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reviewer1361340 - PeerSpot reviewer
Project Lead at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Top 20
The documentation needs improvement, while its cloud takes care of the installation part smoothly
Pros and Cons
  • "The cloud option of the product is always available and a positive aspect of the solution."
  • "The tool's documentation and support are areas of concern where improvements are required."

What is most valuable?

In terms of advantages, Black Duck offers a big database.

What needs improvement?

From a customer satisfaction point of view, I am not satisfied with the product. I am also not satisfied with the documentation part of the product. If you want to use the tool, you will have to indulge in self-learning. In terms of customer interaction, I read the product three out of ten.

If you provide a feature in a product, either you should provide training to customers or provide clear documentation with an example of how to use it. The aforementioned aspect is not covered by the solution. You get no response from Black Duck's end if you ask for support to help you deal with the features provided by the product, which doesn't work even though the documentation claims that its functionalities work. The tool's team provides a reason that doesn't even closely relate to the problems faced by the user. In general, certain features in the product don't work. The tool's documentation and support are areas of concern where improvements are required.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Black Duck for four years. I am a customer of the product.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I have experience with FossID and FOSSA. There are good products available in the market, and I would only be able to choose them based on my company's decision. From a user perspective, Black Duck is not viable for an organization since you cannot rely on a tool that offers not-so-good support or documentation. In the near future, I believe that my company should switch over from Black Duck.

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How was the initial setup?

My company does not take care of the installation part of the tool, as it is something that is taken care of in the cloud. The cloud option of the product is always available and a positive aspect of the solution.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The price charged by Black Duck is exorbitant. For the features provided by the product, I would not want to pay a high price. There are many other products in the market that offer better features and support services compared to Black Duck at a lower cost.

Even though my company is ready to pay extra charges for additional support from Black Duck, if a feature is given in a product and if it needs to be used by a user, then proper training and good documentation should be made available by the solution. If a certain set of users want to purchase a product, I believe that the solution should not charge them extra to teach them how to use the tool. A product can charge for the customization requested by users so that the tool is able to meet their specific needs. If a product offers a feature and somebody wants to use it even though they don't know how to use it, it is not acceptable for the solution to charge such users for training on how to use the tool's functionalities.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

If there are other products with a better database, then my company would prefer to move to such tools.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Senior Quality Manager at a financial services firm with 11-50 employees
Real User
Very good at scanning open source software and ensuring compliance
Pros and Cons
  • "The solution is very good at scanning and evaluating open source software."
  • "It can be cumbersome to use or invalidate open source software because there is a hold time to check requirements or common regulations to ensure compliance."

What is our primary use case?

Our company uses the solution to check open source software that is embedded in our products. 

What is most valuable?

The solution is very good at scanning and evaluating open source software. In the past, we had misunderstandings about the open source files in our products. 

The solution checks for open source license compliance. You provide the license for a software such as MIT and the solution scans documents, tabs, and files by date. 

What needs improvement?

It can be cumbersome to use or invalidate open source software because there is a hold time to check requirements or common regulations and ensure compliance. 

Sometimes the solution produces incorrect or ambiguous results so that needs improvement to ensure there are no misunderstandings. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the solution for three years. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution is scalable. We have different departments and it is easy to process change orders or add users. 

The scalability is rated an eight out of ten. 

How are customer service and support?

The technical support is very, very good and their response time is very quick. 

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I don't have experience with other solutions. 

What about the implementation team?

The setup and implementation was completed by the supplier. We just waited for them to complete the process and then began using the solution.

What other advice do I have?

The solution is the most popular open software scanning tool. I rate the solution an eight out of ten. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Black Duck
June 2025
Learn what your peers think about Black Duck. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: June 2025.
857,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Head: Open Source Program Office at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Feature-rich, with good security compliance
Pros and Cons
  • "Black Duck is pretty extensive in terms of the scan reserves and the vulnerability exposures. From that perspective, I'm happy with it."
  • "We have been having some issues with the latest releases where we are not able to scan our applications with the help of Black Duck."

What is our primary use case?

I am not working with Black Duck. I manage a team that works with Black Duck.

What is most valuable?

We are happy with this solution.

We have not yet explored all of the functionalities of Black Duck.

Black Duck is pretty extensive in terms of the scan reserves and the vulnerability exposures. From that perspective, I'm happy with it.

What needs improvement?

We have been having some issues with the latest releases where we are not able to scan our applications with the help of Black Duck. I feel that it is just a matter of time and it should be fine.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been working with Black Duck for a little more than one year.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is a very small group of people who are using this solution in our organization.

My team is the open-source program office and we have three people who are using Black Duck and the other teams would be in the range of fewer than 20 people.

How are customer service and technical support?

We contacted technical support as we were not able to fix this issue ourselves. We are not the primary contact who has procured the product, they are based out of Paris. We are using the license but we have to go through them to contact Black Duck to get their help.

I am not able to share an opinion on the support because we raised the issue only a few weeks back, and this being the summer vacation period, a lot of people were unavailable. I don't know whether that delay is being caused by our counterparts in Paris or if it is really caused by Black Duck.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We have been using other tools, but our IT division acquired Black Duck and we wanted to use it across the organization.

