Black Duck vs Sonatype Lifecycle comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 20, 2023
 

Categories and Ranking

Black Duck
Ranking in Software Composition Analysis (SCA)
1st
Average Rating
7.8
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Sonatype Lifecycle
Ranking in Software Composition Analysis (SCA)
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Number of Reviews
43
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (5th), Software Supply Chain Security (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2024, in the Software Composition Analysis (SCA) category, the mindshare of Black Duck is 26.0%, down from 27.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sonatype Lifecycle is 7.3%, down from 8.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Software Composition Analysis (SCA)
Unique Categories:
No other categories found
Application Security Tools
2.4%
Software Supply Chain Security
6.8%
 

Featured Reviews

Sagar Mody - PeerSpot reviewer
Apr 12, 2024
Effectively flags operational vulnerabilities and recommendations for fixes are very helpful
It's still a bit inconsistent. For example, sometimes a scan might reveal components or vulnerabilities, and the next day they might not show up. There's a lack of consistency at times. Of course, this could sometimes be due to new vulnerabilities being identified in the public domain after a scan. So, consistent inputs and more streamlined dependency management are needed. It doesn’t clearly show whether vulnerabilities are from direct or transitive dependencies. A clear classification between direct and indirect vulnerabilities is crucial. If I'm looking to improve my product, I need to know out of 'x' vulnerabilities, how many are direct dependencies. With direct dependencies, I can take action, like replacing a component. But with transitive dependencies, we are helpless at times. Often, we have to raise exceptions and work around them. A clear classification between direct and indirect dependencies is something I'd like to see improved.
NS
Dec 29, 2023
Seamless to integrate and identify vulnerabilities and frees up staff time
The Software Security Center, which is often overlooked, stands out as the most effective feature. This on-premises portal, included with their primary SaaS offering, streamlines the process of triaging our results. With thousands of daily active users, the Software Security Center serves as a centralized platform, consolidating results from various tools, including Sonatype, WebInspect's DAST results, and Pen Test findings from our internal team. This unified view eliminates the need for developers to log into multiple portals to access code vulnerabilities, open-source issues, web app scans, and Pen Test results. Instead, they can access everything they need from a single, convenient location. Secure Code Warrior is an invaluable integration and partnership for us. Fortify consistently collaborates with top-tier companies to deliver cutting-edge solutions. For instance, if a developer encounters a common code vulnerability, such as a path manipulation vulnerability in their Java website, and is unsure of how to resolve it, Fortify provides some guidance and standard response protocols. However, for more in-depth information and assistance, they direct us to Secure Code Warrior. Upon providing information on the vulnerability type and language, Secure Code Warrior offers tailored training courses, such as how to fix path manipulations in Java-based applications. This remediation technique, which is unmatched by any other provider, has proven to be incredibly effective.

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."
"The solution works well on Mac products."
"I like the fact that the product auto analyzes components."
"The solution is very good at scanning and evaluating open source software."
"The most valuable feature for me in Black Duck is its ability to scan binary files effectively."
"The most valuable feature is the vulnerability scanning, and that it's easy to use."
"The stability is okay."
"It is able to drill down to the source level."
"The scanning capability is its most valuable feature, discovering vulnerable open source libraries."
"The REST API is the most useful for us because it allows us to drive it remotely and, ideally, to automate it."
"The solution is very easy to use."
"With the plugin for our IDE that Sonatype provides, we can check whether a library has security, quality, or licensing issues very easily. Which is nice because Googling for this stuff can be a bit cumbersome. By checking it before code is even committed, we save ourselves from getting notifications."
"I like Fortify Software Security Center or Fortify SSC. This tool is installed on each developer's machine, but Fortify Software Security Center combines everything. We can meet there as security professionals and developers. The developers scan their code and publish the results there. We can then look at them from a security perspective and see whether they fixed the issues. We can agree on whether something is a false positive and make decisions."
"The most valuable feature is that I get a quick overview of the libraries that are included in the application, and the issues that are connected with them. I can quickly understand which problems there are from a security point of view or from a licensing point of view. It's quick and very exact."
"There is a feature called Continuous Monitoring. As time goes on we'll be able to know whether a platform is still secure or not because of this feature."
"The policy engine is really cool. It allows you to set different types of policy violations, things such as the age of the component and the quality: Is it something that's being maintained? Those are all really great in helping get ahead of problems before they arise. You might otherwise end up with a library that's end-of-life and is not going to get any more fixes."
 

