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Qualys Web Application Scanning 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

Qualys Web Application Scan...
Ranking in Application Security Tools
12th
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
11th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
35
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
7.5
Number of Reviews
113
Ranking in other categories
Software Development Analytics (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Application Security Tools category, the mindshare of Qualys Web Application Scanning is 1.9%, down from 2.3% 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

SubhajitAich - PeerSpot reviewer
A stable solution that can be used for infrastructure vulnerability scanning and web application scanning
Qualys Web Application Scanning is very complex to use, and its graphical interface is not very user-friendly. Compared to other solutions like Tenable and Rapid7, you need to navigate a lot to get the actual results out of Qualys Web Application Scanning. If I have to search for one thing within the entire console, I have to look for it randomly. It's not very easy and very comfortable to find something. Overall, it's a very good solution, but it will be very good if the tool is more user-friendly.
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

"It is a cloud-based solution, so it is easy to scale."
"It scans web applications to identify vulnerabilities during deployment."
"Qualys Web Application Scanning has multiple features like threat protection and container security scanning in one box."
"Qualys' process of updating signatures is something we really appreciate, and it's way ahead of its industry peers."
"It combines both web application vulnerability management and internal vulnerability management on one platform and dashboard. Usually, you have to purchase separate tools."
"It is easy to use."
"Qualys WAS' most valuable features are the navigation flow of the UI and the option for a different layer of security (identification and operation through email and mobile)."
"Automated scanning has significantly improved our web application security management by reducing manual work."
"It assists during the development with SonarLint and helps the developer to change his approach or rather improve his coding pattern or style. That's one advantage I've seen. Another advantage is that we can customize the rules."
"Apart from the security point of view, I like that it makes it easy to detect code smells and other issues in terms of code quality and standards."
"The most valuable features are code scanning and Quality Gates."
"We have worked with the support from SonarQube and we have had good experiences."
"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."
"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."
"It's enabled us to improve software quality and help us to disseminate best practices."
"I like that it has a better dashboard compared to Clockwork. It's also stable."
 

Cons

"The solution needs to adjust its pricing. They should make it more affordable."
"The GUI could be a little less complicated as it opens a lot of new windows for creating search lists, templates, reports, or for scanning purposes."
"In terms of the Policy Compliance model which they currently have, not all the platforms are being covered. If they could improve on the Policy Compliance model, since there are policies which are benchmarked against it, this will be helpful for us."
"The support could be faster."
"The UI is not user-friendly and you don't have a yearly reporting facility where you can slice and dice in different jobs."
"In certain cases, this product does have false positives, which the company should work on."
"There should be better visibility into the application."
"They should try to include business logic vulnerabilities in the scanner testing."
"We could use some team support, but since we are using the community version, it's not available."
"We did have some trouble with the LDAP integration for the console."
"We had some issues where the Quality Gate check sometimes gets stuck and it is unclear."
"The product provides false reports sometimes."
"You may need to purchase add-ons to get the useability you desire."
"SonarQube can improve by scanning the internal library which currently it does not do. We are looking for a solution for this."
"If I configure a project in SonarQube, it generates a token. When we're compiling our code with SonarQube, we have to provide the token for security reasons. If IP-based connectivity is established with the solution, the project should automatically be populated without providing any additional token. It will be easy to provide just the IP address. It currently supports this functionality, but it makes a different branch in the project dashboard. From the configuration and dashboard point of view, it should have some transformations. There can be dashboard integration so that we can configure the dashboard for different purposes."
"It should be user-friendly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I rate the software’s pricing a six out of ten."
"The product has a very good licensing model."
"Pricing was reasonable and competitive. It was not too far above the other products."
"The cost is $30,000 USD for one year to cover WAS (Web Application Security) and the VM (Virtual Machine) security in a company with 200 employees."
"It is an expensive platform."
"Try the free trial of the product to understand the basic working mechanisms.​"
"From my perspective, it is a budget-friendly option."
"Qualys Web Application Scanning's pricing is a bit expensive compared to other solutions available in the market."
"Compared to similar solutions, SonarQube was more accessible to us and had more benefits, with regards to size of the code base and supported languages. Apart from the Enterprise licensing fee, there are no additional costs."
"SonarQube enterprise, I am not sure of the price but from what I understand they are charging a fee. It's is not clear if it is an annual fee or a one-off."
"I do not know about the pricing as I am using the community edition, which is free. But I compared the pricing with Sigma, and it is higher than SonarQube."
"It's an open-source solution, with no additional costs."
"The licence is standard open source licensing"
"Can try developer version for 14 days on the free trial."
"The solution is cheaper than other products."
"There is both a free and licensed version. The free version has limitations on development languages and support."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
10%
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 Qualys Web Application Scanning?
The vulnerability management feature is a strong one. And also the patch management feature.
What needs improvement with Qualys Web Application Scanning?
One area for improvement is the user interface. The new UI, which was recently upgraded, feels more complex and less user-friendly than the old version. However, as we continue to use it, we antici...
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

Qualys WAS
Sonar
 

Learn More

 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

BskyB, Cartagena, ClearPoint Learning Systems, Connect Group, du, Fortrex Technologies, HBOR, HDI, Highlights for Children, The Lithuanian State Enterprise Centre of Registers, City of Miami Beach, Microsoft, MidlandHR, MSCI Inc., Northern Arizona University, Ofgem, Olympus Europa, PhoneFactor, RTL Nederland, ThousandEyes, VGZ Organisatie B.V.
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Find out what your peers are saying about Qualys Web Application Scanning vs. SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
831,158 professionals have used our research since 2012.