Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

CAST Highlight vs Sonatype Lifecycle comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

CAST Highlight
Ranking in Software Composition Analysis (SCA)
14th
Average Rating
7.8
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Sonatype Lifecycle
Ranking in Software Composition Analysis (SCA)
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Number of Reviews
43
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (5th), Software Supply Chain Security (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2024, in the Software Composition Analysis (SCA) category, the mindshare of CAST Highlight is 1.0%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sonatype Lifecycle is 7.1%, down from 8.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Software Composition Analysis (SCA)
 

Featured Reviews

Kangkan Goswami - PeerSpot reviewer
Mar 11, 2023
Good integration with Azure DevOps, but the reports need more information on problem resolution
We are a solution provider and we used CAST Highlight in a project, last year, for one of our clients.  CAST Highlight is easy to use and has a good dashboard. This solution integrates well with Azure DevOps and you can import the dashboard into that environment. The level of abstraction is a…
SrinathKuppannan2 - PeerSpot reviewer
Jun 26, 2024
Easily identifies problematic versions and ensures adherence to regulatory standards like HIPAA, critical for industries dealing with sensitive information
While Sonatype Lifecycle effectively manages artifacts in Nexus Repository and performs code firewall checks based on rules, it has the potential to expand further. I am looking forward to additional features similar to SonarQube, especially since licenses are often split per component. SonarType could integrate cloud-based capabilities, addressing the increasing shift towards cloud workloads. While there have been demos and discussions around this, significant progress on scanning and analyzing cloud images remains to be seen. I am looking forward to Sonatype incorporating these enhancements, particularly in regard to cloud-based features. On-prem workloads are getting to the cloud workloads. * I would like to see more cloud-related insights, such as logging capabilities for the images we use and image scanning information. * Additionally, it would be beneficial to have insights into the stages of dependencies and ensure they comply with standards. If there are any violations in respect to CVSS reports, * Integrating CVSS (Common Vulnerability Scoring System) report rules into the Lifecycle module to detect and report violations would be valuable. I am hoping to see these enhancements from Sonatype in the future. On the security side, I think there's a lot of development needed. There are many security tools on the market, like open-source ones, that Sonatype doesn't integrate with.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It offers good performance."
"The way it tells you which codebase is more ready for the cloud and which codebase is less ready is very valuable. It works seamlessly with most languages."
"The most valuable features of CAST Highlight are automation and speed."
"CAST Highlight is easy to use and has a good dashboard."
"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."
"Among its valuable features, it's easy to handle and easy configure, it's user-friendly, and it's easy to map and integrate."
"Due to the sheer amount of vulnerabilities and the fact that my company is still working on eliminating all vulnerabilities, it's still too early for me to say what I like most about Sonatype Nexus Lifecycle. Still, one of the best functions of the product is the guidance it gives in finding which components or applications have vulnerabilities. For example, my team had a vulnerability or a CVE connected to Apache last week. My team couldn't find which applications had the vulnerability initially, but using Sonatype Nexus Lifecycle helped. My team deployed new versions on that same day and successfully eliminated the vulnerabilities, so right now, the best feature of Sonatype Nexus Lifecycle is finding which applications have vulnerabilities."
"The grandfathering mode allows us to add legacy applications which we know we're not going to change or refactor for some time. New developments can be scanned separately and we can obviously resolve those vulnerabilities where there are new applications developed. The grandfathering is a good way to separate what can be factored now, versus long-term technical debt."
"The key feature for Nexus Lifecycle is the proprietary data they have on vulnerabilities. The way that they combine all the different sources and also their own research into one concise article that clearly explains what the problem is. Most of the time, and even if you do notice that you have a problem, the public information available is pretty weak. So, if we want to assess if a problem applies to our product, it's really hard. We need to invest a lot of time digging into the problem. This work is basically done by Sonatype for us. The data that it delivers helps us with fixing or understanding the issue a lot quicker than without it."
"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."
"It was very easy to integrate into our build pipeline, with Jenkins and Nexus Repository as the central product."
"The way we can define policies and apply those policies selectively across the different applications is valuable. We can define a separate policy for public-facing applications and a separate policy for the internal applications. That is cool."
"The solution is very easy to use."
 

