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Black Duck SCA vs CodeSentry comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 22, 2026

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)
3rd
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
CodeSentry
Ranking in Software Composition Analysis (SCA)
29th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.5
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Software Composition Analysis (SCA) category, the mindshare of Black Duck SCA is 9.2%, down from 18.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of CodeSentry is 0.9%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Software Composition Analysis (SCA) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Black Duck SCA9.2%
CodeSentry0.9%
Other89.9%
Software Composition Analysis (SCA)
 

Featured Reviews

SS
Project Lead at ABB
Compliance checks have improved while vulnerability coverage and SBOM accuracy still need work
I think Black Duck SCA needs to improve on the overall approach. I assume that the people who developed Black Duck SCA believe that users will use this tool for some time in a full-fledged way with all those features. However, the way it really works with product development or in a software development life cycle is that this is just one of the steps for checking whether something is license compliant, whether it has vulnerabilities, or whether the SBOM is generated. It is just one of those steps in the software development process. The expectation from the tool's perspective is that users have to go into the Black Duck SCA portal, look at each of those items, and if something is not correct, try to find it out and update or configure the right CPEs or PURLs or those kinds of things. In reality, most users would not have time for this because they would have done this as part of the build and would generate an SBOM as part of the build. The tool should be quite usable. If a feature works properly and correctly, then nobody will go back and try to spend time on that. For example, if I generate an SBOM and that SBOM has a particular CPE and there are multiple sources, the tool should produce those CPEs with vulnerabilities, put them into the SBOM, and allow me to move forward. If there are more bugs or more configuration requirements, the usage will come down. It is like a mobile application: if there is too much data that needs to be looked at, configured, and used, then the number of users would come down. The tool should be fast, usable, and accurate. Users should just be able to use it without needing to learn too much. The learning curve should be less when using a tool, and the usage should be easy with basic understanding. They should not need to go through complex processes and can assume that whatever data is given is correct. That is where the whole problem with Black Duck SCA lies. The documentation is not really on the mark. For example, if there is a functionality, such as wanting to see a CPE, the documentation should show how to get this via API or see it and how to configure that with examples. Most of the time the tool says it is all in the community, which is not ideal. The community is different from a conceptual view. The community is for bugs and issues that users want to report. However, people who are looking at the tool fresh and need to see functionality such as scan configuration need clear documentation. If I want to see the scan configurations and how to do it, there are videos, but there should be clear documentation with examples, such as how to configure for Docker using specific commands and methods. This example could be clear documentation and should not be redirected to the community every time. If there is a problem or those kinds of issues, they should go to the community and solutions will be found. However, for basic documentation on features being provided, I do not see that kind of clear documentation with clear examples.
RR
Engineer at a manufacturing company with 11-50 employees
Easy-to-install with efficient vulnerability detection features
We use the product for automotive detection of vulnerabilities The product's most valuable feature is the CWE ratio. The product's installation speed needs improvement. It should be less than 30 to 45 minutes. We have been using CodeSentry for the last one and a half years. It is a stable…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The installation is very easy."
"Black Duck's ability to identify dependencies very accurately has been most valuable in identifying and mitigating risks."
"No one tool is perfect, but if you're comparing to the rest of the tools on the market, Black Duck comes out on top."
"The solution is very good at scanning and evaluating open source software."
"This solution helps our customers to understand what really lies in their application."
"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."
"The UI is the solution's most valuable feature since it allows for easy pipeline integration."
"It highlights what the developers have done, and it shows the impact from an intellectual property point of view."
"The product's most valuable feature is the CWE ratio."
 

Cons

"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 would like to see improvements in Black Duck's reporting capabilities."
"The initial setup is complex."
"The solution's pricing model and documentation areas of concern where improvement is needed."
"The initial setup could be simplified. It was somewhat complex."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"The product's installation speed needs improvement. It should be less than 30 to 45 minutes."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The price is low. It's not an expensive solution."
"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."
"The price is quite high because the behavior of the software during the scan is similar to competing products."
"The price charged by Black Duck is exorbitant."
"It is expensive."
"Depending on the use case, the cost could range from $10,000 USD to $70,000 USD."
"The pricing is a little high."
"The product has reasonable pricing."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
11%
University
5%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Large Enterprise17
No data available
 

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 needs improvement with Black Duck?
I think Black Duck SCA needs to improve on the overall approach. I assume that the people who developed Black Duck SCA believe that users will use this tool for some time in a full-fledged way with...
What is your primary use case for Black Duck?
The primary use cases are compliance and scanning in terms of license compliance and trying to identify snippets, particularly if there are any snippets being identified that are coming from open s...
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Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Samsung, Siemens, ScienceLogic, BryterCX, Dynatrace
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Snyk, Veracode, Black Duck and others in Software Composition Analysis (SCA). Updated: May 2026.
902,270 professionals have used our research since 2012.