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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

"The app analysis is the most valuable feature as I know other solutions don't have that."
"It's very stable."
"Considering the analysis part and the benchmarking process involving the product that my company carried out, the solution is good for finding bugs and violations"
"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."
"Coverity gives advisory and deviation features, which are some of the parts I liked."
"The ability to scan code gives us details of existing and potential vulnerabilities. What really matters for us is to ensure that we are able to catch vulnerabilities ahead of time."
"It is a scalable solution."
"The most valuable feature is that there were not a whole lot of false positives, at least on the codebases that I looked at."
"The SonarQube dashboard looks great."
"For what it is meant to do, it works pretty well."
"It automatically scans for code, detects vulnerabilities, and generates daily reports."
"This solution is simple to use and can be quickly deployed."
"SonarQube's unit test coverage and exhaustive information at the module, project, and overall code repo levels are quite good."
"It is a very good tool for analysis despite its limitations."
"The features of SonarQube that I find most valuable for identifying code smells are its comprehensive code analysis capabilities, which cover various aspects of code sustainability."
"SonarQube is good for checking and maintaining code quality."
 

Cons

"They could improve the usability. For example, how you set things up, even though it's straightforward, it could be still be easier."
"It should be easier to specify your own validation routines and sanitation routines."
"Sometimes it's a bit hard to figure out how to use the product’s UI."
"We'd like it to be faster."
"Coverity takes a lot of time to dereference null pointers."
"The product should include more customization options. The analytics is not as deep as compared to SonarQube."
"Coverity is not stable."
"The solution could use more rules."
"There isn't a very good enterprise report."
"Our developers have complained about the Quality Gates and the number of false positives that this product reports."
"This is a well-rounded solution, however, some features could be made available on the free version. The price of the solution could be reduced."
"Although it has Sonar built into it, it is still lacking. Customization features of identifying a particular attack still need to be worked on. To give you an example: if we want to scan and do a false positive analysis, those types of features are missing. If we want to rescan something from a particular point that is a feature that is also missing. It’s in our queue. That will hopefully save a lot of time."
"I think the code security can be improved."
"This solution finds issues that are similar to what is found by Checkmarx, and it would be nice if the overlap could be eliminated."
"SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) could be improved on the reporting front. Instead of grouping, I would prefer to scan the code as part of development and then generate a report on a daily basis among different units or projects, which is currently complicated."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I would rate the pricing a six out of ten, where one is low, and ten is high price."
"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."
"It is expensive."
"The pricing is on the expensive side, and we are paying for a couple of items."
"Offers varying prices for different companies"
"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."
"The price is competitive with other solutions."
"Coverity is quite expensive."
"We pay €10 per month for this solution, which is good. It provides a good value for money."
"A low cost long-term solution for non-critical situations."
"The price of SonarCloud could be less expensive. We are using the community version and the price should be more reasonable."
"We are using the open-source version, which is available free of cost."
"We are using the open-source community version, but there are enterprise licenses available."
"I am using the free version of the solution."
"We have a license with 125,000 lines of code. We did not purchase a lot of lines but it is specific to our code environment."
"We are using the Community edition of SonarQube."
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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.
882,410 professionals have used our research since 2012.