Cons

"Its price should be better. It is a pretty costly tool. They have two products: CAST Highlight and CAST AIP. I would expect CAST Highlight to have the Help dashboard and the Engineering dashboard. These dashboards are currently a part of CAST AIP, and if these are made available in CAST Highlight, customers won't have to use two different products all the time."
"CAST Highlight could improve to allow us to comment and do a deep analysis by ourselves."
"The ease of configuration and customization could be improved in CAST Highlight."
"The reports that describe the issues of concern are rather abstract and the issues should be more clearly described to the user."
"There's a bit of a learning curve at the outset."
"We use Griddle a lot for integrating into our local builds with the IDE, which is another built system. There is not a lot of support for it nor published modules that can be readily used. So, we had to create our own. No Griddle plugins have been released."
"Fortify's software security center needs a design refresh."
"Improvement as per customer requirements."
"The reporting capability is good but I wish it was better. I sent the request to support and they raised it as an enhancement within the system. An example is filtering by version. If I have a framework that is used in all applications, but version 1 is used in 50 percent of them and version 2 in 25 percent, they will show as different libraries with different usage. But in reality, they're all using one framework."
"We do not use it for more because it is still too immature, not quite "finished." It is missing important features for making it a daily tool. It's not complete, from my point of view..."
"In terms of features, the reports natively come in as PDF or JSON. They should start thinking of another way to filter their reports. The reporting tool used by most enterprises, like Splunk and Elasticsearch, do not work as well with JSON."
"If you look at NPM-based applications, JavaScript, for example, these are only checkable via the build pipeline. You cannot upload the application itself and scan it, as is possible with Java, because a file could change significantly."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"It is a pretty costly tool. A lot of customers are resistant to using it."
"Basic support is included with the standard licensing feed but it can be upgraded for an additional cost."
"CAST Highlight is an expensive solution."
"Lifecycle, to the best of my recollection, had the best pricing compared with other solutions."
"In addition to the license fee for IQ Server, you have to factor in some running costs. We use AWS, so we spun up an additional VM to run this. If the database is RDS that adds a little bit extra too. Of course someone could run it on a pre-existing VM or physical server to reduce costs. I should add that compared to the license fee, the running costs are so minimal they had no effect on our decision to use IQ Server."
"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."
"There are additional costs in commercial offerings for add-ons such as Nexus Container or IDE Advanced Toolkit. They come with additional fees or licenses."
"Pricing is decent. It's not horrible. It's middle-of-the-road, as far as our ranking goes. They're a little bit more but that's also because they provide more."
"In comparison with other tools, Sonatype Nexus Lifecycle could be more expensive. Still, at the same time, my company prioritizes security, so the pricing for Sonatype Nexus Lifecycle hasn't been an issue. If IT security weren't at the top of the list for my company, somebody would have raised the question about cost and how Sonatype Nexus Lifecycle is in terms of ROI. So far, there's been no question about the price. The cost of Sonatype Nexus Lifecycle hasn't been a problem so far. My company pays for the license yearly, plus technical support."
"Cost is a drawback. It's somewhat costly."
"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."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Software Composition Analysis (SCA) solutions are best for your needs.
813,418 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
18%
Insurance Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
34%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about CAST Highlight?
The most valuable features of CAST Highlight are automation and speed.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for CAST Highlight?
CAST Highlight is an expensive solution. On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing an eight or nine out of ten.
What needs improvement with CAST Highlight?
The ease of configuration and customization could be improved in CAST Highlight.
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 ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Sonatype Nexus Lifecycle, Nexus Lifecycle
 

Learn More

 

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
Genome.One, Blackboard, Crediterform, Crosskey, Intuit, Progress Software, Qualys, Liberty Mutual Insurance
Find out what your peers are saying about CAST Highlight vs. Sonatype Lifecycle and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
813,418 professionals have used our research since 2012.