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GitHub vs SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 30, 2024

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

GitHub
Ranking in Application Security Tools
7th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
92
Ranking in other categories
Version Control (3rd)
SonarQube Server (formerly ...
Ranking in Application Security Tools
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
113
Ranking in other categories
Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (1st), Software Development Analytics (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Application Security Tools category, the mindshare of GitHub is 0.8%, down from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) is 26.4%, down from 27.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Security Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Pervez Roy - PeerSpot reviewer
Very good for collaboration on software projects
We use GitHub for code repository alongside Bitbucket GitHub is very good for collaboration on software projects. We prefer Bitbucket for commercial use, while GitHub is used for open source. You can get the differences, history of changes, and version control for various pull requests. You can…
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 would rate the stability a ten out of ten."
"We can make a private repository."
"The ease of use is valuable."
"The solution provides good customization and support."
"The features that I have found most valuable are that it can support you for most of the road map and it can automate some tasks which works really well with collaboration with the teams. They are really interested in how they organize the history of the code itself which is good."
"The tool is valuable because it helps us work in a distributed environment with multiple people across different locations and time zones. We have a common repository that everyone works on, which would be tough to manage manually. GitHub helps us maintain this single source of truth. Everyone can check out their own branches, which is important for our branching strategies. We can fork, check out feature branches, work on our code, and merge back into parent branches for deployment. This is crucial when multiple people are working on the same codebase."
"The tool is valuable because it helps us work in a distributed environment with multiple people across different locations and time zones. We have a common repository that everyone works on, which would be tough to manage manually. GitHub helps us maintain this single source of truth. Everyone can check out their own branches, which is important for our branching strategies. We can fork, check out feature branches, work on our code, and merge back into parent branches for deployment. This is crucial when multiple people are working on the same codebase."
"During our use of GitHub, we have not encountered any problems and GitHub adds new features frequently."
"SonarQube is scalable. My company has 50 users."
"It's enabled us to improve software quality and help us to disseminate best practices."
"I like the by-default policies that are they, as they seem to cover most of what I need."
"The solution's user interface is very user-friendly."
"The product itself has a friendly UI."
"There's plenty of documentation available to users."
"This solution has helped with the integration and building of our CICD pipeline."
"The most valuable feature of SonarQube I have found to be the configuration that has allowed us to can make adjusts to the demands of the code review. It gives a specified classification regarding the skill, prioritization, and it is easy for me to review and make my code."
 

Cons

"As of now, if I would like to learn about GitHub or its features, I would have to look on YouTube. It would be nice if they were able to send out a newsletter with explanations of new features that they are offering and what features are available."
"The solution can improve by adding video guides, official guides, or short courses that cater to beginners who are new to the system. These resources could offer step-by-step guidance on how to use GitHub, including common procedures such as pulling and committing. Currently, many of us have to resort to searching for information on how to do these tasks via Google. An official guide provided by GitHub itself would be a valuable asset to newcomers and would save them time and effort."
"If something has to be moved into approvals, and if they don't approve it in a few hours, then they should move the approval request to some other user, or they should have a way to escalate it."
"The solution needs some more controls for deleting code."
"They're improving the work items to track the progress of the team, but in my experience, Azure DevOps is better in this functionality. GitHub needs to improve the form to track the progress of the work done by a team."
"The solution could have better support for the Markdown language."
"The onboarding process could be simplified."
"Though I haven't done much research, GitHub lacks in providing more functions like GitLab."
"Expression of common vulnerabilities and exposures is not always current."
"This solution finds issues that are similar to what is found by Checkmarx, and it would be nice if the overlap could be eliminated."
"If there was an official Docker image of SonarQube that could easily integrate into the pipeline would help the user to plug in and plug out and use it directly without any custom configuration. I am not sure if this is being offered already in an update but it would be very helpful."
"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."
"There are times that we have the database crash. However, this might be an issue with how we have configured it and not a software issue. Apart from this, I do not see any issues with the solution."
"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."
"We also use Fortify, which is another tool to find security errors. Fortify is a better security tool. It is better than SonarQube in finding errors. Sometimes, SonarQube doesn't find some of the errors that Fortify is able to find. Fortify also has a community, which SonarQube doesn't have. Its installation is a little bit complex. We need to install a database, install the product, and specify the version of the database and the product. They can simplify the installation and make it easier. We use docker for the installation because it is easier to use. Its dashboard needs to be improved. It is not intuitive. It is hard to understand the interface, and it can be improved to provide a better user experience."
"It requires advanced heuristics to recognize more complex constructs that could be disregarded as issues."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We are currently paying nothing for GitHub."
"I use the free version of the tool."
"You don't have to pay for a license if you are using the free version."
"The private repositories are free, which is very good."
"There are no licensing fees for the features that we use."
"The basic licensing model is free, and if you need to have technical support and such things, then it does cost something. You only need to pay extra if you need technical support."
"I am using the free version of the solution. However, there are some costs my organization pays."
"I haven't had to pay anything for GitHub, I use the free version."
"We are using the community version of the solution and we plan on purchasing licenses for the upgraded version soon. There is a limitation on how many lines of code can be scanned and this is why we are going to purchase a license for an increased amount."
"A low cost long-term solution for non-critical situations."
"We are using the open-source version, which is available free of cost."
"We use the tool's community edition."
"SonarQube is an open-source product that can be used free of charge."
"The developer edition is based on cost per lines of code."
"On the pricing side, it's 3,000 Euros for 1 million lines of code."
"This is open source."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
6%
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 GitHub?
The control is the most valuable feature as developers can work on a single code.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for GitHub?
I'm not aware of the costs associated with GitHub. I simply appreciate its efficiency in managing code and collaborating with team members.
What needs improvement with GitHub?
I would like to see some AI functionality included in GitHub, similar to the features seen in GitLab, to enhance productivity. Additionally, offering limited free access to features like Copilot co...
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

No data available
Sonar
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Dominion Enterprises, NASA, Braintree, SAP, CyberAgent
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about GitHub vs. SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
831,881 professionals have used our research since 2012.