Black Duck SCA vs CAST Highlight comparison

Black Duck and CAST are both solutions in the Software Composition Analysis (SCA) category. Black Duck is ranked #2 with an average rating of 7.0, while CAST is ranked #14 with an average rating of 7.7. Black Duck holds a 15.7% mindshare in SCA, compared to CAST’s 1.1% mindshare. Additionally, 85% of Black Duck users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 85% of CAST users who would recommend it.

Black Duck SCA

Read 22 Black Duck SCA reviews

10,792 Views
8,849 Comparison Views

85% willing to recommend

CAST Highlight

Read 7 CAST Highlight reviews

1,442 Views
418 Comparison Views

85% willing to recommend

Black Duck SCA

CAST Highlight

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 15, 2025

Black Duck SCA and CAST Highlight are competing products in the software composition analysis market, each with strengths that cater to specific organizational needs. Black Duck SCA holds an edge in pricing and support, while CAST Highlight is favored for its comprehensive feature set.

Features: Black Duck SCA includes deep code scanning, license compliance, and automated vulnerability alerts, making it ideal for teams focused on security. CAST Highlight offers rapid code-scanning capabilities, insights into cloud readiness, technical debt, and open source risks, providing a distinct advantage in feature comprehensiveness.

Room for Improvement: Black Duck SCA can enhance its vulnerability identification and adapt to security side improvements. Its security robustness could be strengthened. CAST Highlight could improve in terms of providing more granular insights and enhancing the clarity of its visual reporting. Ease of use for some advanced features could also be refined.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Black Duck SCA provides a flexible deployment model, adaptable for various IT environments and reliable customer support. CAST Highlight offers a cloud-based solution for quick deployment and immediate productivity, emphasizing strong customer service focus.

Pricing and ROI: Black Duck SCA offers competitive pricing with a favorable ROI due to streamlined vulnerability management. While CAST Highlight may have higher setup costs, it delivers ROI through comprehensive application health insights that can justify the investment over time based on budget and return preferences.

To learn more, read our detailed Black Duck SCA vs. CAST Highlight Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Black Duck SCA vs. CAST Highlight

September 2025

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Helped 871,688 peers since 2012

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)

2nd

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

CAST Highlight

Ranking in Software Composition Analysis (SCA)

14th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Software Composition Analysis (SCA) category, the mindshare of Black Duck SCA is 15.7%, down from 21.7% 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
Product	Market Share (%)
Black Duck SCA	15.7%
CAST Highlight	1.1%
Other	83.2%

Software Composition Analysis (SCA)

Featured Reviews

Saravanan_Radhakrishnan

Senior Manager at Happiest Minds Technologies

Enables applications to be secure, but it must provide more open APIs

The product enables other applications to be secure. We use it to onboard 400 to 500 applications into the DevOps platform, protect them, and have a secure environment. The tool integrates well with different technologies, application stacks, and databases. The APIs are available. We can read the blogs in the community for open-source compliance and security. The community feeds are important. Black Duck is a leader in Gartner. It is a reliable solution.

Read full review

Jayanti Rode

Technical Associate Manager at Accenture

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."

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

"It is able to drill down to the source level."

"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 solution is very good at scanning and evaluating open source software."

"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."

"I like the fact that the product auto analyzes components."

More Black Duck SCA pros

"The most valuable features of CAST Highlight are automation and speed."

"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."

"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."

"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 solution provides agnostic blockers for platforms as well as for containerization."

"CAST Highlight is easy to use and has a good dashboard."

"It offers good performance."

"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."

Cons

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

"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."

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

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

"There are areas for improvement such as false positives and the scanning of containers."

"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 solution must provide more open APIs."

More Black Duck SCA cons

"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."

"If I received categorization in containerization blockers, it would save time."

"CAST Highlight could improve to allow us to comment and do a deep analysis by ourselves."

"The ease of configuration and customization could be improved in CAST Highlight."

