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Black Duck SCA vs CAST Highlight comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 15, 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

Black Duck SCA
Ranking in Software Composition Analysis (SCA)
1st
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
CAST Highlight
Ranking in Software Composition Analysis (SCA)
15th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Software Composition Analysis (SCA) category, the mindshare of Black Duck SCA is 16.7%, down from 22.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of CAST Highlight is 1.1%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Software Composition Analysis (SCA) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Black Duck16.7%
CAST Highlight1.1%
Other82.2%
Software Composition Analysis (SCA)
 

Featured Reviews

Aaron  P - PeerSpot reviewer
A tool with a great UI to conduct a vulnerability scan that needs to provide better scalability options
The only thing I don't like about the product is that it is quite expensive and it is not very feasible as an open-source platform. One of the other things that I hate about the product stems from my dislike of contacting the support team of Black Duck to know if there are some issues since debugging some issues can be quite difficult. I don't find reliable or feasible documents to help me debug all those issues. The solution's pricing model and documentation areas of concern where improvement is needed. In our company, we get some issues or errors when we run a pipeline, and debugging those errors can be tedious and time-consuming. To minimize the time for debugging errors, I feel that Black Duck needs to add some documentation or something that will make it easy for users to debug the errors instead of seeking help from Black Duck's support team every time. Black Duck can add features, like viewing the vulnerability, to help users figure out the next step if they detect some vulnerability while also providing them some steps to help them follow some remedial steps, along with an explanation of measures to mitigate such issues. Black Duck's UI or server doesn't provide functionality to help users view the vulnerability, which is a process that needs to be automated. The solution's scalability is an area that needs to improve.
Jayanti Rode - PeerSpot reviewer
Identifies migration blockers and boosters while facing challenges with platform-specific roadblocks
The solution provides agnostic blockers for platforms as well as for containerization. Within that containerization, it offers generic blockers. However, my project might require it to provide Windows-specific blockers or Linux-specific blockers, as I often work with only one platform at a time. If I received categorization in containerization blockers, it would save time. Understanding only the OS-specific blockers means I would avoid resolving irrelevant issues, thus saving time. Initially, I receive a response from support, however, if there is involvement from R&D or other teams, it may take longer than expected. The support team is challenging when sharing source code. As this is a static code analysis tool, it sometimes requires source code for R&D. However, CAST clients may be restricted from sharing due to business logic and nondisclosure agreements. This creates a challenge, and I may have to share pseudo code or seek client approval, risking escalation.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Policy management is a valuable feature."
"The most valuable feature is the vulnerability scanning, and that it's easy to use."
"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 highlights what the developers have done, and it shows the impact from an intellectual property point of view."
"The product enables other applications to be secure."
"The installation is very easy."
"The solution is very good at scanning and evaluating open source software."
"It is able to drill down to the source level."
"It offers good performance."
"The most valuable features of CAST Highlight are automation and speed."
"CAST Highlight provides a clear overview of the role portfolio and allows users to assess the overall quality of the environment. Users can see where improvements are needed and follow up on trends of the application."
"The way it tells you which codebase is more ready for the cloud and which codebase is less ready is very valuable. It works seamlessly with most languages."
"CAST Highlight is easy to use and has a good dashboard."
"The most valuable features of the CAST Highlight are the interface and there are three notations that are very simple to understand and communicate with."
"In cloud migration, I use CAST highlight to identify blockers, which are the negative road patterns, and also the boosters, which are positive code patterns."
"The solution provides agnostic blockers for platforms as well as for containerization."
 

Cons

"There are areas for improvement such as false positives and the scanning of containers."
"The documentation is quite scattered."
"It needs to be more user-friendly for developers and in general, to ensure compliance."
"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."
"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."
"Black Duck does not have the SBOM management part. I would like to see this feature added in the future."
"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."
"I would like to see improvements in Black Duck's reporting capabilities."
"The reports that describe the issues of concern are rather abstract and the issues should be more clearly described to the user."
"CAST Highlight could improve to allow us to comment and do a deep analysis by ourselves."
"Its price should be better. It is a pretty costly tool. They have two products: CAST Highlight and CAST AIP. I would expect CAST Highlight to have the Help dashboard and the Engineering dashboard. These dashboards are currently a part of CAST AIP, and if these are made available in CAST Highlight, customers won't have to use two different products all the time."
"There's a bit of a learning curve at the outset."
"There could be potential improvements or additional features added to CAST Highlight to make it better."
"The ease of configuration and customization could be improved in CAST Highlight."
"If I received categorization in containerization blockers, it would save time."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price charged by Black Duck is exorbitant."
"The pricing is a little high."
"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."
"It is expensive."
"The price is low. It's not an expensive solution."
"Depending on the use case, the cost could range from $10,000 USD to $70,000 USD."
"The price is quite high because the behavior of the software during the scan is similar to competing products."
"I rate the product's price one on a scale of one to ten, where one is a high price, and ten is a low price."
"CAST Highlight is an expensive solution. However, CAST Highlight is less expensive than the CAST AIP, but it remains too expensive and the professional services from CAST are also too expensive. The high price is part of the problem with the CAST solutions."
"Basic support is included with the standard licensing feed but it can be upgraded for an additional cost."
"CAST Highlight is an expensive solution."
"It is a pretty costly tool. A lot of customers are resistant to using it."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Manufacturing Company
15%
Computer Software Company
13%
Insurance Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
25%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
7%
Educational Organization
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Large Enterprise16
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise4
 

Questions from the Community

How does WhiteSource compare with Black Duck?
We researched Black Duck but ultimately chose WhiteSource when looking for an application security tool. WhiteSource is a software solution that enables agile open source security and license compl...
What do you like most about Black Duck?
The cloud option of the product is always available and a positive aspect of the solution.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Black Duck?
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...
What do you like most about CAST Highlight?
The most valuable features of CAST Highlight are automation and speed.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for CAST Highlight?
The pricing of CAST Highlight was not considered expensive or cheap, and no specific comment was made about the setup cost.
What needs improvement with CAST Highlight?
The solution provides agnostic blockers for platforms as well as for containerization. Within that containerization, it offers generic blockers. However, my project might require it to provide Wind...
 

Also Known As

Blackduck Hub, Black Duck Protex, Black Duck Security Checker
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Samsung, Siemens, ScienceLogic, BryterCX, Dynatrace
Wells Fargo, Bank of NY Mellon, Northern Trust, Microsoft, Amazon, IBM, BMW, AT&T, US Army, US Air Force, US Navy, John Hancock, Marsh & McLennan, Ernst & Young, PwC, Volkswagen, Boston Consulting Group, London Stock Exchange, Telefonica, Saur France, Total Energies France, SNCF
Find out what your peers are saying about Black Duck SCA vs. CAST Highlight and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
867,370 professionals have used our research since 2012.