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Black Duck vs Fortify Static Code Analyzer comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Software Composition Analysis (SCA) (1st)
Fortify Static Code Analyzer
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Static Code Analysis (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Security Software solutions, they serve different purposes. Black Duck is designed for Software Composition Analysis (SCA) and holds a mindshare of 19.3%, down 22.7% compared to last year.
Fortify Static Code Analyzer, on the other hand, focuses on Static Code Analysis, holds 11.9% mindshare, up 9.5% since last year.
Software Composition Analysis (SCA)
Static Code Analysis
 

Featured Reviews

Saravanan_Radhakrishnan - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Aphiwat Leetavorn. - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides extensive language support and enhances secure coding practices
The deployment of Fortify Static Code Analyzer needs to be simplified. It should be easier to install, perhaps through a container-based approach where everything is combined into one image or pack of containers. This change would facilitate easier installations and ensure all necessary components are connected and ready to use.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The UI is the solution's most valuable feature since it allows for easy pipeline integration."
"Policy management is a valuable feature."
"The installation is very easy."
"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 most valuable feature of Black Duck is the composition analysis feature, which is effective for security risk management."
"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 product enables other applications to be secure."
"You can really see what's happening after you've developed something."
"Fortify Static Code Analyzer tells us if there are any security leaks or not. If there are, then it's notifying us and does not allow us to pass the DevOps pipeline. If it is finds everything's perfect, as per our given guidelines, then it is allowing us to go ahead and start it, and we are able to deploy it."
"We are satisfied with this solution."
"I like the Fortify taxonomy as it provides us with a list of all of the vulnerabilities found. Fortify release updated rule packs quarterly, with accompanying documentation, that lets us know what new features are being released."
"Its flexibility is most valuable. It is such a flexible tool. It can be implemented in a number of ways. It can do anything you want it to do. It can be fully automated within a DevOps pipeline. It can also be used in an ad hoc, special test case scenario and anywhere in between."
"We've found the documentation to be very good."
"Fortify integrates with various development environments and tools, such as IDEs (Integrated Development Environments) and CI/CD pipelines."
"It's helped us free up staff time."
 

Cons

"The solution's pricing model and documentation areas of concern where improvement is needed."
"The documentation is quite scattered."
"We're not too sure about the extension of the firewall. It never shows up in the Hub."
"I would like to see more integration with other solutions, such as IntelliJ IDEA."
"There are areas for improvement such as false positives and the scanning of containers."
"The tool needs to improve its pricing. Its configuration is complex and can be improved."
"The scanner client is limited by the size of software it can handle."
"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."
"It can be tricky if you want to exclude some files from scanning. For instance, if you do not want to scan and push testing files to Fortify Software Security Center, that is tricky with some IDEs, such as IntelliJ. We found that there is an Exclude feature that is not working. We reported that to them for future fixing. It needs some work on the plugins to make them consistent across IDEs and make them easier."
"The pricing is a bit high."
"The generation of false positives should be reduced."
"Fortify Static Code Analyzer is a good solution, but sometimes we receive false positives. If they could reduce the number of false positives it would be good."
"Not all languages are supported in Fortify."
"The product shows false positives for Python applications."
"False positives need improvement in the future. Fortify's vulnerability remediation guidance helps improve code security, but I think they need to improve the focus of the solution, as it still contains many bugs and needs a thorough review."
"Streamlining the upgrade process and enhancing compatibility would make it easier for us to keep our security tools up-to-date."
 

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 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 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 licensing is expensive and is in the 50K range."
"It has a couple of license models. The one that we use most frequently is called their flexible deployment. We use this one because it is flexible and based on the number of code-contributing developers in the organization. It includes almost everything in the Fortify suite for one developer price. It gives access to not just the secure code analyzer (SCA) but also to FSC, the secure code. It gives us accessibility to scan central, which is the decentralized scanning farm. It also gives us access to the software security center, which is the vulnerability management platform."
"From our standpoint, we are significantly better off with Fortify due to the favorable pricing we secured five years ago."
"There is a licensing fee, and if you bring them to the company and you want them to do the installation and the implementation in the beginning, there is a separate cost. Similarly, if you want consultation or training, there is a separate cost. I see it as suitable only for enterprises. I do not see it suitable for a small business or individual use."
"Although I am not responsible for the budget, Fortify SAST is expensive."
"The price of Fortify Static Code Analyzer could be reduced."
"I rate the pricing of Fortify Static Code Analyzer as a seven out of ten since it is a bit expensive."
"The setup costs and pricing for Fortify may vary depending on the organization's needs and requirements."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Manufacturing Company
16%
Computer Software Company
13%
Insurance Company
4%
Financial Services Firm
29%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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 Fortify Static Code Analyzer?
Integrating the Fortify Static Code Analyzer into our software development lifecycle was straightforward. It highlights important information beyond just syntax errors. It identifies issues like pa...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortify Static Code Analyzer?
The pricing of Fortify Static Code Analyzer is good, with a flexible model that allows customers to choose a setup that suits their needs. There are some features that require additional purchases,...
What needs improvement with Fortify Static Code Analyzer?
The deployment of Fortify Static Code Analyzer needs to be simplified. It should be easier to install, perhaps through a container-based approach where everything is combined into one image or pack...
 

Also Known As

Blackduck Hub, Black Duck Protex, Black Duck Security Checker
Fortify Static Code Analysis SAST
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Samsung, Siemens, ScienceLogic, BryterCX, Dynatrace
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Find out what your peers are saying about Black Duck, Veracode, Snyk and others in Software Composition Analysis (SCA). Updated: May 2025.
851,371 professionals have used our research since 2012.