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CodeSonar vs Fortify on Demand comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 8, 2024

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

CodeSonar
Ranking in Application Security Tools
32nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
Static Code Analysis (10th)
Fortify on Demand
Ranking in Application Security Tools
14th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
60
Ranking in other categories
Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (12th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Application Security Tools category, the mindshare of CodeSonar is 1.5%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortify on Demand is 4.3%, down from 5.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Security Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Mathieu ALBRESPY - PeerSpot reviewer
Nice interface, quick to deploy, and easy to expand
This is the first time I've used this kind of software. It was the only one we could apply to analyze with MISRA rules. At my new company, I tried to use Klocwork. I tried to use it, just once so I cannot compare it exactly with CodeSonar. I also have a plugin for my Visual Studio and I try to make it work. It's not easy, however, I don't think that we have this kind of functionality with CodeSonar. It can do some incremental analysis. However, since this feature is also available on CodeSonar, it would be a good idea to have a plugin on Visual Studio just to have a quick analysis.
Jonathan Steyn - PeerSpot reviewer
Source code analyzer, FPR file generation, reduction of false positives and generates compliance reports, for in-depth analysis
Not challenges with the product itself. The product is very reliable. It does have a steep learning curve. But, again, one thing that Fortify or OpenText does very well is training. There are a lot of free resources and training in the community forums, free training as well as commercial training where users can train on how to use the back-end systems and the scanning engines and how to use command-line arguments because some of the procedures or some of the tools do require a bit of a learning curve. That's the only challenge I've really seen for customers because you have to learn how to use the tool effectively. But Fortify has, in fact, improved its user interface and the way users engage the dashboards and the interfaces. It is intuitive. It's easy to understand. But in some regards, the cybersecurity specialist or AppSec would need a bit of training to engage the user interface and to understand how it functions. But from the point of the reliability index and how powerful the tool is, there's no challenge there. But it's just from a learning perspective; users might need a bit more skill to use the tool. The user interface isn't that tedious. It's not that difficult to understand. When I initially learned how to use the interfaces, I was able to master it within a week and was able to use it quite effectively. So training is required. All skills are needed to learn how to use the tool. I would like to see more enhancements in the dashboards. Dashboards are available. They do need some configuration and settings. But I would like to see more business intelligence capabilities within the tool. It's not particularly a cybersecurity function, but, for instance, business impact analysis or other features where you can actually use business intelligence capabilities within your security tool. That would be remarkable because not only do you have a cybersecurity tool, but you also have a tool that can give you business impact analysis and some other measurements. A bit more intelligence in terms of that from a cybersecurity perspective would be remarkable.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"What I like best about CodeSonar is that it has fantastic speed, analysis and configuration times. Its detection of all runtime errors is also very good, though there were times it missed a few. The configuration of logs by CodeSonar is also very fantastic which I've not seen anywhere else. I also like the GUI interface of CodeSonar because it's very user friendly and the tool also shows very precise logs and results."
"The tool is very good for detecting memory leaks."
"There is nice functionality for code surfing and browsing."
"The most valuable feature of CodeSonar is the catching of dead code. It is helpful."
"The most valuable features of CodeSonar were all the categorized classes provided, and reports of future bugs which might occur in the production code. Additionally, I found the buffer overflow and underflow useful."
"CodeSonar’s most valuable feature is finding security threats."
"It has been able to scale."
"One of the top features is the source code review for vulnerabilities. When we look at source code, it's hard to see where areas may be weak in terms of security, and Fortify on Demand's source code review helps with that."
"The most valuable feature is the capacity to be able to check vulnerabilities during the development process. The development team can check whether the code they are using is vulnerable to some type of attack or there is some type of vulnerability so that they can mitigate it. It helps us in achieving a more secure approach towards internal applications. It is an intuitive solution. It gives all the information that a developer needs to remediate a vulnerability in the coding process. It also gives you some examples of how to remediate a vulnerability in different programming languages. This solution is pretty much what we were searching for."
"t's a cloud-based solution, so there was no installation involved."
"The SAST feature is the most valuable."
"Being able to reduce risk overall is a very valuable feature for us."
"The solution scans our code and provides us with a dashboard of all the vulnerabilities and the criticality of the vulnerabilities. It is very useful that they provide right then and there all the information about the vulnerability, including possible fixes, as well as some additional documentation and links to the authoritative sources of why this is an issue and what's the correct way to deal with it."
"The solution saves us a lot of money. We're trying to reduce exposure and costs related to remediation."
"It is a very easy tool for developers to use in parallel while they're doing the coding. It does auto scanning as we are progressing with the CI/CD pipeline. It has got very simple and efficient API support."
 

