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Coverity Static vs SonarQube comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 5, 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 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 most valuable feature of Coverity is that it shows examples of what is actually wrong with the code."
"We were very comfortable with the initial setup."
"Coverity provides excellent compliance and other features, which is a very good part."
"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."
"The product has deeper scanning capabilities."
"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."
"The product is easy to use."
"Coverity integrates with issue-tracking systems like Jira and provides email notifications, alerts, and other features."
"It provides the security that is required from a solution for financial businesses."
"Offers multi-programming language support"
"Overall, I would rate SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) as a 9 out of 10."
"The most valuable feature is the security hotspot feature that identifies where your code is prone to have security issues."
"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 of SonarCloud are the ability to discover vulnerabilities, security weak points, security hotspots, and all the feedback that comes into the feature branch. You can deploy the code with the security, you can eliminate the problem at the developer level rather than identifying the problem in the productions."
"The most valuable function is its usability."
"The most valuable features are the dashboard, the ability to drill down to the code, user-friendly, and the technical debt estimation."
 

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."
"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."
"Coverity's implementation cycle is very slow when integrating changes, especially for problems related to event handling and memory leaks."
"The product could be enhanced by providing video troubleshooting guides, making issue resolution more accessible. Troubleshooting without visual guides can be time-consuming."
"Sometimes it's a bit hard to figure out how to use the product’s UI."
"Sometimes, vulnerabilities remain unidentified even after setting up the rules."
"There is an extra step in my organization that involves uploading to servers, which adds overhead."
"Coverity is not a user-friendly product."
"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."
"I find it is light on the security side."
"There is no automation. You need to put the code there and test. You then pull the results and put them back in the development environment. There is no integration with the development environment. We would like it to be integrated with our development environment, which is basically the CI/CD pipeline or the IDE that we have."
"Expression of common vulnerabilities and exposures is not always current."
"Depending on the tool's configuration, sometimes you get false alarms that are unimportant to you."
"I've been told by the developers that the solution is too limited. It's not testing enough within the containers."
"SonarQube Cloud needs improvements in dynamic code analysis. Static code analysis is good, but the product lacks dynamic code scanning capabilities, an area where Veracode excels."
"I would also like SonarQube to be able to write custom scanning rules. More documentation would be helpful as well because some of our guys were struggling with the customization script."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I rate Coverity's price a ten on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive."
"The solution is affordable."
"Depending on the usage types, one has to opt for different types of licenses from Coverity, especially to be able to use areas like report viewing or report generation."
"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 would rate the pricing a six out of ten, where one is low, and ten is high price."
"Coverity is very expensive."
"The licensing fees are based on the number of lines of code."
"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 requested this license for one million lines of code and they accepted this."
"Some of the plugins that were previously free are not free now."
"It's an open-source solution, with no additional costs."
"We are using the Developer Edition and the cost is based on the amount of code that is being processed."
"I am satisfied with the pricing."
"People can try the free licenses and later can seek buying plugins/support, etc. once they started liking it."
"SonarQube is a cost-effective solution."
"This is open source."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
32%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Comms Service Provider
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.
881,565 professionals have used our research since 2012.