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Checkmarx One vs Fortify Application Defender vs SonarQube Server (formerly 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 July 2025, in the Application Security Tools category, the mindshare of Checkmarx One is 9.9%, down from 14.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortify Application Defender is 0.7%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) is 22.7%, down from 26.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Security Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Syed Hasan - PeerSpot reviewer
Partner experiences excellent technical support and seamless initial setup
In my opinion, if we are able to extract or show the report, and because everything is going towards agent tech and GenAI, it would be beneficial if it could get integrated with our code base and do the fix automatically. It could suggest how the code base is written and automatically populate the source code with three different solution options to choose from. This would be really helpful.
Saroj-Patnaik - PeerSpot reviewer
Reliable solution with excellent machine learning algorithms but expensive and lacking support
I primarily use Fortify Application Defender to assess whether our products can defend against applications Fortify Application Defender's most valuable features are machine learning algorithms, real-time remediation, and automatic vulnerability notifications. Fortify Application Defender gives…
Sthembiso Zondi - PeerSpot reviewer
Consistent improvements in code quality and security with effective integration and reliable technical support
The features of SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) that I find most useful are the suggestions received from reviewing the code. When they review the code, they provide suggestions on how to fix it, and we find those very useful from a development perspective. We use SonarQube Server's (formerly SonarQube) centralized management and visualization of code quality metrics on the dashboard because that's the executive dashboard that we send to the executives to show where we are in terms of quality, security, and where the company can improve. We use that for organizational improvement purposes. The ability to tailor metrics tracking in SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) has been beneficial to my team. There are team-specific dashboards which are related to specific repositories they utilize, and we have that aggregative dashboard that shows the whole organization's performance. We can drill down per specific repository, which makes it easier for the team to improve specific things.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The process of remediating software security vulnerabilities can now be performed (ongoing) as portions of the application are being built in advance of being compiled."
"The user interface is excellent. It's very user friendly."
"The UI is user-friendly."
"The most valuable feature is the simple user interface."
"Vulnerability details is valuable."
"We use the solution for dynamic application testing."
"The most valuable features of Checkmarx are the Best Fix Location and the Payments option because you can save a lot of time trying to mitigate the configuration. Using these tools can save you a lot of time."
"Overall, the ability to find vulnerabilities in the code is better than the tool that we were using before."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to automatically feed it rules what it's coupled with the WebInspect dynamic application scanning technology."
"The most valuable features of Fortify Application Defender are the code packages that are default."
"The solution helped us to improve the code quality of our organization."
"I find the configuration of rules in Fortify Application Defender useful. Its integration is also easy."
"The tool's most valuable feature is software composition analysis. This feature works well with my .NET applications, providing a better understanding of library vulnerabilities."
"The most valuable feature is that it analyzes data in real-time."
"We are able to provide out customers with a secure application after development. They are no longer left wondering if they are vulnerable to different threats within the market following deployment."
"The product saves us cost and time."
"The features of SonarQube that I find most valuable for identifying code smells are its comprehensive code analysis capabilities, which cover various aspects of code sustainability."
"Provides local scanning for developers."
"The solution can verify vulnerabilities, code smells, and hotspots. It makes the software more secure and it helps make a junior or novice developer sharper."
"Engineers have also learned from the results and have improved themselves as engineers. This will help them with their careers."
"SonarQube is scalable. My company has 50 users."
"The static code analysis is very good."
"SonarQube is useful for controlling all of our Azure task tracking and scanning."
"My focus is mainly on the DevOps pipeline side of things, and from my perspective, the ease of use and configuration is valuable. It is pretty straightforward to take a deployment pipeline or CI/CD pipeline and integrate SonarQube into it."
 

