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Checkmarx One vs Contrast Security Protect 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:
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Application Security Tools category, the mindshare of Checkmarx One is 8.8%, down from 10.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Contrast Security Protect is 1.1%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SonarQube is 13.6%, down from 25.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Security Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SonarQube13.6%
Checkmarx One8.8%
Contrast Security Protect1.1%
Other76.5%
Application Security Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Shahzad Shahzad - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Solution Architect | L3+ Systems & Cloud Engineer | SRE Specialist at Canada Cloud Solution
Enable secure development workflows while identifying opportunities for faster scans and improved AI guidance
Checkmarx One is a very strong platform, but there are several areas where it can improve to support modern DevSecOps workflows even better. For example, better real-time developer guidance is needed. The IDE plugin should offer richer AI-powered auto-fixes similar to SNYK Code or GitHub Copilot Security, as current guidance is good but not deeply contextual for large-scale enterprise codebases. This matters because it reduces developer friction and accelerates shift-left adoption. More transparency control over the correlation engines is another need. The correlation engine is powerful but not fully transparent. Users want to understand why vulnerabilities were correlated or de-prioritized, which helps AppSec teams trust the prioritization logic. Faster SAST scan and more language coverage is needed since SAST scan can still be slow for very large mono-repos and there is limited deep support for new language frameworks like Rust and Go, along with advanced coverage for serverless-specific frameworks. This matters because large organizations want sub-minute scans in CI/CD as cloud-native ecosystems evolve fast. A strong API security module is another area for enhancement. API security scanning could be improved with active testing, API discovery, full Swagger, OpenAPI, drift detection, and schema-based fuzzing. This is important as API attacks are one of the biggest AppSec risks in 2025. Checkmarx One is strong, but I see a few areas for improvement including faster SAST scanning for large mono-repos, deeper language framework support, more transparent correlation logic, and stronger API security that includes discovery and runtime context. The IDE plugin could offer more AI-assisted fixes, and the SBOM lifecycle tracking can evolve further. Enhancing integration with SIEM and SOAR would also make enterprise adoption smoother, and these improvements would help developers and AppSec teams move faster with more accuracy.
ToddMcAlister - PeerSpot reviewer
Lead Application and Data Security Engineer at a insurance company with 5,001-10,000 employees
It provides us with more in-depth visibility into ongoing attacks.
I rate Contrast Security Protect eight out of 10. Overall, it's a solid product, but I deduct a couple of points because of the interface and some shortcomings in the reporting. If you have a large enterprise where you're dealing with a lot of servers, then it makes sense not to use the internal MySQL database. You should use something like Oracle or Microsoft SQL, but if you don't have many transactions, the embedded MySQL database works great.
KH
Sr Software Engineering Supervisor at Mozarc Medical
Gains control over rule customization and achieves reliable vulnerability assessment
The deployment process took me about 2 or 3 hours to deploy SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube), although I do not remember exactly since it was done about 2 years back. Currently, about 10 of my developers are using SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) in my company. I do not have plans to increase the usage of SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) in the future as there will not be any requirement to increase. I am a senior software engineer and supervisor at Mozark Medical. My corporate email address is karthik.k.a.r.t.h.i.k.h.a.r.p.a.n.h.a.l.l.i@mozarkmedical.com. Overall, I would rate SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) as a 9 out of 10.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"After scanning, it shows in-depth code of where actual vulnerabilities are, which helps us to analyze them."
"The tool's valuable features include integrating GPT and Copilot. Additionally, the UI web representation is very user-friendly, making navigation easy. GPT has made several improvements to my security code."
"It is very useful because it fits our requirements. It is also easy to use. It is not complex, and we are satisfied with the results."
"The solution has good performance, it is able to compute in 10 to 15 minutes."
"The report function is the solution's greatest asset."
"Most valuable features include: ease of use, dashboard. interface and the ability to report."
"What I like best about Checkmarx is that it has fewer false positives than other products, giving you better results."
"I like that you don't have to compile the code in order to execute static code analysis. So, it's very handy."
"Contrast Security's support is great. They're willing to spend a lot of time on your problem."
"The Protect solution allows applications to continue to run, even with known vulnerabilities, but will report or block attempts to exploit the vulnerabilities."
"The product gives a few false positives. We get 99 percent true positives."
"The solution has excellent real-time capabilities."
"Protect provides us with more in-depth visibility into ongoing attacks."
"The reports from SonarCloud are very good."
"The fact that the solution does security scanning is valuable."
"We have a big organization with a lot of applications and all of our critical applications are on this platform."
"Using SonarQube benefits us because we are able to avoid the inclusion of malware in our applications."
"I do recommend SonarQube because it is an easy tool that you can deploy and configure, and after that you can measure the history of your obligation and integrate it with other tools like GitLab or GitHub or Azure DevOps to do quality code analysis."
"The product itself has a friendly UI."
"While annoying occasionally with its issue reports, it is actually an invaluable source of better knowledge and applying it in practice to your solutions."
"The most valuable function is its usability."
 

