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

Coverity vs Fortify on Demand vs SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) 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:
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of Coverity is 8.0%, up from 7.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortify on Demand is 4.4%, down from 4.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) is 26.7%, down from 28.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
 

Featured Reviews

Md. Shahriar Hussain - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers impressive reporting features with user-friendliness and high scalability
The solution can be easily setup but requires heavy integration due to the multiple types of port and programming languages involved. Comparing the resource requirements of the solution I would say it can be installed effortlessly. I would rate the initial setup an eight out of ten. A professional needs some pre-acquired knowledge to manage Coverity's deployment process, but the local solution partners provide support well enough for trouble-free deployment. The overall deployment process of Coverity took around two and a half hours in our organization. The deployment duration depends upon the operating system and resources including high-end RAM and CPU processors.
Jonathan Steyn - PeerSpot reviewer
Source code analyzer, FPR file generation, reduction of false positives and generates compliance reports, for in-depth analysis
Not challenges with the product itself. The product is very reliable. It does have a steep learning curve. But, again, one thing that Fortify or OpenText does very well is training. There are a lot of free resources and training in the community forums, free training as well as commercial training where users can train on how to use the back-end systems and the scanning engines and how to use command-line arguments because some of the procedures or some of the tools do require a bit of a learning curve. That's the only challenge I've really seen for customers because you have to learn how to use the tool effectively. But Fortify has, in fact, improved its user interface and the way users engage the dashboards and the interfaces. It is intuitive. It's easy to understand. But in some regards, the cybersecurity specialist or AppSec would need a bit of training to engage the user interface and to understand how it functions. But from the point of the reliability index and how powerful the tool is, there's no challenge there. But it's just from a learning perspective; users might need a bit more skill to use the tool. The user interface isn't that tedious. It's not that difficult to understand. When I initially learned how to use the interfaces, I was able to master it within a week and was able to use it quite effectively. So training is required. All skills are needed to learn how to use the tool. I would like to see more enhancements in the dashboards. Dashboards are available. They do need some configuration and settings. But I would like to see more business intelligence capabilities within the tool. It's not particularly a cybersecurity function, but, for instance, business impact analysis or other features where you can actually use business intelligence capabilities within your security tool. That would be remarkable because not only do you have a cybersecurity tool, but you also have a tool that can give you business impact analysis and some other measurements. A bit more intelligence in terms of that from a cybersecurity perspective would be remarkable.
Wang Dayong - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The product has deeper scanning capabilities."
"The tool as it is can be used for code quality improvement."
"Coverity is easy to set up and has a less lengthy process to find vulnerabilities."
"Provides software security, and helps to find potential security bugs or defects."
"Coverity is quite stable and we haven’t had any issues or any downtime."
"The interface of Coverity is quite good, and it is also easy to use."
"One of the most valuable features is Contributing Events. That particular feature helps the developer understand the root cause of a defect. So you can locate the starting point of the defect and figure out exactly how it is being exploited."
"In my opinion, the most effective Coverity feature for identifying critical vulnerabilities is the extra checks, which offers deep analysis."
"Fortify helps us to stay updated with the newest languages and versions coming out."
"We have the option to test applications with or without credentials."
"The most valuable feature of Micro Focus Fortify on Demand is the information it can provide. There is quite a lot of information. It can pinpoint right down to where the problem is, allowing you to know where to fix it. Overall the features are easy to use, you don't have to be a coder. You can be a manager, or in IT operations, et cetera, anyone can use it. It is quite a well-rounded functional solution."
"The UL is easy to use compared to that of other tools, and it is highly reliable. The findings provide a lower number of false positives."
"The SAST feature is the most valuable."
"The features that I have found most valuable include its security scan, the vulnerability finds, and the web interface to search and review the issues."
"The static code analyzers are the most valuable features of this solution."
"There is not only one specific feature that we find valuable. The idea is to integrate the solution in DevSecOps which we were able to do."
"The most valuable features are the dashboard, the ability to drill down to the code, user-friendly, and the technical debt estimation."
"My focus is mainly on the DevOps pipeline side of things, and from my perspective, the ease of use and configuration is valuable. It is pretty straightforward to take a deployment pipeline or CI/CD pipeline and integrate SonarQube into it."
"Code Convention: Using the tool to implement some sort of coding convention is really useful and ensures that the code is consistent no matter how many contributors."
"It assists during the development with SonarLint and helps the developer to change his approach or rather improve his coding pattern or style. That's one advantage I've seen. Another advantage is that we can customize the rules."
"I like that it's easy to navigate not just in terms of code findings but you can actually see them in the context of your source code because it gives you a copy of your code with the items that it found and highlights them. You can see it directly in your code, so you can easily go back and make the corrections in the code. It basically finds the problems for you and tells you where they are."
"We've configured it to run on each commit, providing feedback on our software quality. ]"
"It is very good at identifying technical debt."
"It's a great product. If you are in a hurry and just want to focus on the functional requirements of any kind of project, SonarQube is highly helpful. It enables the developers to code securely. SonarQube has a Community edition, which is open source and free. There are also three proprietary or paid versions: Enterprise edition, Data Center edition, and Developer edition."
 

