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

Coverity vs SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 9, 2025

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
42
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 - 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.
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

"Coverity is easy to use and easy to integrate with CI."
"Provides software security, and helps to find potential security bugs or defects."
"The solution has helped to increase staff productivity and improved our work significantly by approximately 20 percent."
"The tool as it is can be used for code quality improvement."
"It's pretty stable. I rate the stability of Coverity nine out of ten."
"The most valuable feature of Coverity is its software security feature called the Checker. If you share some vulnerability or weakness then the software can find any potential security bug or defect. The code integration tool enables some secure coding standards and implements some Checkers for Live Duo. So we can enable secure coding and Azure in this tool. So in our software, we can make sure our software combines some industry supervised data."
"It has the lowest false positives."
"Coverity is easy to set up and has a less lengthy process to find vulnerabilities."
"I am only interested in the security features in SonarQube. There are plenty of features other features, such as test coverage, code anomalies, and pointer access are handled by the business logic teams. They get the reports and they have to fix them in JIRA or Bugzilla."
"This solution has the capability to analyze source code in almost all the languages in the market."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is that it is free."
"All the features of the solution are quite good."
"Issue Explanations: Documentation with detailed samples. Helps in growing technical knowledge and re-writing logic to conforming solutions."
"Before you even compile, it can catch known vulnerability issues or patterns."
"SonarQube is useful for controlling all of our Azure task tracking and scanning."
"SonarQube is good for checking and maintaining code quality."
 

Cons

"The level of vulnerability that this solution covers could be improved compared to other open source tools."
"The product could be enhanced by providing video troubleshooting guides, making issue resolution more accessible. Troubleshooting without visual guides can be time-consuming."
"The reporting tool integration process is sometimes slow."
"It should be easier to specify your own validation routines and sanitation routines."
"There is an extra step in my organization that involves uploading to servers, which adds overhead."
"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 is a bit complex to use in comparison to other products that have many plugins."
"Sometimes, vulnerabilities remain unidentified even after setting up the rules."
"The product needs to integrate other security tools for security scanning."
"Expression of common vulnerabilities and exposures is not always current."
"An improvement is with false positives. Sometimes the tool can say there is an issue in your code but, really, you have to do things in a certain way due to external dependencies, and I think it's very hard to indicate this is the case."
"I would like to see dynamic code analysis in the next version of the software."
"I have found this solution creates more noise than competitors."
"SonarQube needs to improve its ease of use, integration with third-party platforms, and scalability."
"We previously experienced issues with security but a segregated security violation has been implemented and the issues we experienced are being fixed."
"The solution could improve by providing more advanced technologies."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is expensive."
"The pricing is very reasonable compared to other platforms. It is based on a three year license."
"The solution is affordable."
"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."
"Coverity’s price is on the higher side. It should be lower."
"Coverity is quite expensive."
"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."
"I would rate the tool's pricing a one out of ten."
"The developer edition is based on cost per lines of code."
"SonarQube price is a little bit higher than Kiuwan's. Kiuwan also gives a little bit of flexibility in terms of pricing."
"The price point on SonarQube is good."
"The product’s price is lower than Veracode’s price."
"As a user and a consumer of this solution, it can be pricey for my company to support and use, even though there are many benefits. For this reason, we use the free version. In the future, as our product cycles develop and evolve at a more steady pace, we hope to invest in the licensing for this tool."
"The price of the solution could be reduced."
"We pay €10 per month for this solution, which is good. It provides a good value for money."
"This is open source."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Static Application Security Testing (SAST) solutions are best for your needs.
845,040 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
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 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...
 

Also Known As

Synopsys Static Analysis
Sonar
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SAP, Mega International, Thales Alenia Space
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Coverity vs. SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.