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18,401 views|11,920 comparisons
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54,870 views|43,230 comparisons
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary
Updated on Mar 20, 2023

We performed a comparison between Coverity and SonarQube based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.

  • Ease of Deployment: Coverity has a simple deployment process with on-screen instructions, but the total deployment time varies based on the project and integrations. Maintenance is vendor-handled. SonarQube has a straightforward initial setup and automatic deployment, but some database and Java knowledge is needed.
  • Features: Coverity helps identify defect root causes with contributing events. SonarQube detects code quality during development with defined rules.
  • Pricing: Coverity is an expensive solution with an unfriendly licensing mechanism and a difficult exit process. SonarQube has an open source option and their pricing for the paid version is reasonable.
  • Service and support: Coverity offers a decent support package with email, call, and on-demand sessions available, while SonarQube offers extensive documentation and online resources for support, which is sufficient for their users.

Comparison Result: Based on the parameters we compared, SonarQube comes out ahead of Coverity. Although both products have valuable features and can be estimated as high-end solutions, our reviewers found that Coverity is an expensive solution with an unfriendly licensing mechanism and a difficult exit process, which may make it less accessible for smaller teams or companies with budgetary constraints.

To learn more, read our detailed Coverity vs. SonarQube Report (Updated: March 2024).
765,386 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"Coverity is easy to set up and has a less lengthy process to find vulnerabilities.""The most valuable feature of Coverity is the wrapper. We use the wrapper to build the C++ component, then we use the other code analysis to analyze the code to the build object, and then send back the result to the SonarQube server. Additionally, it is a powerful capabilities solution.""Provides software security, and helps to find potential security bugs or defects.""One of the most valuable features is Contributing Events. That particular feature helps the developer understand the root cause of a defect. So you can locate the starting point of the defect and figure out exactly how it is being exploited.""Coverity gives advisory and deviation features, which are some of the parts I liked.""The most valuable feature of Coverity is its software security feature called the Checker. If you share some vulnerability or weakness then the software can find any potential security bug or defect. The code integration tool enables some secure coding standards and implements some Checkers for Live Duo. So we can enable secure coding and Azure in this tool. So in our software, we can make sure our software combines some industry supervised data.""The product is easy to use.""It's pretty stable. I rate the stability of Coverity nine out of ten."

More Coverity Pros →

"It is working fine. It provides a good value for money.""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.""If you want to have your code scanned and timed then this is a good tool.""Improve the code coverage and evaluates the technical steps and percentage of code being resolved.""The most valuable features are the segregation containment and the suspension of product services.""SonarQube is one of the more popular solutions because it supports 29 languages.""One of the most valuable features of SonarQube is its ability to detect code quality during development. There are rules that define various technologies—Java, C#, Python, everything—and these rules declare the coding standards and code quality. With SonarQube, everything is detectable during the time of development and continuous integration, which is an advantage. SonarQube also has a Quality Gate, where the code should reach 85%. Below that, the code cannot be promoted to a further environment, it should be in a development environment only. So the checks are there, and SonarQube will provide that increase. It also provides suggestions on how the code can be fixed and methods of going about this, without allowing hackers to exploit the code. Another valuable feature is that it is tightly integrated with third-party tools. For example, we can see the SonarQube metrics in Bitbucket, the code repository. Once I raise the full request, the developer, team lead, or even the delivery lead can see the code quality metrics of the deliverable so that they can make a decision. SonarQube will also cover all of the top OWASP vulnerabilities, however it doesn't have penetration testing or hacker testing. We use other tools, like Checkmarx, to do penetration testing from the outside.""The depth features I have found most valuable. You receive a quick comprehensive comparison overview regarding the current release and the last release and what type of depths dependency or duplication should be used. This is going to help you to make a more readable code and have more flexibility for the engineers to understand how things should work when they do not know."