Cons

"Coverity is not a user-friendly product."
"The product could be enhanced by providing video troubleshooting guides, making issue resolution more accessible. Troubleshooting without visual guides can be time-consuming."
"There should be additional IDE support."
"The product could be enhanced by providing video troubleshooting guides, making issue resolution more accessible. Troubleshooting without visual guides can be time-consuming."
"Coverity is not stable."
"SCM integration is very poor in Coverity."
"The reporting tool integration process is sometimes slow."
"We'd like it to be faster."
"Not fully integrated with CIT processes."
"In terms of communication, they can integrate a few more third-party tools. It would be great if we can have more options for microservice communication. They can also improve the securability a bit more because security is one of the biggest aspects these days when you are using the cloud. Some more security features would be really helpful."
"The reporting capabilities need improvement, as there are some features that we would like to have but are not available at the moment."
"We would like a reduction in the time frame of scans. It takes us three to five days to run a scan now. We would like that reduced to under three days."
"Reporting could be improved."
"Micro Focus Fortify on Demand could improve the user interface by making it more user-friendly."
"They have very good support, but there is always room for improvement."
"During development, when our developer makes changes to their code, they typically use GitHub or GitLab to track those changes. However, proper integration between Fortify on Demand and GitHub and GitLab is not there yet. Improved integration would be very valuable to us."
"I am not very pleased with the technical debt computation."
"The scanning part could be improved in SonarQube. We have used Coverity for scanning, and we have the critical issues reported by Coverity. When we used SonarQube for scanning and looked at the results, it seems that some of them have incorrect input. This part can be improved for C and C++ languages."
"We also use Fortify, which is another tool to find security errors. Fortify is a better security tool. It is better than SonarQube in finding errors. Sometimes, SonarQube doesn't find some of the errors that Fortify is able to find. Fortify also has a community, which SonarQube doesn't have. Its installation is a little bit complex. We need to install a database, install the product, and specify the version of the database and the product. They can simplify the installation and make it easier. We use docker for the installation because it is easier to use. Its dashboard needs to be improved. It is not intuitive. It is hard to understand the interface, and it can be improved to provide a better user experience."
"The security in SonarQube could be better."
"The solution could improve by providing more advanced technologies."
"We found a solution with dynamic testing, and are looking to find a solution that can be used for both types of testing."
"I find it is light on the security side."
"A little bit more emphasis on security and a bit more security scanning features would be nice."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The pricing is very reasonable compared to other platforms. It is based on a three year license."
"Coverity is quite expensive."
"The pricing is on the expensive side, and we are paying for a couple of items."
"Coverity is very expensive."
"The licensing fees are based on the number of lines of code."
"Coverity’s price is on the higher side. It should be lower."
"The tool's price is somewhere in the middle. It's neither cheap nor expensive. I would rate the pricing a five out of ten."
"I believe the rental license is not too expensive, but it provides a lot of information about the vulnerabilities."
"Their subscriptions could use a little bit of a reworking, but I am very happy with what they're able to provide."
"Micro Focus Fortify on Demand licenses are managed by our IT team and the license model is user-based."
"If I exceed one million lines of code, there might be an extra cost or a change in the pricing bracket."
"The pricing can be improved because it is complex when compared to the competition."
"It is not more expensive than other solutions, but the pricing is competitive."
"The solution is a little expensive."
"It is cost-effective."
"SonarQube is an open-source product that can be used free of charge."
"We use the tool's community edition."
"SonarQube is a fairly affordable solution for a larger scale if you have a specific role or specific department for secure code."
"The solution has a free version and a license version. The license is priced reasonably, the cost of hiring one programmer is more expensive than the solution."
"The product’s price is lower than Veracode’s price."
"We use the solution free of cost."
"It's an open-source product."
"This solution is free."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Static Application Security Testing (SAST) solutions are best for your needs.
849,475 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
33%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Government
4%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Manufacturing Company
15%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Government
6%
 

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 securi...
What do you like most about Coverity?
The solution has improved our code quality and security very well.
What do you like most about Micro Focus Fortify on Demand?
It helps deploy and track changes easily as per time-to-time market upgrades.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Micro Focus Fortify on Demand?
In comparison with other tools, they're competitive. It is not more expensive than other solutions, but their pricing...
What needs improvement with Micro Focus Fortify on Demand?
There are frequent complaints about false positives from Fortify. One day it may pass a scan with no issues, and the ...
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 ...
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. Son...
How does Snyk compare with SonarQube?
Snyk does a great job identifying and reducing vulnerabilities. This solution is fully automated and monitors 24/7 to...
 

Also Known As

Synopsys Static Analysis
Micro Focus Fortify on Demand
Sonar
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SAP, Mega International, Thales Alenia Space
SAP, Aaron's, British Gas, FICO, Cox Automative, Callcredit Information Group, Vital and more.
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Sonar, Veracode, Checkmarx and others in Static Application Security Testing (SAST). Updated: April 2025.
849,475 professionals have used our research since 2012.