As far as security is concerned, it has always been a priority in our organization. We had different tools that we were using for security, but when it comes to operational risk and compliance and licensing, we didn't have any specific approach before Black Duck.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

We are not the primary team to procure this solution. My counterparts in Paris are the only ones who are aware of the pricing.

We are only using a few of the licenses because they had acquired several licenses, but I'm not involved in the pricing and the contract negotiations.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate Black Duck an eight out of ten.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Tarun-Sharma - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Solution Architect at IBM
Real User
Responsive support, useful vulnerabilities discovery, and high availability
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable feature of Black Duck is the seamless integration to scan our Docker binary files, it provides us all open vulnerabilities, and it ensures a reference point from where it finds the vulnerability is up to date. For example, if there is any new vulnerability found, they are immediately available in the Black Duck. There is no delay in finding the vulnerabilities, they are called out in our code immediately."
  • "Black Duck can improve the time it takes for a scan. Most of the time it's not ideal when integrated with the live DevSecOps pipeline. We have to create a separate job to scan the library because it takes a couple of hours to scan all those libraries. The scanning could be faster."

What is our primary use case?

We use Black Duck mainly for the DevSecOps pipeline. For the microservices-based application, we have to deploy Black Duck into the Kubernetes environment. 

I have worked for multiple clients across the world, such as the US and Europe in the banking, retail, and energy sectors.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature of Black Duck is the seamless integration to scan our Docker binary files, it provides us all open vulnerabilities, and it ensures a reference point from where it finds the vulnerability is up to date. For example, if there is any new vulnerability found, they are immediately available in the Black Duck. There is no delay in finding the vulnerabilities, they are called out in our code immediately.

What needs improvement?

Black Duck can improve the time it takes for a scan. Most of the time it's not ideal when integrated with the live DevSecOps pipeline. We have to create a separate job to scan the library because it takes a couple of hours to scan all those libraries. The scanning could be faster.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Black Duck for a few years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability of Black Duck is very good.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Black Duck is scalable.

How are customer service and support?

The technical support from Black Duck is very good.

How was the initial setup?

Black Duck is easy to install. The full implementation took a couple of hours.

What about the implementation team?

I do the implementation of the solution.

What was our ROI?

We have seen a very high return on investment using Black Duck.

What other advice do I have?

I rate Black Duck a nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
reviewer1361340 - PeerSpot reviewer
Project Lead at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Top 20
Is able to drill down to the source level, but instead of providing scripts, they should provide functionalities through the UI
Pros and Cons
  • "It is able to drill down to the source level."
  • "They are giving a lot of APIs and Python scripts for certain functionalities, but instead of using APIs and Python scripts, they should provide these functionalities through the UI. Users should be able to customize and add more fields through the UI. Users should be able to add more fields and generate reports. Currently, they are not giving flexibility in the UI. They're providing a script that simply generates an Excel file or CSV file. There is no flexibility."

What is most valuable?

It is able to drill down to the source level.

What needs improvement?

We expect a lot more features. They have to improve it a lot in terms of the way they do the analysis. At the analysis level, more depth is required.

They are giving a lot of APIs and Python scripts for certain functionalities, but instead of using APIs and Python scripts, they should provide these functionalities through the UI. Users should be able to customize and add more fields through the UI. Users should be able to add more fields and generate reports. Currently, they are not giving flexibility in the UI. They're providing a script that simply generates an Excel file or CSV file. There is no flexibility.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using this solution for a year. We are using its latest version.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Because it is on the cloud, it is scalable. We have quite a significant number of users. Our users might be in the hundreds.

How are customer service and support?

Their support is not so strong. It is fine. It is not bad. If we go a little bit deeper on the technical side, they might not know about it.

How was the initial setup?

We didn't do the setup. They did the setup. My guess is that it is not so easy because it's done in the docker environment. For its maintenance, we need two people.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

It is expensive.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate it a seven out of ten.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1642500 - PeerSpot reviewer
Engineer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Leaderboard
Easy to use with a simple installation process and good stability
Pros and Cons
  • "The installation is very easy."
  • "Due to the fact that, with our software developer life cycle, we don't need to scan our source code every day or every week. For that reason, we find the cost is too high. We might only actually use it five to ten times a year, which makes it expensive."

What is most valuable?

It's a well-recognized tool in our industry. We have a lot of requests for the product from clients. 

The solution is very easy to use. 

The stability has been good over the years.

The installation is very easy.

What needs improvement?

Due to the fact that, with our software developer life cycle, we don't need to scan our source code every day or every week. For that reason, we find the cost is too high. We might only actually use it five to ten times a year, which makes it expensive.

For how long have I used the solution?

We've used the solution for about three or four years at this point. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is very good. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Not everyone uses the solution at our company. Mainly, just developers use it, and we have about 60 people on it. 