More SonarQube Pros →

Cons
"Reporting engine needs to be more robust.""It should be easier to specify your own validation routines and sanitation routines.""Its price can be improved. Price is always an issue with Synopsys.""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.""Coverity takes a lot of time to dereference null pointers.""It would be great if we could customize the rules to focus on critical issues.""The solution is a bit complex to use in comparison to other products that have many plugins.""The level of vulnerability that this solution covers could be improved compared to other open source tools."

More Coverity Cons →

"The product must improve security analysis.""We previously experienced issues with security but a segregated security violation has been implemented and the issues we experienced are being fixed.""The scanning part could be improved in SonarQube. We have used Coverity for scanning, and we have the critical issues reported by Coverity. When we used SonarQube for scanning and looked at the results, it seems that some of them have incorrect input. This part can be improved for C and C++ languages.""The exporting capabilities could be improved. Currently, exporting is fully dependent on the SonarQube environment.""It would be a great add-on if SonarQube could update its database for vulnerabilities or plugging parts.""The reporting can be improved.""SonarQube could be improved with more dynamic testing—basically, now, it's a static code analysis scan. For example, when the developer writes the code and does the corresponding unit test, he can cover functional and non-functional. So the SonarQube could be improved by helping to execute unit tests and test dynamically, using various parameters, and to help detect any vulnerabilities. Currently, it'll just give the test case and say whether it passes or fails—it won't give you any other input or dynamic testing. They could use artificial intelligence to build a feature that would help developers identify and fix issues in the early stages, which would help us deliver the product and reduce costs. Another area with room for improvement is in regard to automating things, since the process currently needs to be done manually.""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."

More SonarQube Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "Coverity is quite expensive."
  • "The licensing fees are based on the number of lines of code."
  • "The price is competitive with other solutions."
  • "It is expensive."
  • "Coverity is very expensive."
  • "This is a pretty expensive solution. The overall value of the solution could be improved if the price was reduced. Licensing is done on an annual basis."
  • "The pricing is very reasonable compared to other platforms. It is based on a three year license."
  • "The pricing is on the expensive side, and we are paying for a couple of items."
  • More Coverity Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "This is open source."
  • "We did not purchase a license (required for C++ support), but this option was considered."
  • "Get the paid version which allows the customized dashboard and provides technical support."
  • "People can try the free licenses and later can seek buying plugins/support, etc. once they started liking it."
  • "This product is open source and very convenient."
  • "The licence is standard open source licensing"
  • "The price point on SonarQube is good."
  • "Some of the plugins that were previously free are not free now."
  • More SonarQube Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer: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… more »
    Top Answer:The solution has improved our code quality and security very well.
    Top Answer: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… more »
    Top Answer: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… more »
    Top Answer: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 are… more »
    Ranking
    Views
    18,401
    Comparisons
    11,920
    Reviews
    22
    Average Words per Review
    382
    Rating
    8.0
    Views
    54,870
    Comparisons
    43,230
    Reviews
    18
    Average Words per Review
    397
    Rating
    8.0
    Comparisons
    Klocwork logo
    Compared 9% of the time.
    Fortify on Demand logo
    Compared 6% of the time.
    Checkmarx logo
    Compared 6% of the time.
    Veracode logo
    Compared 5% of the time.
    Polyspace Code Prover logo
    Compared 4% of the time.
    Checkmarx logo
    Compared 22% of the time.
    SonarCloud logo
    Compared 13% of the time.
    Veracode logo
    Compared 10% of the time.
    Snyk logo
    Compared 7% of the time.
    Sonatype Lifecycle logo
    Compared 5% of the time.
    Also Known As
    Synopsys Static Analysis
    Sonar
    Learn More
    Interactive Demo
    Synopsys
    Demo Not Available
    Overview

    Coverity gives you the speed, ease of use, accuracy, industry standards compliance, and scalability that you need to develop high-quality, secure applications. Coverity identifies critical software quality defects and security vulnerabilities in code as it’s written, early in the development process, when it’s least costly and easiest to fix. With the Code Sight integrated development environment (IDE) plugin, developers get accurate analysis in seconds in their IDE as they code. Precise actionable remediation advice and context-specific eLearning help your developers understand how to fix their prioritized issues quickly, without having to become security experts. 

