We performed a comparison between SonarQube and Checkmarx based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: SonarQube has an edge over Checkmarx in pricing, but Checkmarx offers better support.
"The source composition analysis component is great because it gives our developers some comfort in using new libraries."
"There is a single area on the dashboard where you can get a full view of all of the tests and the results from everything. There is a nice, very simple graphic that shows you the types of vulnerabilities that were found, their severity, the scoring, and in what part of the code they were found. All the details are together in one place."
"It is SaaS hosted. That makes it very convenient to use. There is no initial time needed to set up an application. Scanning is a matter of minutes. You just log in, create an application profile, associate a security configuration, and that's about it. It takes 10 minutes to start. The lack of initial lead time or initial overhead to get going is the primary advantage."
"The centralized view of different testing types helps reduce our risk exposure. The development teams have the freedom to choose their own libraries and languages. What happens is sometimes developers feel like a particular library is okay to use, then they will start using it, developing some functionality around it. However, as per our mandate, for every new repository that gets added and scanned, a report gets published. Based on that report, we decide if we can continue. In the past, we have found, by mistake, some developers have used copyleft licenses, which are a bit risky to use. We immediately replace these with more permissive, open-source licenses, so we are safe in the end."
"My experience with Veracode across the board every time, in all products, the technology, the product, the service, and the salespeople is fabulous."
"It's comprehensive from a feature standpoint."
"The solution's ability to prevent vulnerable code from going into production is perfectly fine. It delivers, at least for the reports that we have been checking on Java and JavaScript. It has reported things that were helpful."
"The Veracode technical support is very good. They are responsive and very knowledgeable."
"The identification of verification-related security vulnerabilities is really important and one of the key things. It also identifies vulnerabilities for any kind of third-party tool coming into the system or any third-party tools that you are using, which is very useful for avoiding random hacking."
"The feature that I have found most valuable is that its number of false positives is less than the other security application platforms. Its ease of use is another good feature. It also supports most of the languages."
"The solution is scalable, but other solutions are better."
"The most valuable feature is the application tracking reporting."
"The user interface is modern and nice to use."
"The setup is very easy. There is a lot of information in the documents which makes the install not difficult at all."
"The most valuable features are the easy to understand interface, and it 's very user-friendly."
"The reports are very good because they include details on the code level, and make suggestions about how to fix the problems."
"We are using the Community edition. So, we don't have to incur any licensing costs. This is the best part."
"The solution is stable."
"The software quality gate streamlines the product's quality."
"The most valuable feature is the security hotspot feature that identifies where your code is prone to have security issues."
"It is an easy tool that you can deploy and configure. 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."
"Some of the most valuable features have been the latest up-to-date of the OWASP, the monitoring, the reporting, and the ease of use with the IDE plugins, in terms of integration."
"The code coverage feature is very good."
"Apart from the security point of view, I like that it makes it easy to detect code smells and other issues in terms of code quality and standards."
"I would like to see them provide more content in the developer training section. This field is really changing each day and there are flaws that are detected each day. Some sort of regular updates to the learning would help."
"The feature that allows me to read which mitigation answer was submitted, and to approve it, requires me to use do so in different screens. That makes it a little bit more complicated because I have to read and then I have to go back and make sure it falls under the same number ID number. That part is a little bit complicated from my perspective, because that's what I use the most."
"The training lab is not very user-friendly and takes a long time to set up."
"If the dynamic scan is improved, then the speed might go up. That is somehow not happening. We have raised this concern. It might also help if they could time limit scans to 24 hours instead of letting them go for three days. Then, whatever results could be shared, even if the scan is not complete, that would definitely help us."
"We tried to create an automatic scanning process for Veracode and integrate it into our billing process, but it was easier to adopt it to repositories based on GIT. Until now, our source control repository was Azure DevOps Server (Microsoft TFS) to managing our resources. This was not something that they supported. It took us some sessions together before we successfully implemented it."
"There is much to be desired of UI and user experience. The UI is very slow. With every click, it just takes a lot of time for the pages to load. We have seen this consistently since getting this solution. The UI and UX are very disjointed."
