Find out what your peers are saying about Coverity vs. Fortify Application Defender and other solutions. Updated: September 2022.
861,524 professionals have used our research since 2012.