    Coverity seamlessly integrates automated security testing into your CI/CD pipelines and supports your existing development tools and workflows. Choose where and how to do your development: on-premises or in the cloud with the Polaris Software Integrity Platform (SaaS), a highly scalable, cloud-based application security platform. Coverity supports 22 languages and over 70 frameworks and templates.

    SonarQube is a self-managed open-source platform that helps developers create code devoid of quality and vulnerability issues. By integrating seamlessly with the top DevOps platforms in the Continuous Integration (CI) pipeline, SonarQube continuously inspects projects across multiple programming languages, providing immediate status feedback while coding. SonarQube’s quality gates become part of your release pipeline, displaying pass/fail results for new code based on quality profiles you customize to your company standards. Following Sonar’s Clean as You Code methodology guarantees that only software of the highest quality makes it to production.

    At its core, SonarQube includes a static code analyzer that identifies bugs, security vulnerabilities, hidden secrets, and code smells. The platform guides you through issue resolution, fostering a culture of continuous improvement. SonarQube’s comprehensive reporting is a valuable tool for dev teams to monitor their codebase's overall health and quality across multiple projects in their portfolio. With SonarQube, you can achieve a state of Clean Code, leading to secure, reliable, and maintainable software.

    Sonar is the only solution combining the power of industry-leading software quality analysis with static application security testing (SAST) and real-time coding guidance in the IDE (with SonarLint) to meet the DevOps and DevSecOps demand of putting agility, automation, and security in the hands of developers. Further accelerate DevOps continuous integration by helping developers find and fix issues in code before the software testing stage, reducing the churn of finding, fixing, rebuilding, and retesting your app.

    With over 5,000 Clean Code rules, SonarQube analyzes 30+ of the most popular programming languages, including dozens of frameworks, the top DevOps platforms (GitLab, GitHub, Azure DevOps, and Bitbucket, and more), and the leading infrastructure as code (IaC) platforms.

    SonarQube is the most trusted static code analyzer used by over 7 million developers and 400,000 organizations globally to clean over half a trillion lines of code.

    Sample Customers
    MStar Semiconductor, Alcatel-Lucent
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Manufacturing Company36%
    Computer Software Company23%
    Comms Service Provider14%
    Retailer9%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Manufacturing Company27%
    Computer Software Company16%
    Financial Services Firm7%
    Government5%
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company30%
    Financial Services Firm21%
    Comms Service Provider7%
    Insurance Company6%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm17%
    Computer Software Company15%
    Manufacturing Company11%
    Government6%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business18%
    Midsize Enterprise15%
    Large Enterprise68%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business13%
    Midsize Enterprise10%
    Large Enterprise76%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business25%
    Midsize Enterprise15%
    Large Enterprise60%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business17%
    Midsize Enterprise13%
    Large Enterprise71%
    Buyer's Guide
    Coverity vs. SonarQube
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Coverity vs. SonarQube and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
    765,386 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Coverity is ranked 4th in Application Security Testing (AST) with 33 reviews while SonarQube is ranked 1st in Application Security Testing (AST) with 108 reviews. Coverity is rated 7.8, while SonarQube is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Coverity writes "Best SAST tool to check software quality issues". On the other hand, the top reviewer of SonarQube writes "Easy to integrate and has a plug-in that supports both C and C++ languages". Coverity is most compared with Klocwork, Fortify on Demand, Checkmarx, Veracode and Polyspace Code Prover, whereas SonarQube is most compared with Checkmarx, SonarCloud, Veracode, Snyk and Sonatype Lifecycle. See our Coverity vs. SonarQube report.

    See our list of best Application Security Testing (AST) vendors.

    We monitor all Application Security Testing (AST) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.