No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Black Duck SCA vs FlexNet Code Insight 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
FlexNet Code Insight
Ranking in Software Composition Analysis (SCA)
21st
Average Rating
4.0
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 FlexNet Code Insight is 1.3%, up from 0.7% 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%
FlexNet Code Insight1.3%
Other89.5%
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.
A decent web interface for reports, but the snippet style code matching requires too much effort
Due to the "snippet match" nature of the scans, we found that it was too much effort to properly validate and catalog each open source component with every new project/product. Incremental results were also difficult to achieve even after consulting with the vendor. We found there were too many false positives and the code-snippet validator had bugs and presented too many false positives. My experience with this tool has turned me away from "snippet"-focused composition analysis. We have switched to one that uses more complete code signatures that do not require validation and review of findings in most cases.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The technical support has been fine, they help us a lot and we actually find them to be quite helpful."
"The most valuable feature is the vulnerability scanning, and that it's easy to use."
"Policy management is a valuable feature."
"The installation is very easy."
"The tool is giving a range for a given open-source component in a version and provides a list of vulnerabilities based on the sources with a lot of information."
"The cloud option of the product is always available and a positive aspect of the solution."
"We accidentally use third-party library APIs, which may not be secure. Our technical team may not have the end time or expertise to figure it out. Black Duck helps us with that and saves us time."
"The solution is stable."
"It had a web interface into the reporting tools that was decent, and open source components could be reported per project and/or aggregated similar to other software composition tools."
 

Cons

"You have to upload the code to the Black Duck cloud system. You have to give the code, which is a drawback."
"The tool needs to improve its pricing. Its configuration is complex and can be improved."
"I would like to see improvements in Black Duck's reporting capabilities."
"Right now, as it is, it's not okay."
"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."
"The initial setup is complex."
"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."
"We're not too sure about the extension of the firewall. It never shows up in the Hub."
"I found the user interface cumbersome and difficult to use."
"My experience with this tool has turned me away from "snippet"-focused composition analysis."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 pricing is a little high."
"The price is quite high because the behavior of the software during the scan is similar to competing products."
"Depending on the use case, the cost could range from $10,000 USD to $70,000 USD."
"The price charged by Black Duck is exorbitant."
"The price is low. It's not an expensive solution."
"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."
"It is expensive."
Information not available
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Software Composition Analysis (SCA) solutions are best for your needs.
900,196 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

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...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

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.
900,196 professionals have used our research since 2012.