Cons

"We have received some feedback from our customers who are receiving a large number of false positives."
"Checkmarx being Windows only is a hindrance. Another problem is: why can't I choose PostgreSQL?"
"The solution's user interface could be improved because it seems outdated."
"In terms of dashboarding, the solution could provide a little more flexibility in terms of creating more dashboards. It has some of its own dashboards that come out of the box. However, if I have to implement my own dashboards that are aligned to my organization's requirements, that dashboarding feature has limited capability right now."
"Checkmarx needs improvement in its Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) and API security features."
"The statistics module has a function that allows you to show some statistics, but I think it's limited. Maybe it needs more information."
"The product can be improved by continuing to expand the application languages and frameworks that can be scanned for vulnerabilities. This includes expanded coverage for mobile applications as well as open-source development tools."
"I would like the product to include more debugging and developed tools. It needs to also add enhancements on the coding side."
"The solution could improve the time it takes to scan. When comparing it to SonarQube it does it in minutes while in Fortify Application Defender it can take hours."
"The product should integrate industry-standard code review tools internally with its system. This would streamline the coding process, as developers wouldn't need multiple tools for code review and security checks. Many independent and open-source tools are available, from Apache to various libraries. Using multiple DevOps pipeline tools can slow the turnaround time."
"I encountered many false positives for Python applications."
"The biggest complaint that I have heard concerns additional platform support because right now, it only supports applications that are written in .NET and Java."
"The licensing can be a little complex."
"The workbench is a little bit complex when you first start using it."
"Fortify Application Defender gives a lot of false positives."
"The solution is quite expensive."
"There are times that we have the database crash. However, this might be an issue with how we have configured it and not a software issue. Apart from this, I do not see any issues with the solution."
"There needs to be a shareable reporting piece or something we can click and generate easily."
"We had some issues where the Quality Gate check sometimes gets stuck and it is unclear."
"It would be a great add-on if SonarQube could update its database for vulnerabilities or plugging parts."
"In terms of what can be improved, the areas that need more attention in the solution are its architecture and development."
"I would like to see improvements in defining the quality sets of rules and the quality to ensure code with low-performance does not end up in production."
"The reporting is good, but I am not able to download a specific report as a PDF, so downloading reports is something that should be looked at."
"For improvement, this solution could be offered on Docker and the cloud and the support for this solution could be improved. Customizing rules could also be made simpler."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The average deal size was usually anywhere between $120K to $175K on an annual basis, which could be divided across 12 months."
"It's relatively expensive."
"The tool's pricing is fine."
"It is not expensive, but sometimes, their pricing model or licensing model is not very clear. There are similar variables, such as projects or developers, and sometimes, it is a little bit confusing."
"Be cautious of the one-year subscription date. Once it expires, your price will go up."
"​Checkmarx is not a cheap scanning tool, but none of the security tools are cheap. Checkmarx is a powerful scanning tool, and it’s essential to have one of these products."
"The solution's price is high and you pay based on the number of users."
"For around 250 users or committers, the cost is approximately $500,000."
"The product’s price is much higher than other tools."
"I rate the solution's pricing a five out of ten. It comes as an annual cloud subscription. The tool's pricing is around 50 lakhs."
"The base licensing costs for the SaaS platform is about $900 USD per application, per year."
"Fortify Application Defender is very expensive."
"The licensing is very complex, it's project based and can range from $10,000 to $200,000+ depending on the project type and size."
"The price of this solution could be less expensive."
"I requested this license for one million lines of code and they accepted this."
"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."
"Some of the plugins that were previously free are not free now."
"The development license cost is reasonable, and we've had no concerns about SonarQube when it comes to cost."
"The solution is cheaper than other products."
"We use the solution free of cost."
"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."
"There are many different packages with different pricing options available. We are able to try what we have and if we need extra features we can upgrade the license."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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 do you like most about Checkmarx?
Compared to the solutions we used previously, Checkmarx has reduced our workload by almost 75%.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Checkmarx?
The pricing is relatively expensive due to the product's quality and performance, but it is worth it.
What do you like most about Fortify Application Defender?
I find the configuration of rules in Fortify Application Defender useful. Its integration is also easy.
What needs improvement with Fortify Application Defender?
The product should integrate industry-standard code review tools internally with its system. This would streamline th...
What is your primary use case for Fortify Application Defender?
We use the solution for fast code review. It is integrated into our DevOps pipeline.
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
HPE Fortify Application Defender, Micro Focus Fortify Application Defender
Sonar
 

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
ServiceMaster, Saltworks, SAP
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Sonar, Veracode, Checkmarx and others in Application Security Tools. Updated: July 2025.
862,624 professionals have used our research since 2012.