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Fortify on Demand 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

Fortify on Demand
Ranking in Application Security Tools
11th
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
9th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
60
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SonarQube Server (formerly ...
Ranking in Application Security Tools
1st
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
114
Ranking in other categories
Software Development Analytics (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the Application Security Tools category, the mindshare of Fortify on Demand is 4.6%, down from 4.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) is 25.5%, down from 27.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Security Tools
 

Q&A Highlights

Miriam Tover - PeerSpot reviewer
Jan 11, 2019
 

Featured Reviews

Jonathan Steyn - PeerSpot reviewer
Source code analyzer, FPR file generation, reduction of false positives and generates compliance reports, for in-depth analysis
Not challenges with the product itself. The product is very reliable. It does have a steep learning curve. But, again, one thing that Fortify or OpenText does very well is training. There are a lot of free resources and training in the community forums, free training as well as commercial training where users can train on how to use the back-end systems and the scanning engines and how to use command-line arguments because some of the procedures or some of the tools do require a bit of a learning curve. That's the only challenge I've really seen for customers because you have to learn how to use the tool effectively. But Fortify has, in fact, improved its user interface and the way users engage the dashboards and the interfaces. It is intuitive. It's easy to understand. But in some regards, the cybersecurity specialist or AppSec would need a bit of training to engage the user interface and to understand how it functions. But from the point of the reliability index and how powerful the tool is, there's no challenge there. But it's just from a learning perspective; users might need a bit more skill to use the tool. The user interface isn't that tedious. It's not that difficult to understand. When I initially learned how to use the interfaces, I was able to master it within a week and was able to use it quite effectively. So training is required. All skills are needed to learn how to use the tool. I would like to see more enhancements in the dashboards. Dashboards are available. They do need some configuration and settings. But I would like to see more business intelligence capabilities within the tool. It's not particularly a cybersecurity function, but, for instance, business impact analysis or other features where you can actually use business intelligence capabilities within your security tool. That would be remarkable because not only do you have a cybersecurity tool, but you also have a tool that can give you business impact analysis and some other measurements. A bit more intelligence in terms of that from a cybersecurity perspective would be remarkable.
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

"I use the solution in my company for security code scans."
"Fortify on Demand is easy to use and the reporting is good."
"The features that I have found most valuable include its security scan, the vulnerability finds, and the web interface to search and review the issues."
"Fortify helps us to stay updated with the newest languages and versions coming out."
"t's a cloud-based solution, so there was no installation involved."
"Audit workbench: for on-the-fly defect auditing."
"The most valuable feature is that it connects with your development platforms, such as Microsoft Information Server and Jira."
"The UL is easy to use compared to that of other tools, and it is highly reliable. The findings provide a lower number of false positives."
"The most valuable features are the analysis and detection of issues within the application code."
"The freemium version of SonarQube Server offers excellent value, especially compared to the high costs of Snyk."
"My focus is mainly on the DevOps pipeline side of things, and from my perspective, the ease of use and configuration is valuable. It is pretty straightforward to take a deployment pipeline or CI/CD pipeline and integrate SonarQube into it."
"Some of the static code analysis capabilities are the most beneficial."
"We can create a Quality Gate in order to fail Jenkins jobs where the code coverage is lower than the set percentage."
"The static code analysis is very good."
"It is a very good tool for analysis despite its limitations."
"I like that it's easy to navigate not just in terms of code findings but you can actually see them in the context of your source code because it gives you a copy of your code with the items that it found and highlights them. You can see it directly in your code, so you can easily go back and make the corrections in the code. It basically finds the problems for you and tells you where they are."
 

Cons

"It lacks of some important features that the competitors have, such as Software Composition Analysis, full dead code detection, and Agile Alliance's Best Practices and Technical Debt."
"Fortify on Demand needs to improve its pricing."
"They have very good support, but there is always room for improvement."
"It natively supports only a few languages. They can include support for more native languages. The response time from the support team can also be improved. They can maybe include video tutorials explaining the remediation process. The remediation process is sometimes not that clear. It would be helpful to have videos. Sometimes, the solution that the tool gives in the GUI is not straightforward to understand for the developer. At present, for any such issues, you have to create a ticket for the support team and request help from the support team."
"We would like a reduction in the time frame of scans. It takes us three to five days to run a scan now. We would like that reduced to under three days."
"It would be highly beneficial if Fortify on Demand incorporated runtime analysis, similar to how Contrast Security utilizes agents for proactive application security."
"There are frequent complaints about false positives from Fortify. One day it may pass a scan with no issues, and the next day, without any code changes, it will report vulnerabilities such as password exposure."
"Temenos's (T-24) info basic is a separate programming interface, and such proprietary platforms and programming interfaces were not easily supported by the out-of-the-box versions of Fortify."
"The tool needs to be more compatible with C/C++ language"
"We're in the process of figuring out how to automate the workflow for QA audit controls on it. I think that's perhaps an area that we could use some buffing. We're a Kubernetes shop, so there are some things that aren't direct fits, which we're struggling with on the component Docker side. But nothing major."
"In terms of what can be improved, the areas that need more attention in the solution are its architecture and development."
"It should be user-friendly."
"The product needs to integrate other security tools for security scanning."
"A better design of the interface and add some new rules."
"It would be better if SonarQube provided a good UI for external configuration."
"The BPM language is important and should be considered in SonarQube."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Fortify on Demand is affordable, and its licensing comes with a year of support."
"It is quite expensive. Pricing and the licensing model could be improved."
"The subscription model, on a per-scan basis, is a bit expensive. That's another reason we are not using it for all the apps."
"The product's cost depends on the type of license."
"If I exceed one million lines of code, there might be an extra cost or a change in the pricing bracket."
"We are still using the trial version at this point but I can already see from the trial version alone that it is a good product. For others, I would say that Fortify on Demand might look expensive at the beginning, but it is very powerful and so you shouldn't be put off by the price."
"Their subscriptions could use a little bit of a reworking, but I am very happy with what they're able to provide."
"Fortify on Demand is moderately priced, but its pricing could be more flexible."
"It is very expensive. Its price should be improved."
"We use the free version; there are no hidden costs or licensing required."
"We are using the Developer Edition and the cost is based on the amount of code that is being processed."
"The price of this solution is more expensive than competitors. However, it works better than competitors."
"SonarQube is an open-source product that can be used free of charge."
"On the pricing side, it's 3,000 Euros for 1 million lines of code."
"It's an open-source solution, with no additional costs."
"We pay €10 per month for this solution, which is good. It provides a good value for money."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Manufacturing Company
15%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
8%
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

What do you like most about Micro Focus Fortify on Demand?
It helps deploy and track changes easily as per time-to-time market upgrades.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Micro Focus Fortify on Demand?
In comparison with other tools, they're competitive. It is not more expensive than other solutions, but their pricing is competitive. The licenses for Fortify On Demand are generally bought in unit...
What needs improvement with Micro Focus Fortify on Demand?
There are frequent complaints about false positives from Fortify. One day it may pass a scan with no issues, and the next day, without any code changes, it will report vulnerabilities such as passw...
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 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...
 

Also Known As

Micro Focus Fortify on Demand
Sonar
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SAP, Aaron's, British Gas, FICO, Cox Automative, Callcredit Information Group, Vital and more.
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortify on Demand vs. SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
841,431 professionals have used our research since 2012.