Cons

"The initial setup could be simplified. It was somewhat complex."
"The solution must provide more open APIs."
"The product's pricing is higher compared to other competitor products."
"It needs to be more user-friendly for developers and in general, to ensure compliance."
"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."
"Black Duck can improve the time it takes for a scan. Most of the time it's not ideal when integrated with the live DevSecOps pipeline. We have to create a separate job to scan the library because it takes a couple of hours to scan all those libraries. The scanning could be faster."
"The scanner client is limited by the size of software it can handle."
"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're working on the high-quality data with Conan. For Conan applications, when it was first deployed to Nexus IQ, it would scan one file type for dependencies. We don't use that method in Conan, we use another file type, which is an acceptable method in Conan, and they didn't have support for that other file type. I think they didn't even know about it because they aren't super familiar with Conan yet. I informed them that there's this other file type that they could scan for dependencies, and that's what they added functionality for."
"One thing that it is lacking, one thing I don't like, is that when you label something or add a status to it, you do it as an overall function, but you can't go back and isolate a library that you want to call out individually and remove a status from it. It's still lacking some functionality-type things for controlling labels and statuses. I'd like to be able to apply it across all of my apps, but then turn it off for one, and I can't do that."
"Sometimes we face difficulties with Maven Central... if I'm using the 1.0.0 version, after one or two years, the 1.0.0 version will be gone from Maven Central but our team will still be using that 1.0.0 version to build. When they do builds, it won't build completely because that version is gone from Maven Central. There is a difference in our Sonatype Maven Central."
"Not all languages are supported in Fortify."
"Another feature they could use is more languages. Sonatype has been mainly a Java shop because they look after Maven Central... But we've slowly been branching out to different languages. They don't cover all of them, and those that they do cover are not as in-depth as we would like them to be."
"One area of improvement, about which I have spoken to the Sonatype architect a while ago, is related to the installation. We still have an installation on Linux machines. The installation should move to EKS or Kubernetes so that we can do rollover updates, and we don't have to take the service down. My primary focus is to have at least triple line availability of my tools, which gives me a very small window to update my tools, including IQ. Not having them on Kubernetes means that every time we are performing an upgrade, there is downtime. It impacts the 0.1% allocated downtime that we are allowed to have, which becomes a challenge. So, if there is Kubernetes installation, it would be much easier. That's one thing that definitely needs to be improved."
"The user interface needs to be improved. It is slow for us. We use Nexus IQ mostly via APIs. We don't use the interface that much, but when we use it, certain areas are just unresponsive or very slow to load. So, performance-wise, the UI is not fast enough for us, but we don't use it that much anyway."
"The biggest thing is getting it put uniformly across all the different teams. It's more of a process issue. The process needs to be thought out about how it's going to be used, what kind of training there will be, how it's going to be socialized, and how it's going to be rolled out and controlled, enterprise-wide. That's probably more of a challenge than the technology itself."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is expensive."
"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."
"The price charged by Black Duck is exorbitant."
"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 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."
"Depending on the use case, the cost could range from $10,000 USD to $70,000 USD."
"The price is good. We certainly get a lot more in return. However, it's also hard to get the funds to roll out such a product for the entire firm. Therefore, pricing has been a limiting factor for us. However, it's a fair price."
"We're pretty happy with the price, for what it is delivering for us and the value we're getting from it."
"It's expensive, but you get what you pay for. There were no problems with the base license and how they do it. It was transparent. You don't have to worry. You can scan to your heart's delight."
"The license fee may be a bit harder for startups to justify. But it will save you a headache later as well as peace of mind. Additionally, it shows your own customers that you value security stuff and will protect yourselves from any licensing issues, which is good marketing too."
"Pricing is comparable with some of the other products. We are happy with the pricing."
"Its pricing is competitive within the market. It's not very cheap, it's not very expensive."
"Lifecycle, to the best of my recollection, had the best pricing compared with other solutions."
"Given the number of users we have, it is one of the most expensive tools in our portfolio, which includes some real heavy-duty tools such as GitLab, Jira, etc. It is definitely a bit on the expensive side, and the ambiguity in how the licenses are calculated adds to the cost as well. If there is a better understanding of how the licenses are being calculated, there would be a better agreement between the two parties, and the cost might also be a little less. There is no extra cost from Sonatype. There is an operational cost on the BT side in terms of resources, etc."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
21%
Manufacturing Company
16%
Computer Software Company
15%
Healthcare Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
34%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
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...
How does Sonatype Nexus Lifecycle compare with SonarQube?
We like the data that Sonatype Nexus Lifecycle consistently delivers. This solution helps us in fixing and understanding the issues a lot quicker. The policy engine allows you to set up different t...
What do you like most about Sonatype Nexus Lifecycle?
Fortify integrates with various development environments and tools, such as IDEs (Integrated Development Environments) and CI/CD pipelines.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sonatype Nexus Lifecycle?
I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten, with ten being expensive. The price is high. It depends on the number of licenses. The price increases based on the fact bundle you are collecting. The ...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Blackduck Hub, Black Duck Protex, Black Duck Security Checker
Sonatype Nexus Lifecycle, Nexus Lifecycle
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Samsung, Siemens, ScienceLogic, BryterCX, Dynatrace
Genome.One, Blackboard, Crediterform, Crosskey, Intuit, Progress Software, Qualys, Liberty Mutual Insurance
Find out what your peers are saying about Black Duck vs. Sonatype Lifecycle and other solutions. Updated: July 2024.
793,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.