Cons

"CodeSonar could improve by having better coding rules so we did not have to use another solution, such as MISRA C."
"In a future release, the solution should upgrade itself to the current trends and differentiate between the languages. If there are any classifications that can be set for these programming languages that would be helpful rather than having everything in the generic category."
"It was expensive."
"It would be beneficial for the solution to include code standards and additional functionality for security."
"There could be a shared licensing model for the users."
"In terms of areas for improvement, the use case for CodeSonar was good, but compared to other tools, it seems CodeSonar isn't a sound static analysis tool, and this is a major con I've seen from it. Right now, in the market, people prefer sound static analysis tools, so I would have preferred if CodeSonar was developed into a sound static analysis tool formally, in terms of its algorithms, so then you can see it extensively used in the market because at the moment, here in India, only fifty to sixty customers use CodeSonar. If the product is developed into a sound static analysis tool, it could compete with Polyspace, and from its current fifty customers, that number could go up to a hundred."
"The scanning tool for core architecture could be improved."
"Micro Focus Fortify on Demand cannot be run from a Linux Agent. When we are coding the endpoint it will not work, we have to use Windows Agent. This is something they could improve."
"The reporting capabilities need improvement, as there are some features that we would like to have but are not available at the moment."
"We have some stability issues, but they are minimal."
"We typically do our bulk uploads of our scans with some automation at the end of the development cycle but the scanning can take a lot of time. If you were doing all of it at regular intervals it would still consume a lot of time. This could procedure could improve."
"We want a user-based control and role-based access for developers. We want to give limited access to developers so that it only pertains to the code that they write and scanning of the codes for any vulnerabilities as they're progressing with writing the code. As of now, the interface to give restricted access to the developers is not the best. It gives them more access than what is basically required, but we don't want over-provisioning and over-access."
"Takes up a lot of resources which can slow things down."
"The UI could be better. Fortify should also suggest new packages in the product that can be upgraded. Currently, it shows that, but it's not visible enough. In future versions, I would like more insights about the types of vulnerabilities and the pages associated with the exact CVE."
"New technologies and DevOps could be improved. Fortify on Demand can be slow (slower than other vendors) to support new technologies or new software versions."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pricing is a bit costly."
"Our organization purchased a license to use the solution."
"The application’s pricing is high compared to other tools."
"The solution's price depends on the number of licenses needed and the source code for the project."
"The product's cost depends on the type of license."
"It is quite expensive. Pricing and the licensing model could be improved."
"It is cost-effective."
"Fortify on Demand is more expensive than Burpsuite. I rate its pricing a nine out of ten."
"The licensing was good because the licenses have the heavy centralized server."
"I'd rate it an eight out of ten in terms of pricing."
"The solution is a little expensive."
"Despite being on the higher end in terms of cost, the biggest value lies in its abilities, including robust features, seamless integration, and high-quality findings."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
23%
Computer Software Company
13%
University
10%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Manufacturing Company
15%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about CodeSonar?
CodeSonar’s most valuable feature is finding security threats.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for CodeSonar?
The application’s pricing is high compared to other tools. I rate its pricing a four out of ten.
What needs improvement with CodeSonar?
Our license model allows one user per license. Currently, we have limitations for VPN profiles. We can’t share the key with other users. There could be a shared licensing model for the users. It wi...
What do you like most about Micro Focus Fortify on Demand?
It helps deploy and track changes easily as per time-to-time market upgrades.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Micro Focus Fortify on Demand?
In comparison with other tools, they're competitive. It is not more expensive than other solutions, but their pricing is competitive. The licenses for Fortify On Demand are generally bought in unit...
What needs improvement with Micro Focus Fortify on Demand?
There are frequent complaints about false positives from Fortify. One day it may pass a scan with no issues, and the next day, without any code changes, it will report vulnerabilities such as passw...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Micro Focus Fortify on Demand
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Viveris, Micrel Medical Devices, Olympus, SOFTEQ, SONY
SAP, Aaron's, British Gas, FICO, Cox Automative, Callcredit Information Group, Vital and more.
Find out what your peers are saying about CodeSonar vs. Fortify on Demand and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.