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Black Duck SCA vs FlexNet Code Insight comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 21, 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)
2nd
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
FlexNet Code Insight
Ranking in Software Composition Analysis (SCA)
17th
Average Rating
4.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Software Composition Analysis (SCA) category, the mindshare of Black Duck SCA is 12.5%, down from 20.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of FlexNet Code Insight is 1.2%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Software Composition Analysis (SCA) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Black Duck SCA12.5%
FlexNet Code Insight1.2%
Other86.3%
Software Composition Analysis (SCA)
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2587080 - PeerSpot reviewer
IP Head at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Delivers robust accuracy for identifying and mitigating risks but setup and security can improve
My deployment of Black Duck will take a few hours minimum. In the earlier on-premise scenario, which I've seen in other organizations, it takes a few days because you have to get the server installed, then actually keep installing various patch upgrades as it happens. The cloud version is a lot faster, probably taking only a few hours to complete. Regarding Black Duck leveraging AI to enhance security scanning of open-source components, I would not be able to address that because I have not yet explored that area significantly. Based on my experience, I would recommend Black Duck to other people if they can digest the higher cost. It helps in many aspects. I would rate this solution overall at 7 to 8. Disclaimer: The review is provided in personal capacity as an individual and not the opinion of the organization or corporate to which I belong to.
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 product enables other applications to be secure."
"The most valuable feature for me in Black Duck is its ability to scan binary files effectively."
"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."
"I like the fact that the product auto analyzes components."
"The most valuable feature is the vulnerability scanning, and that it's easy to use."
"Black Duck is pretty extensive in terms of the scan reserves and the vulnerability exposures. From that perspective, I'm happy with it."
"The UI is the solution's most valuable feature since it allows for easy pipeline integration."
"The installation is very easy."
"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

"There are areas for improvement such as false positives and the scanning of containers."
"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."
"The tool's documentation and support are areas of concern where improvements are required."
"The scanner client is limited by the size of software it can handle."
"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 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."
"We're not too sure about the extension of the firewall. It never shows up in the Hub."
"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."
"I found the user interface cumbersome and difficult to use."
 

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 price is quite high because the behavior of the software during the scan is similar to competing products."
"It is expensive."
"The pricing is a little high."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
17%
Computer Software Company
12%
Healthcare Company
4%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Large Enterprise16
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 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...
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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, Black Duck, Veracode and others in Software Composition Analysis (SCA). Updated: January 2026.
879,986 professionals have used our research since 2012.