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Black Duck SCA pros and cons

Vendor: Black Duck

3.8 out of 5

22 reviews
85% willing to recommend

Pros & Cons summary

Black Duck SCA impresses with robust vulnerability scanning that's user-friendly and constantly updated. Its seamless integration with development tools aids in compliance and audit readiness. With effective binary file scanning and comprehensive knowledge, it excels in risk management. However, initial setup complexity and slow scanning affect user experience. Cloud-only deployment raises security concerns, and high costs deter infrequent users. Improved integration with IntelliJ IDEA and Coverity could enhance usability.

Buyer's Guide

Get pricing advice, tips, use cases and valuable features from real users of this product.

Prominent pros & cons

PROS

Black Duck SCA auto analyzes components and highlights developer impacts from an intellectual property perspective.

The vulnerability scanning feature of Black Duck SCA is highly valuable and easy to use.

Black Duck SCA offers a vast knowledge base and effective management system for identifying licensing and potential breach issues.

Black Duck SCA seamlessly integrates with Docker to scan binary files for open vulnerabilities, providing immediate results and updates.

Black Duck SCA excels in software composition analysis for effective security risk management and accurate dependency identification.

CONS

Black Duck SCA lacks integration with IntelliJ IDEA and needs more native integration with Coverity.

It is limited by the size of the software it can handle and the initial setup is complex.

Black Duck SCA is a cloud-only solution, which may require companies to upload code to its cloud system, causing reluctance.

The pricing is higher compared to other competitor products, and the cost is too high given the infrequent use.

The documentation is scattered, and improvements are needed in pricing models and documentation.

Black Duck SCA Pros review quotes

TO

Consulting Partner, Cyber Security Delivery - Africa at DeltaGRiC Consulting

May 28, 2019

It highlights what the developers have done, and it shows the impact from an intellectual property point of view.

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ZR

Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at FOSSAWARE

Jan 15, 2020

I like the fact that the product auto analyzes components.

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reviewer1472997

CTO at a computer software company with 11-50 employees

Dec 15, 2020

The knowledge base and the management system are the most valuable features of Black Duck Hub. It has a very helpful management environment. They offer an editor where we can check the discovered license, which is retrieved from their knowledge base. They have a huge knowledge base build over the years. It gives you some possibilities, such as this license with possibility A could cause a vulnerability issue or a potential breach.

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reviewer2587080

IP Head at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

May 16, 2025

Black Duck's ability to identify dependencies very accurately has been most valuable in identifying and mitigating risks.

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Solutions Architect at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

Apr 12, 2024

We didn't have a central inventory to quickly identify issues or determine how many products were affected. Now under Black Duck, it's all consolidated. You search for a component and immediately see which products use it.

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Alina-Eugenia Negulescu

Group IT Vendor Management Director at Twoday

Aug 25, 2023

Policy management is a valuable feature.

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DevOps Engineer at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Sep 15, 2023

The UI is the solution's most valuable feature since it allows for easy pipeline integration.

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reviewer1421445

Former SVP at a manufacturing company with 5,001-10,000 employees

Sep 27, 2020

The solution works well on Mac products.

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SS

Project Lead at ABB

Apr 19, 2024

The cloud option of the product is always available and a positive aspect of the solution.

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SS

Project Lead at ABB

Jun 7, 2020

The stability is okay.

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Black Duck SCA Cons review quotes

TO

Consulting Partner, Cyber Security Delivery - Africa at DeltaGRiC Consulting

May 28, 2019

I would like to see more integration with other solutions, such as IntelliJ IDEA.

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ZR

Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at FOSSAWARE

Jan 15, 2020

The scanner client is limited by the size of software it can handle.

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reviewer1472997

CTO at a computer software company with 11-50 employees

Dec 15, 2020

It is a cloud-only solution. In many cases, companies like to evaluate the software, but they're very reluctant to give you the software. It would be great if they could offer an on-prem component that could be used to scan the code and then upload the discovery results to the cloud and get all the information from there, but there is no such possibility. You have to upload the code to the Black Duck cloud system. Of course, they have a strong legal department, and they offer some configuration, but it is never enough. You have to give the code, which is a drawback. In modern designs like Snyk or FOSSA, you don't need to give the code. It requires more native integration with Coverity because they go together technically. You need both Coverity and Black Duck Hub. It would be really helpful for companies working in this space to get a combined offer from the same company. They should provide an option to buy Coverity for an additional fee. Coverity combined with Black Duck Hub will provide a one-step analysis to get everything you need and a unified report. It would be really great to be able to connect Black Duck Hub with Coverity unified reports.

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Free Report: Black Duck SCA Reviews and More

Learn what your peers think about Black Duck SCA. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: September 2025.

867,370 professionals have used our research since 2012.

reviewer2587080

IP Head at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

May 16, 2025

The initial setup of Black Duck is complex. It's not very straightforward. You need a lot of support and hand-holding from the Black Duck team itself for it to be deployed successfully across the organization.

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Solutions Architect at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

Apr 12, 2024

It's still a bit inconsistent. For example, if I scan today, it might not show the same results tomorrow.

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Alina-Eugenia Negulescu

Group IT Vendor Management Director at Twoday

Aug 25, 2023

The documentation is quite scattered.

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DevOps Engineer at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Sep 15, 2023

The solution's pricing model and documentation areas of concern where improvement is needed.

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reviewer1421445

Former SVP at a manufacturing company with 5,001-10,000 employees

Sep 27, 2020

We're not too sure about the extension of the firewall. It never shows up in the Hub.

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SS

Project Lead at ABB

Apr 19, 2024

The tool's documentation and support are areas of concern where improvements are required.

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SS

Project Lead at ABB

Jun 7, 2020

It needs to be more user-friendly for developers and in general, to ensure compliance.

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Show 10 more reviews (out of 22)

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Product Categories

Product Categories

Software Composition Analysis (SCA)

Popular Comparisons

Popular Comparisons

GitLab vs Black Duck SCA

Snyk vs Black Duck SCA

Veracode vs Black Duck SCA

Mend.io vs Black Duck SCA

JFrog Xray vs Black Duck SCA

Sonatype Lifecycle vs Black Duck SCA

Semgrep vs Black Duck SCA

Polaris Platform vs Black Duck SCA

ReversingLabs vs Black Duck SCA

FOSSA vs Black Duck SCA

Apiiro vs Black Duck SCA

CAST Highlight vs Black Duck SCA

Cycode vs Black Duck SCA

Checkmarx Software Composition Analysis vs Black Duck SCA

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