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Black Duck vs Sonatype Repository Firewall comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 5, 2024

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
Ranking in Software Composition Analysis (SCA)
1st
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Sonatype Repository Firewall
Ranking in Software Composition Analysis (SCA)
14th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (31st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Software Composition Analysis (SCA) category, the mindshare of Black Duck is 19.3%, down from 22.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sonatype Repository Firewall is 1.4%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Software Composition Analysis (SCA)
 

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.
Ashish Shukla - PeerSpot reviewer
You will get clean code every time, and that's a great achievement
For the QA team, it's a really good tool. For those who are not on the QA team, it is also a good tool to use for SDL in the SDLC. It plays a very critical role of doing the automatic quality check recommendation. Meaning, when using this tool, people can easily rectify the issues in the environment itself, instead of going to a higher environment and identifying them. This tool is quite easy to use and learn. We decided that there was no need to hire anyone new who would specialize in this. We had a team of about five to ten people who learned how to use this tool. There are some other automation tools like Jenkins, for example, that require a lot of effort to configure and write out the code, but you do not need to do such for this tool. I thought outside of the box and saw that there are many options available to us when using this tool. The plugins are there, you can download and use the tool at ease and you do not need to do any kind of development. Overall, it’s quite easy to use.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Policy management is a valuable feature."
"The installation is very easy."
"The UI is the solution's most valuable feature since it allows for easy pipeline integration."
"The software composition analysis is most effective for security risk management."
"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 is the vulnerability scanning, and that it's easy to use."
"The most valuable feature of Black Duck is the composition analysis feature, which is effective for security risk management."
"The most valuable feature for me in Black Duck is its ability to scan binary files effectively."
"Another thing that I like about Sonatype is that if you download something today, and five days from today it becomes vulnerable, it will notify you."
"The firewall is the only solution that supports Nexus Repository."
"The customer service is fantastic."
"The product's network and intrusion protection features are valuable. It also has rules and compliance features for security."
 

Cons

"We're not too sure about the extension of the firewall. It never shows up in the Hub."
"It's still a bit inconsistent. For example, if I scan today, it might not show the same results tomorrow."
"The solution must provide more open APIs."
"It needs to be more user-friendly for developers and in general, to ensure compliance."
"The solution's pricing model and documentation areas of concern where improvement is needed."
"There are areas for improvement such as false positives and the scanning of containers."
"The product's pricing is higher compared to other competitor products."
"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."
"There are several features lacking in the current offering, particularly concerning container support and AI packages."
"There are several features lacking in the current offering, particularly concerning container support and AI packages, like humming phase support."
"The tool needs to improve its file systems. The product should also include zero test feature."
"What I don't like is the lack of an option to pick up the phone and call someone for support. That is something they need to improve on. They need to have a professional services package, or they need to include that option with their services."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is expensive."
"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 pricing is a little high."
"The price is quite high because the behavior of the software during the scan is similar to competing products."
"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 charged by Black Duck is exorbitant."
"Depending on the use case, the cost could range from $10,000 USD to $70,000 USD."
"The pricing is reasonable if you're a large enterprise developing code. It's not super-expensive."
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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
28%
Government
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
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...
What do you like most about Sonatype Nexus Firewall?
The product's network and intrusion protection features are valuable. It also has rules and compliance features for security.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sonatype Nexus Firewall?
Also, I consider it average. Some people might consider it expensive, however, since it supports many beautiful features, I would say it is worth it.
What is your primary use case for Sonatype Nexus Firewall?
Many companies, including ours, use Nexus Repository due to concerns about malware and critical vulnerabilities. There should be a specific method to prevent malicious packages from entering the in...
 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Samsung, Siemens, ScienceLogic, BryterCX, Dynatrace
EDF, Tomitribe, Crosskey, Blackboard, Travel audience
Find out what your peers are saying about Black Duck vs. Sonatype Repository Firewall and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,760 professionals have used our research since 2012.