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CAST Highlight vs SonarQube 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

CAST Highlight
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
Software Composition Analysis (SCA) (19th)
SonarQube
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
135
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (1st), Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (1st), Software Development Analytics (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

CAST Highlight and SonarQube aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. CAST Highlight is designed for Software Composition Analysis (SCA) and holds a mindshare of 1.2%, up 0.9% compared to last year.
SonarQube, on the other hand, focuses on Application Security Tools, holds 12.7% mindshare, down 24.3% since last year.
Software Composition Analysis (SCA) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
CAST Highlight1.2%
Snyk11.1%
Black Duck SCA9.2%
Other78.5%
Software Composition Analysis (SCA)
Application Security Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SonarQube12.7%
Checkmarx One8.3%
Snyk5.0%
Other74.0%
Application Security Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Jayanti Rode - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Associate Manager at Accenture
Identifies migration blockers and boosters while facing challenges with platform-specific roadblocks
The solution provides agnostic blockers for platforms as well as for containerization. Within that containerization, it offers generic blockers. However, my project might require it to provide Windows-specific blockers or Linux-specific blockers, as I often work with only one platform at a time. If I received categorization in containerization blockers, it would save time. Understanding only the OS-specific blockers means I would avoid resolving irrelevant issues, thus saving time. Initially, I receive a response from support, however, if there is involvement from R&D or other teams, it may take longer than expected. The support team is challenging when sharing source code. As this is a static code analysis tool, it sometimes requires source code for R&D. However, CAST clients may be restricted from sharing due to business logic and nondisclosure agreements. This creates a challenge, and I may have to share pseudo code or seek client approval, risking escalation.
Sathyamurthi Natarajan - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Officer (Solution Architect) at World Bank
We maintain high code standards with effective static code analysis and integration
SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) could be improved on the reporting front. Instead of grouping, I would prefer to scan the code as part of development and then generate a report on a daily basis among different units or projects, which is currently complicated. We need to change it to more of a portfolio report, where configuring or setting up things on the portfolio requires tagging at the ADO level.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We've been using it for two years and found that it is really profitable to have the product in our arsenal."
"The way it tells you which codebase is more ready for the cloud and which codebase is less ready is very valuable, and it works seamlessly with most languages."
"CAST Highlight is easy to use and has a good dashboard."
"It offers good performance."
"CAST Highlight provides a clear overview of the role portfolio and allows users to assess the overall quality of the environment. Users can see where improvements are needed and follow up on trends of the application."
"The most valuable features of CAST Highlight are automation and speed."
"The most valuable features of the CAST Highlight are the interface and there are three notations that are very simple to understand and communicate with."
"The solution provides agnostic blockers for platforms as well as for containerization."
"I like that it helps us maintain our work quality and code security."
"SonarQube is designed well making it easy to use, simple to identify issues and find solutions to problems."
"Overall, it's going really well."
"SonarQube's unit test coverage and exhaustive information at the module, project, and overall code repo levels are quite good."
"This solution has the capability to analyze source code in almost all the languages in the market."
"SonarQube does SAST and SCAs pretty well."
"Using SonarQube has helped us to identify areas of technical debt to work on, resulting in better code, fewer vulnerabilities, and fewer bugs."
"What I like about SonarQube is the integration of the pipelines."
 

Cons

"There could be potential improvements or additional features added to CAST Highlight to make it better."
"It is a pretty costly tool. A lot of customers are resistant to using it."
"The ease of configuration and customization could be improved in CAST Highlight."
"There's a bit of a learning curve at the outset."
"Technical support could be better."
"CAST Highlight could improve to allow us to comment and do a deep analysis by ourselves."
"CAST Highlight is an expensive solution. However, CAST Highlight is less expensive than the CAST AIP, but it remains too expensive and the professional services from CAST are also too expensive."
"The reports that describe the issues of concern are rather abstract and the issues should be more clearly described to the user."
"There are sometimes security breaches in our code, which aren't be caught by SonarQube. In the security area, SonarCube has to improve. It needs to better compete with other products."
"The solution has a very shallow SAST scanning; that is something that can be improved."
"We've been using the Community Edition, which means that we get to use it at our leisure, and they're kind enough to literally give it to us. However, it takes a fair amount of effort to figure out how to get everything up and running. Since we didn't go with the professional paid version, we're not entitled to support. Of course that could be self-correcting if we were to make the step to buy into this and really use it. Then their technical support would be available to us to make strides for using it better."
"I think the code security can be improved."
"After scanning our code and generating a report, it would be helpful if SonarQube could also generate a solution to fix vulnerabilities in the report."
"The product provides false reports sometimes."
"The only thing I don't like is that they removed the design libraries and dependencies-checking features from v5.2."
"It utilizes a lot of resources from the servers. I think this issue should be resolved because it takes approx 20% of the CPU utilization."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is a pretty costly tool. A lot of customers are resistant to using it."
"CAST Highlight is an expensive solution. However, CAST Highlight is less expensive than the CAST AIP, but it remains too expensive and the professional services from CAST are also too expensive. The high price is part of the problem with the CAST solutions."
"Basic support is included with the standard licensing feed but it can be upgraded for an additional cost."
"CAST Highlight is an expensive solution."
"We are using the community version of the solution and we plan on purchasing licenses for the upgraded version soon. There is a limitation on how many lines of code can be scanned and this is why we are going to purchase a license for an increased amount."
"I am satisfied with the pricing."
"We are using the open-source community version, but there are enterprise licenses available."
"I do not know about the pricing as I am using the community edition, which is free. But I compared the pricing with Sigma, and it is higher than SonarQube."
"Previously, the pricing was 17,000 euros for five million lines analyzed. However, they now charge $15,000 per one million lines, significantly increasing the cost."
"We have a license with 125,000 lines of code. We did not purchase a lot of lines but it is specific to our code environment."
"This is open source."
"I was using the Community Edition, which is available free of charge."
report
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Computer Software Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business43
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise79
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for CAST Highlight?
The pricing of CAST Highlight was not considered expensive or cheap, and no specific comment was made about the setup cost.
What needs improvement with CAST Highlight?
The solution provides agnostic blockers for platforms as well as for containerization. Within that containerization, it offers generic blockers. However, my project might require it to provide Wind...
What is your primary use case for CAST Highlight?
For CAST, I use it in cloud migration roadmap and in open source safety issues. These are my two main use cases.
Is SonarQube the best tool for static analysis?
I am not very familiar with SonarQube and their solutions, so I can not answer. But if you are asking me about which tools that are the best for for Static Code Analysis, I suggest you have a look...
Which gives you more for your money - SonarQube or Veracode?
SonarQube is easy to deploy and configure, and also integrates well with other tools to do quality code analysis. SonarQube has a great community edition, which is open-source and free. Easy to use...
How would you decide between Coverity and Sonarqube?
We researched Coverity, but in the end, we chose SonarQube. SonarQube is a tool for reviewing code quality and security. It helps to guide our development teams during code reviews by providing rem...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Sonar, SonarQube Cloud
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Wells Fargo, Bank of NY Mellon, Northern Trust, Microsoft, Amazon, IBM, BMW, AT&T, US Army, US Air Force, US Navy, John Hancock, Marsh & McLennan, Ernst & Young, PwC, Volkswagen, Boston Consulting Group, London Stock Exchange, Telefonica, Saur France, Total Energies France, SNCF
Snowflake, Booking.com, Deutsche Bank, AstraZeneca, and Ford Motor Company.
Find out what your peers are saying about Snyk, Veracode, Black Duck and others in Software Composition Analysis (SCA). Updated: May 2026.
899,204 professionals have used our research since 2012.