Cons

"For Checkmarx One, I think that adding repositories and scanning impromptu code could improve it."
"You can't use it in the continuous delivery pipeline because the scanning takes too much time."
"Scanning speed optimization is an area where improvements can be made, and we can reduce false positives."
"We are trying to find out if there is a way to identify the run-time null values. I am analyzing different tools to check if there is any tool that supports run-time null value identification, but I don't think any of the tools in the market currently supports this feature. It would be helpful if Checkmarx can identify and throw an exception for a null value at the run time. It would make things a lot easier if there is a way for Checkmarx to identify nullable fields or hard-coded values in the code. The accessibility for customized Checkmarx rules is currently limited and should be improved. In addition, it would be great if Checkmarx can do static code and dynamic code validation. It does a lot of security-related scanning, and it should also do static code and dynamic code validation. Currently, for security-related validation, we are using Checkmarx, and for static code and dynamic code validation, we are using some other tools. We are spending money on different tools. We can pay a little extra money and use Checkmarx for everything."
"I would like to see the rate of false positives reduced."
"One area for improvement in Checkmarx is pricing, as it's more expensive than other products."
"Its user interface could be improved and made more friendly."
"This product requires you to create your own rulesets. You have to do a lot of customization."
"We're not using it much anymore because we had some performance issues."
"There's room for improvement in the initial setup."
"There's room for improvement in the initial setup."
"Contrast Security Protect needs to improve integration."
"Protect's reporting GUI is very basic. To get all statuses from the APIs, we needed to write our own KPI dashboard to provide reports."
"SonarQube Cloud could improve its vulnerability detection compared to Veracode."
"We also use Fortify, which is another tool to find security errors. Fortify is a better security tool. It is better than SonarQube in finding errors. Sometimes, SonarQube doesn't find some of the errors that Fortify is able to find. Fortify also has a community, which SonarQube doesn't have. Its installation is a little bit complex. We need to install a database, install the product, and specify the version of the database and the product. They can simplify the installation and make it easier. We use docker for the installation because it is easier to use. Its dashboard needs to be improved. It is not intuitive. It is hard to understand the interface, and it can be improved to provide a better user experience."
"It creates the ability for the person who releases the authorized release, which is not good."
"There is need for support for the additional languages and ease of use in adding new rules for detecting issues."
"It should be user-friendly."
"There is no automation. You need to put the code there and test."
"Executing sonar analysis on a big chunk of code with an Oracle database does take up a lot of time."
"The only pain area for us is due to the fact that we purchased the 1 million lines of code license for now."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Its price is fair. It is in or around the right spot. Ultimately, if the price is wrong, customers won't commit, but they do tend to commit. It is neither too cheap nor too expensive."
"The tool's pricing is fine."
"Before implementing the product I would evaluate if it is really necessary to scan so many different languages and frameworks. If not, I think there must be a cheaper solution for scanning Java-only applications (which are 90% of our applications)."
"We have a subscription license that is on a yearly basis, and it's a pretty competitive solution."
"The solution is costly."
"It is the right price for quality delivery."
"I would rate the solution’s pricing an eight out of ten. The tool’s pricing is higher than others and it is for the license alone."
"Checkmarx is comparatively costlier than other products, which is why some of the customers feel reluctant to go for it, though performance-wise, Checkmarx can compete with other products."
Information not available
"This solution is free."
"I am satisfied with the pricing."
"I think comparing the product to competitors it should be less expensive."
"We are using the free, unlicensed version."
"A low cost long-term solution for non-critical situations."
"Compared to similar solutions, SonarQube was more accessible to us and had more benefits, with regards to size of the code base and supported languages. Apart from the Enterprise licensing fee, there are no additional costs."
"The price of the solution could be reduced."
"The development license cost is reasonable, and we've had no concerns about SonarQube when it comes to cost."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Construction Company
7%
Computer Software Company
5%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise46
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business43
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise79
 

Questions from the Community

What alternatives are there for Fortify WebInspect and Fortify SCA?
I would like to recommend Checkmarx. With Checkmarx, you are able to have an all in one solution for SAST and SCA as ...
What is the biggest difference between Veracode and Checkmarx?
According to my experience of using both the tools in different organizations Veracode is a Cloud-native, managed Ap...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Checkmarx?
Checkmarx One is a premium solution, so budget accordingly. Make sure you understand how licensing scales with additi...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
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 ...
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. Son...
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 securi...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Contrast Protect
Sonar, SonarQube Cloud
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

YIT, Salesforce, Coca-Cola, SAP, U.S. Army, Liveperson, Playtech Case Study: Liveperson Implements Innovative Secure SDLC
Williams-Sonoma, Autodesk, HUAWEI, Chromeriver, RingCentral, Demandware.
Snowflake, Booking.com, Deutsche Bank, AstraZeneca, and Ford Motor Company.
Find out what your peers are saying about SonarSource Sàrl, Checkmarx, Veracode and others in Application Security Tools. Updated: May 2026.
896,099 professionals have used our research since 2012.