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Coverity Static vs SonarQube comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 8, 2026

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 Static
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
6th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
43
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SonarQube
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
134
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (1st), Software Development Analytics (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of Coverity Static is 4.2%, down from 7.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SonarQube is 18.2%, down from 26.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Static Application Security Testing (SAST) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
SonarQube18.2%
Coverity Static4.2%
Other77.6%
Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
 

Featured Reviews

KT
Software Engineering Manager at Visteon Corporation
Using tools for compliance is beneficial but cost concerns persist
We have been using Coverity for quite a long period. It has been fine for our needs. I would rate Coverity between eight to nine, though the cost is high. I would rate their support from Coverity as six. That is the main complaint, but we still appreciate having it.
KH
Sr Software Engineering Supervisor at Mozarc Medical
Gains control over rule customization and achieves reliable vulnerability assessment
The deployment process took me about 2 or 3 hours to deploy SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube), although I do not remember exactly since it was done about 2 years back. Currently, about 10 of my developers are using SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) in my company. I do not have plans to increase the usage of SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) in the future as there will not be any requirement to increase. I am a senior software engineer and supervisor at Mozark Medical. My corporate email address is karthik.k.a.r.t.h.i.k.h.a.r.p.a.n.h.a.l.l.i@mozarkmedical.com. Overall, I would rate SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) as a 9 out of 10.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"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."
"The interface of Coverity is quite good, and it is also easy to use."
"Coverity is quite stable and we haven’t had any issues or any downtime."
"The reporting feature is up to the mark."
"I like Coverity's capability to scan codes once we push it. We don't need more time to review our colleagues' codes. Its UI is pretty straightforward."
"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."
"There are many options and examples available in the tool that help us fix the issues it shows us."
"Issue Explanations: Documentation with detailed samples. Helps in growing technical knowledge and re-writing logic to conforming solutions."
"The product is simple."
"We advise all of our developers to have this solution in place."
"There's plenty of documentation available to users."
"Offers multi-programming language support"
"We've configured it to run on each commit, providing feedback on our software quality. ]"
"If code coverage is a low number then that's of great value to me."
 

Cons

"Coverity takes a lot of time to dereference null pointers."
"The quality of the code needs improvement."
"I had tried integrating the tool with Azure DevOps, but the report I got stated that my team faced many challenges."
"The product could be enhanced by providing video troubleshooting guides, making issue resolution more accessible. Troubleshooting without visual guides can be time-consuming."
"The product should include more customization options. The analytics is not as deep as compared to SonarQube."
"Coverity's implementation cycle is very slow when integrating changes, especially for problems related to event handling and memory leaks."
"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 product lacks sufficient customization options."
"There is need for support for the additional languages and ease of use in adding new rules for detecting issues."
"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."
"We found a solution with dynamic testing, and are looking to find a solution that can be used for both types of testing."
"If you don't have any experience with the configuration or how to configure the files, it can be complicated."
"Reporting features are missing in SonarCloud."
"SonarCloud's UI needs enhancement."
"We have tens of millions of code to be analyzed and processed. There can be some performance degradation if we are applying Sonar Link to large code or code that is complex. When the code had to be analyzed is when we ran into the main issues. There were several routines involved to solve those performance issues but this process should be improved."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Coverity is very expensive."
"The solution's pricing is comparable to other products."
"The tool was fairly priced."
"I would rate the tool's pricing a one out of ten."
"It is expensive."
"The licensing fees are based on the number of lines of code."
"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 rate Coverity's price a ten on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive."
"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."
"We are using the open-source community version, but there are enterprise licenses available."
"People can try the free licenses and later can seek buying plugins/support, etc. once they started liking it."
"We use the free version; there are no hidden costs or licensing required."
"It's a bit expensive for us. The currency rate of the dollar is a problem but it may be fine for other countries."
"I do not know about the pricing as I am using the community edition, which is free. But I compared the pricing with Sigma, and it is higher than SonarQube."
"The licence is standard open source licensing"
"We did not purchase a license (required for C++ support), but this option was considered."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
32%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Healthcare Company
4%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise31
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business41
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise79
 

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.
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...
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...
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...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Synopsys Static Analysis
Sonar, SonarQube Cloud
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SAP, Mega International, Thales Alenia Space
Snowflake, Booking.com, Deutsche Bank, AstraZeneca, and Ford Motor Company.
Find out what your peers are saying about Coverity Static vs. SonarQube and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.
882,207 professionals have used our research since 2012.