"Another problem we have is that, while it is integrated with single sign-on—we are using Okta—the user interface is not great. That's especially true for a permanent link of a report of a page. If you access it, it goes to the normal login page that has nothing that says "Log in with single sign-on," unlike other software as a service that we use. It's quite bothersome because it means that we have to go to the Okta dashboard, find the Veracode link, and log in through it. Only at that point can we go to the permanent link of the page we wanted to access."
"Improve Mobile Application Dynamic Scanning DAST - .ipa and .apk"
"Checkmarx needs to improve the false positives and provide more accuracy in identifying vulnerabilities. It misses important vulnerabilities."
"Checkmarx could improve the REST APIs by including automation."
"Its pricing model can be improved. Sometimes, it is a little complex to understand its pricing model."
"Micro-services need to be included in the next release."
"There is nothing particular that I don't like in this solution. It can have more integrations, but the integrations that we would like are in the roadmap anyway, and they just need to deliver the roadmap. What I like about the roadmap is that it is going where it needs to go. If I were to look at the roadmap, there is nothing that is jumping out there that says to me, "Yeah. I'd like something else on the roadmap." What they're looking to deliver is what I would expect and forecast them to deliver."
"They should make it more container-friendly and optimized for the CI pipeline. They should make it a little less heavy. Right now, it requires a SQL database, and the way the tool works is that it has an engine and then it has an analysis database in which it stores the information. So, it is pretty heavy from that perspective because you have to have a full SQL Server. They're working on something called Checkmarx Light, which is a slim-down version. They haven't released it yet, but that's what we need. There should be something a little more slimmed down that can just run the analysis and output the results in a format that's readable as opposed to having a full, really big, and thick deployment with a full database server."
"The integration could improve by including, for example, DevSecOps."
"If it is a very large code base then we have a problem where we cannot scan it."
"We found a solution with dynamic testing, and are looking to find a solution that can be used for both types of testing."
"It does not provide deeper scanning of vulnerabilities in an application, on a live session. This is something we are not happy about. Maybe the reason for that is we are running the community edition currently, but other editions may improve on that aspect."
"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."
"Their dashboarding is very limited. They can improve their dashboards for multiple areas, such as security review, maintainability, etc. They have all this information, so they should publish all this information on the dashboard so that the users can view the summary and then analyze it further. This is something that I would like to see in the next version."
"SonarQube needs to improve its support model. They do not work 24/7, and they do not provide weekend support in case things go wrong. They only have a standard 8:00 am to 5:00 pm support model in which you have to raise a support ticket and wait. The support model is not effective for premium customers."
"The exporting capabilities could be improved. Currently, exporting is fully dependent on the SonarQube environment."
"We did have some trouble with the LDAP integration for the console."
"The learning curve can be fairly steep at first, but then, it's not an entry-level type of application. It's not like an introduction to C programming. You should know not just C programming and how to make projects but also how to apply its findings to the bigger picture. I've had users who said that they wish it was easier to understand how to configure, but I don't know if that's doable because what it's doing is a very complicated thing. I don't know if it is possible to make a complicated thing trivially simple."
Application security starts with secure code. Find out more about the benefits of using Veracode to keep your software secure throughout the development lifecycle.
Checkmarx is ranked 5th in Application Security with 23 reviews while SonarQube is ranked 1st in Application Security with 63 reviews. Checkmarx is rated 7.6, while SonarQube is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Checkmarx writes "Easy interface that is user friendly, quick scanning, and good technical support". On the other hand, the top reviewer of SonarQube writes "Open-source, stable, and finds the problems for you and tells you where they are". Checkmarx is most compared with Micro Focus Fortify on Demand, Snyk, Coverity, Mend and Fortify Application Defender, whereas SonarQube is most compared with Coverity, Sonatype Nexus Lifecycle, Snyk, Micro Focus Fortify on Demand and Mend. See our Checkmarx vs. SonarQube report.
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We monitor all Application Security reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
