Coverity vs SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) comparison

Black Duck and Sonar are both solutions in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category. Black Duck is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.0, while Sonar is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.2. Black Duck holds a 8.0% mindshare in SAST, compared to Sonar’s 26.7% mindshare. Additionally, 88% of Black Duck users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 81% of Sonar users who would recommend it.

Coverity

Read 42 Coverity reviews

11,969 Views
8,281 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

SonarQube Server (formerly ...

Read 114 SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) reviews

36,964 Views
30,888 Comparison Views

81% willing to recommend

Coverity

SonarQube Server (formerly ...

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 9, 2025

SonarQube Server and Coverity are tools for code quality and security analysis. SonarQube stands out with extensive language support and community plugins, appealing to open-source and cost-sensitive users, while Coverity excels in deeper code analysis and security detection, particularly for C++ and C#.

Features: SonarQube supports over 20 programming languages, custom coding rules, and robust integration with CI/CD tools. Users appreciate its Time Machine tool and Quality Gates feature. Coverity is noted for its low false positive rate and comprehensive analysis focusing on security vulnerabilities with a detailed graphical interface and reporting capabilities.

Room for Improvement: SonarQube could enhance multi-language support and simplify integration with platforms like JIRA. It needs better handling of security vulnerabilities and a faster analysis time. Coverity needs improvements in its user interface, integration support with IDEs, and expansion of language support.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SonarQube supports deployment on multiple platforms including Hybrid, On-premises, and Public Cloud, delivering flexibility across environments. Its community-driven support is highly rated. Coverity is primarily on-premises, with limited cloud support, and its technical support is considered expensive, catering more to larger installations.

Pricing and ROI: SonarQube offers a compelling ROI with its open-source Community edition and competitive pricing for additional features, making it a popular choice for budget-constrained organizations. Coverity is often criticized for its high cost relative to value, particularly with user-based pricing which can challenge potential ROI compared to SonarQube’s flexible model.

To learn more, read our detailed Coverity vs. SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Coverity vs. SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube)

April 2025

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Helped 848,207 peers since 2012

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

Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

4th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

SonarQube Server (formerly ...

Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

1st

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

114

Ranking in other categories

Application Security Tools (1st), Software Development Analytics (1st)

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 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

Information Security Analyst at Banglalink

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.

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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

"The most valuable feature is the integration with Jenkins."

"The interface of Coverity is quite good, and it is also easy to use."

"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."

"Coverity integrates with issue-tracking systems like Jira and provides email notifications, alerts, and other features."

"Coverity gives advisory and deviation features, which are some of the parts I liked."

"The solution has helped to increase staff productivity and improved our work significantly by approximately 20 percent."

"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."

"Coverity is easy to use and easy to integrate with CI."

More Coverity pros

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

"SonarQube is one of the more popular solutions because it supports 29 languages."

"SonarQube has a lot of value, it reviews the basic coding standards and security vulnerabilities of code that help to reduce issues."

"The overall quality of the indicator is good."

"It helps our developers work more efficiently as we can identify things in a code prior to it being pushed to where it needs to go."

"It provides you with many features, as it does with the premium model, but there are still extra features that can be purchased if needed."

"The most valuable features are the analysis and detection of issues within the application code."

"Any developer can easily identify issues using the process flow or steps provided by SonarQube. In terms of integration, SonarQube makes it quite easy, simplifying the steps for users."

More SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) pros

Cons

"Coverity is far from perfection, and I'm not 100 percent sure it's helping me find what I need to find in my role. We need exactly what we are looking for, i.e. security errors and vulnerabilities. It doesn't seem to be reporting while we are changing our code."

"The solution could use more rules."

"Sometimes, vulnerabilities remain unidentified even after setting up the rules."

"Right now, the Coverity executable is around 1.2GB to download. If they can reduce it to approximately 600 or 700MB, that would be great. If they decrease the executable, it will be much easier to work in an environment like Docker."

"I would like to see integration with popular IDEs, such as Eclipse."