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Right now, we are considering changing to WhiteSource, however, we still might just keep Black Duck.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup isn't too difficult. It's a pretty straightforward, simple process. We have only installed it once, and I cannot recall how long the deployment actually took. It was a long time ago.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The cost of the solution is very high. We'd prefer if the product offered a monthly subscription.

What other advice do I have?

We are a customer and an end-user.

We are using Black Duck Hub.

I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten. We're mostly quite happy with the capabilities. 

Black Duck is a good, but not an inexpensive tool. If others want stability or a well-respected tool, I would recommend it. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1472997 - PeerSpot reviewer
CTO at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
Real User
Good knowledge base and management system and helpful for discovering commercial and open-source licenses
Pros and Cons
  • "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."
  • "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."

What is our primary use case?

We use Black Duck Hub to discover commercial and open-source licenses and the licensed software used by a company. Whenever a company enters the M&A process, a preliminary step called due diligence is done. A part of it is the technical discovery that includes finding out what software the company is using and whether the software is linked with any open-source software or commercial product for which you have to pay a license.

Our main use case is to discover the license and find out if there is an obligation for the paid license. We also check the exposure of the software to open-source libraries. Open source is great, and it is a preferred solution for many companies. Around 90% of the software is now open source, but it is also exposed to vulnerabilities. So, through the dependencies that we were discovering, we were also working on the security exposure of the software product. For this purpose, we use Black Duck Hub.

What is most valuable?

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. 

What needs improvement?

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.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for two and a half years. I was serving as vice president of engineering and integration in a company in Austin, Texas. I was assigned to acquisitions of companies, more specifically to the technical due diligence that takes place during acquisition. So, we used Black Duck Hub very extensively. We had the biggest ever contract with Synopsys for almost $1 million per year, and we used Black Duck Hub to scan the license for each acquired company. We had a very aggressive acquisition plan of almost one acquisition every 15 days. So, I have accumulated quite a big experience with the Black Duck Hub tool.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

From the company side, it's super scalable, but from the client's side, it's not that scalable. The issue with scalability is that if you have reserved 100 megabytes on Black Duck Hub, and eventually, you like to use 200 or 300 megabytes, the pricing policy requires extending your product permanently. This is really painful because you just need instant access to the higher, bigger space, but you don't want to buy it permanently. They should give the possibility to extend instantly by 50% or 80% more for a week or two weeks. This is quite common, and I have seen many cloud providers that let you pay instantly for a limited time, and you have the possibility to use a little bit more.

I have a team of six users who use Black Duck for the discovery, but the results are forwarded to many more things.

How are customer service and technical support?

In some cases, we have faced delays. We had reported issues, and we got the reply in 15 days or 20 days. Being a big organization, their support is rather slow. They prioritize these issues based on some logic unknown to me. If we have a big problem, we should get priority.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is super simple for the user because it is set up on the cloud. You just get an account and upload the code. You don't have to install it. There is no deployment. You just access the service from the cloud.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Black Duck is more suitable if you require a lot of licensing compliance. For smaller organizations, WhiteSource is better because its pricing policies are not really suitable for huge organizations.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I'm also currently testing WhiteSource, Black Duck Hub, FOSSA, Snyk, and a few more solutions. My assignment is to provide an evaluation for a blockchain platform.

What other advice do I have?

I would advise others to be careful with the provisioning of the space that you need. Black Duck has been the key player in the market for many years. It is totally in conjunction with Coverity and forms a suite of security and quality. It is frequently used in M&A or mergers and acquisition cases. It is the top product in the market.

I would rate Black Duck a nine out of ten. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Private Cloud
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user

Black Duck can be installed in-house. It only communicates with their servers to fetch updated its Knowledge Base, which is used to identify open source components and vulnerabilities. We sometimes send the can results to Synopsys/Black Duck support, but that does not contain any of our code, just the analysis of the scanned files, which we judged to not be a security risk for us.

Lead Product Enginner at Harman International Industries, Incorporated
Real User
Stable, with good vulnerability scanning, and it's priced well
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable feature is the vulnerability scanning, and that it's easy to use."
  • "The initial setup could be simplified. It was somewhat complex."

What is our primary use case?

We are using this solution for software analysis and vulnerability scanning.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature is the vulnerability scanning, and that it's easy to use.

What needs improvement?

The initial setup could be simplified. It was somewhat complex.

In the next release, I would like to see packet analysis and binary analysis included as features.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using Black Duck for approximately four years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We have not had any issues with stability.

It's a stable solution.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The number of users on the project depends on the license and the project.

How are customer service and technical support?

I am from the DevOps team and have not had any contact with technical support. It's not an area that I am a part of.

If I have any issues, I escalate them to our team and they reach out to technical support.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Previously, we did not use any other solution.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is complex.

We had some issues finding the report.

The length of deployment is different, it varies on the requirements.

What about the implementation team?

The implementation was done by someone in our company.

The maintenance is done through the vendor.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The price is low. It's not an expensive solution.

What other advice do I have?

This is a product that I would recommend to others.

I would rate Black Duck an eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Private Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Black Duck Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: June 2025
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Black Duck Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.