"The reports that describe the issues of concern are rather abstract and the issues should be more clearly described to the user."

"There could be potential improvements or additional features added to CAST Highlight to make it better."

"There's a bit of a learning curve at the outset."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is a little high."

"The price charged by Black Duck is exorbitant."

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

"It is expensive."

"Depending on the use case, the cost could range from $10,000 USD to $70,000 USD."

"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."

"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 quite high because the behavior of the software during the scan is similar to competing products."

"Basic support is included with the standard licensing feed but it can be upgraded for an additional cost."

"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."

"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

12%

Insurance Company

Financial Services Firm

25%

Computer Software Company

12%

Government

Insurance Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	6
Large Enterprise	16

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	2
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	4

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...

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What do you like most about Black Duck?

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

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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...

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What do you like most about CAST Highlight?

The most valuable features of CAST Highlight are automation and speed.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

What needs improvement with CAST Highlight?

See all answers

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Compared 8% of the time

Sonatype Lifecycle vs Black Duck SCA

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Compared 12% of the time

Sonatype Lifecycle vs CAST Highlight

Compared 7% of the time

Veracode vs CAST Highlight

Compared 7% of the time

JFrog Xray vs CAST Highlight

Compared 6% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Black Duck SCA

October 2025

Download Black Duck SCA product report

Buyer's Guide

CAST Highlight

October 2025

Download CAST Highlight product report

Also Known As

Blackduck Hub, Black Duck Protex, Black Duck Security Checker

No data available

Overview

Black Duck is an essential tool for software composition analysis and license compliance. It identifies vulnerabilities effectively and supports security management in DevOps environments, offering integration, performance stability, and community support.

Organizations rely on Black Duck for seamless integration in CI/CD pipelines, thorough scanning of source and binary codes, and management of operational risks associated with open-source and commercial licenses. It plays a crucial role in security risk management and delivers a robust policy management framework. Users value its ease of use and reliable community support while benefiting from its comprehensive dependency visualization capabilities. Despite its strengths, there is room for enhancement in integration with other tools, UI friendliness, and reporting features.

What are Black Duck's key features?

Automated Component Analysis: Offers detailed insights into open-source components.
Vulnerability Scanning: Identifies and addresses potential security issues.
Knowledge Base: Extensive database for informed decision-making.
Policy Management: Comprehensive control over security policies.
Integration: Seamlessly fits into existing DevOps workflows.

What should users look for in ROI?

Security Assurance: Mitigates risks associated with open-source software.
Efficiency: Reduces time spent on manual auditing tasks.
License Compliance: Ensures compliance with open-source licenses.
Risk Management: Enhances operational risk management in software development.

Enterprise environments use Black Duck extensively for security, compliance, and risk management, ensuring software meets regulatory standards and mitigates vulnerabilities. Its implementation in specific industries aids in controlled and secure software development processes, underlining its role in maintaining rigorous security standards while delivering dependable performance.

Black Duck

CAST Highlight is a SaaS software intelligence product for performing rapid application portfolio analysis. It automatically analyzes source code of hundreds of applications in a week for Cloud Readiness, Software Composition Analysis (Open Source risks), Resiliency, and Technical Debt. Objective software insights from automated source code analysis combined with built-in qualitative surveys for business context enable more informed decision-making about application portfolios.

CAST is the software intelligence category leader. CAST technology can see inside custom applications with MRI-like precision, automatically generating intelligence about their inner workings - composition, architecture, transaction flows, cloud readiness, structural flaws, legal and security risks. It’s becoming essential for faster modernization for cloud, raising the speed and efficiency of Software Engineering, better open source risk control, and accurate technical due diligence. CAST operates globally with offices in North America, Europe, India, China. Visit www.castsoftware.com.

CAST

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

Buyer's Guide

Black Duck SCA vs. CAST Highlight

September 2025

Free Report: Black Duck SCA vs. CAST Highlight

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