"Ideally, it would have a user-based license that does not have a restriction in the number of lines of code."

"Coverity could improve the ease of use. Sometimes things become difficult and you need to follow the guides from the website but the guides could be better."

"The solution's user interface and quality gate could be improved."

More Coverity cons

"Having performance regression would be a helpful add on or ability to be able to do during the scan."

"The solution could improve by having better-consulting services."

"It would be better if SonarQube provided a good UI for external configuration."

"The BPM language is important and should be considered in SonarQube."

"New plug-ins should be integrated into SonarCloud to give more flexibility to the product."

"We could use some team support, but since we are using the community version, it's not available."

"There are sometimes security breaches in our code, which aren't be caught by SonarQube. In the security area, SonarCube has to improve. It needs to better compete with other products."

"If the product could assist us with fixing issues by giving us more pointers then it would help to resolve more of the warnings without such a commitment in terms of time."

More SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is competitive with other solutions."

"The pricing is very reasonable compared to other platforms. It is based on a three year license."

"The pricing is on the expensive side, and we are paying for a couple of items."

"The solution is affordable."

"The tool was fairly priced."

"Coverity is very expensive."

"The solution's pricing is comparable to other products."

"I would rate Coverity's pricing as a nine out of ten. It's already very expensive, and it's a problem for us to get more licenses due to the price. The pricing model has some good aspects - for example, a personal license gives access to all languages without code limitations, which is better than some competitors. However, it's still a lot of money for us to spend."

More Coverity pricing and cost advice

"We're using an older version because it is the open-source flavor of it and we can continue using it at no cost. We're not paying any licensing at all, which was another factor in choosing this route so that we can learn and grow with it and not be committed to licenses and other similar things. If we choose to get something else, we have to relearn, but we don't have to relicense. Basically, we're paying no license costs."

"The price point on SonarQube is good."

"The beauty of this solution is the free open-source version is capable enough in doing pretty much what an enterprise-level version can do."

"There is both a free and licensed version. The free version has limitations on development languages and support."

"The costs for this application, for the kind of job it does, are pretty decent."

"SonarQube is a fairly affordable solution for a larger scale if you have a specific role or specific department for secure code."

"SonarQube is a cost-effective solution."

"We are using the Community edition of SonarQube."

More SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

33%

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

15%

Manufacturing Company

13%

Government

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...

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What do you like most about Coverity?

The solution has improved our code quality and security very well.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Coverity?

I do not know about the pricing.

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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 does Snyk compare with SonarQube?

Snyk does a great job identifying and reducing vulnerabilities. This solution is fully automated and monitors 24/7 to find any issues reported on the internet. It will store dependencies that you a...

See all answers

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Checkmarx One vs Coverity

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SonarQube Cloud (formerly SonarCloud) vs SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube)

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

Snyk vs SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube)

Compared 4% of the time

More SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Coverity

April 2025

Download Coverity 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

Synopsys Static Analysis

Sonar

Interactive Demo

Demo not available

Black Duck

Sonar

Overview

Coverity gives you the speed, ease of use, accuracy, industry standards compliance, and scalability that you need to develop high-quality, secure applications. Coverity identifies critical software quality defects and security vulnerabilities in code as it’s written, early in the development process, when it’s least costly and easiest to fix. With the Code Sight integrated development environment (IDE) plugin, developers get accurate analysis in seconds in their IDE as they code. Precise actionable remediation advice and context-specific eLearning help your developers understand how to fix their prioritized issues quickly, without having to become security experts.

Coverity seamlessly integrates automated security testing into your CI/CD pipelines and supports your existing development tools and workflows. Choose where and how to do your development: on-premises or in the cloud with the Polaris Software Integrity Platform (SaaS), a highly scalable, cloud-based application security platform. Coverity supports more than 20 languages and 200 frameworks and templates.

Black Duck

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

SAP, Mega International, Thales Alenia Space

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Coverity vs. SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube)

April 2025

Free Report: Coverity vs. SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube)

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