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Klocwork 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

Klocwork
Ranking in Application Security Tools
16th
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
13th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Static Code Analysis (5th)
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 April 2025, in the Application Security Tools category, the mindshare of Klocwork is 1.5%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) is 25.1%, down from 26.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Security Tools
 

Featured Reviews

AnirbanSarkar - PeerSpot reviewer
Lets you find defects during the development phase, so you don't have to wait till the development is over to find and address flaws
What needs improvement in Klocwork, compared to other products in the market, is the dashboard or reporting mechanisms that need to be a bit more flexible. The Klocwork dashboard could be improved. Though it's good, it's not as good as some of the other products in the market, which is a problem. The reporting could be more detailed and easier to sort out because sorting in Klocwork could be a bit more time-consuming, mainly when sorting defects based on filters, compared to how it's done on other tools such as Coverity. What I'd like added in the next release of Klocwork is the peer code review Cahoots which used to be a part of Klocwork, and the architecture analysis and both have been taken out of Klocwork. I found the two critical for specific deployments, so if those can be brought back to Klocwork, that would be very good.
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

"Technical support is quite good."
"It's integrated into our CI, continuous integration."
"The most valuable feature of Klocwork is its reduced setup time."
"The most valuable feature of Klocwork is finding defects while you're doing the coding. For example, if you have an IDE plug-in of Klocwork on Visual Studio or Eclipse, you can find the faults; similar to using spell check on Word, you can find out defects during the development phase, which means that you don't have to wait till the development is over to find the flaws and address the deficiencies. I also find language support in Klocwork good because it used to support only C, C++, C#, and Java, but now, it also supports Java scripts and Python."
"On-the-fly analysis and incremental analysis are the best parts of Klocwork. Currently, we are using both of these features very effectively."
"The reporting helps us understand the trend of our results and whether we improve over time. We can see the history within Klocwork's server architecture and know that we're making things better. It creates a great story for our management. We can demonstrate value and how our software is developing over time."
"The most valuable feature is the Incremental analysis."
"The tool helps the team to think beforehand about corner cases or potential bugs that might arise in real-time."
"This solution has helped with the integration and building of our CICD pipeline."
"Improve the code coverage and evaluates the technical steps and percentage of code being resolved."
"I like the by-default policies that are they, as they seem to cover most of what I need."
"The static code analysis of the solution is the most important aspect for us. When it comes to security breaches within the code, we can leverage some rules to allow us to identify the repetition in our code and the possible targets that we may have. It makes it very easy to review our code for security purposes."
"The most valuable feature is the security hotspot feature that identifies where your code is prone to have security issues."
"There is a free version."
"The solution offers a very good community edition."
"The most valuable features are code scanning and Quality Gates."
 

Cons

"What needs improvement in Klocwork, compared to other products in the market, is the dashboard or reporting mechanisms that need to be a bit more flexible. The Klocwork dashboard could be improved. Though it's good, it's not as good as some of the other products in the market, which is a problem. The reporting could be more detailed and easier to sort out because sorting in Klocwork could be a bit more time-consuming, mainly when sorting defects based on filters, compared to how it's done on other tools such as Coverity."
"Every update that we receive requires of us a lengthy and involved process."
"The way to define the rules is too complex. The definition/rules for static analysis could be automated according to various SILs, so as to avoid confusion."
"Klocwork sometimes provides too many additional warnings which require expertise to manage."
"I hope that in each new release they add new features relating to the addition of checkers, improving their analysis engines etc."
"Klocwork sometimes provides too many additional warnings which require expertise to manage."
"There are too many warnings, and it requires expertise to determine the correct category for them."
"This solution could be improved if they offered support of more languages including Ada and Golang. They currently only support seven languages."
"The exporting capabilities could be improved. Currently, exporting is fully dependent on the SonarQube environment."
"SonarQube can improve by scanning the internal library which currently it does not do. We are looking for a solution for this."
"The security in SonarQube could be better."
"The solution is a bit lacking on the security side, in terms of finding and identifying vulnerabilities."
"In terms of analysis and findings, other tools provide more in-depth insights and detailed steps to mitigate or handle issues."
"I would like to see improvements in defining the quality sets of rules and the quality to ensure code with low-performance does not end up in production."
"The tool needs to be more compatible with C/C++ language"
"I would like to see SonarQube implement a good amount of improvements to the product's security features. Another aspect of SonarQube that could be improved is the search functionality."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The limitation that we have is that Klocwork is licensed to certain programs, and if you want to license them to other programs, you have to pay more money."
"When it comes to licensing, the solution has two packages, one for a fixed and the other for a floating server, with the former being more cost effective than the latter."
"The pricing for Klocwork is very competitive if you compare it from apple to apple. It has competitive pricing regarding the licensing model and the per-license cost. Klocwork isn't a high-end investment for anyone deploying it; even SMBs can afford it. The Klocwork cost per user would depend on the license type, so I'm unable to mention a ballpark figure because it would depend on the type of installation and how the deployment will be, and the nodes to give an accurate calculation or figure. The total price depends on the package, so my company could never publish pricing for Klocwork on the website. My team first collects information from potential clients on the deployment scenario, project environment, etc., before suggesting a package for Klocwork. My rating for Klocwork in terms of pricing is a five because of its flexible license models. There's a license model for every type of organization, whether small, midsize, or enterprise, so it's a five out of five for me."
"This solution offers competitive pricing."
"Klocwork should not to be quite so heavy handed on the licensing for very specific programs."
"Klocwork is still tight on their licensing. If Klocwork would loosen up on the licensing, and where the license could be used, and how many different programs could be run on it, then we have several development programs that I would love to be able to use it for going forward."
"There are other solutions on the market such as Microsoft Visual Studio. They have been adding more static code analysis features that come for free. It is getting better all the time. That is one of the possibilities is that we've been considering that we may stop using the Klocwork because it doesn't give us any added value."
"Licensing fees are paid annually, but they also have a perpetual license."
"We are using the free, unlicensed version."
"I think comparing the product to competitors it should be less expensive."
"We're using an older version because it is the open-source flavor of it and we can continue using it at no cost. We're not paying any licensing at all, which was another factor in choosing this route so that we can learn and grow with it and not be committed to licenses and other similar things. If we choose to get something else, we have to relearn, but we don't have to relicense. Basically, we're paying no license costs."
"This solution is free."
"We are using the open-source version, which is available free of cost."
"Can try developer version for 14 days on the free trial."
"I use the full trial version of SonarQube."
"The solution is cheaper than other products."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
36%
Manufacturing Company
20%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
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

What do you like most about Klocwork?
It's integrated into our CI, continuous integration.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Klocwork?
Klocwork is not expensive, but neither is it very cheap. It is less expensive than Coverity.
What needs improvement with Klocwork?
Every product has room for improvement. Klocwork sometimes provides too many additional warnings which require expertise to manage. Follow-ups are often needed. The support for plugins also needs t...
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

ACCESS Co Ltd, Risk-AI, Winbond Electronics, Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharmaceutical Research Institute, University of Southern California, Alebra Technologies, SIMULIA, Risk Management Solutions, Brigham Young University, SRD, HRL
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Klocwork vs. SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
847,646 professionals have used our research since 2012.