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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
34th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
Static Code Analysis (8th)
Fortify on Demand
Ranking in Application Security Tools
15th
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 May 2025, in the Application Security Tools category, the mindshare of CodeSonar is 1.5%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortify on Demand is 4.4%, down from 4.8% 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

"CodeSonar’s most valuable feature is finding security threats."
"There is nice functionality for code surfing and browsing."
"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."
"The tool is very good for detecting memory leaks."
"It has been able to scale."
"The most valuable feature of CodeSonar is the catching of dead code. It is helpful."
"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 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 static code analyzers are the most valuable features of this solution."
"Being able to reduce risk overall is a very valuable feature for us."
"The user interface is good."
"The scanning capabilities, particularly for our repositories, have been invaluable."
"Its ability to perform different types of scans, keep everything in one place, and track the triage process in Fortify SSC stands out."
"Provides good depth of scanning and we get good results."
"The UL is easy to use compared to that of other tools, and it is highly reliable. The findings provide a lower number of false positives."
 

Cons

"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."
"The scanning tool for core architecture could be improved."
"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."
"CodeSonar could improve by having better coding rules so we did not have to use another solution, such as MISRA C."
"There could be a shared licensing model for the users."
"It would be beneficial for the solution to include code standards and additional functionality for security."
"It was expensive."
"There's a bit of a learning curve. Our development team is struggling with following the rules and following the new processes."
"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."
"Reporting could be improved."
"The products must provide better integration with build tools."
"Temenos's (T-24) info basic is a separate programming interface, and such proprietary platforms and programming interfaces were not easily supported by the out-of-the-box versions of Fortify."
"Integration to CI/CD pipelines could be improved. The reporting format could be more user friendly so that it is easy to read."
"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."
"They have very good support, but there is always room for improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"Pricing is a bit costly."
"The product's cost depends on the type of license."
"Fortify on Demand is moderately priced, but its pricing could be more flexible."
"Buying a license would be feasible for regular use. For intermittent use, the cloud-based option can be used (Fortify on Demand)."
"It is not more expensive than other solutions, but the pricing is competitive."
"We are still using the trial version at this point but I can already see from the trial version alone that it is a good product. For others, I would say that Fortify on Demand might look expensive at the beginning, but it is very powerful and so you shouldn't be put off by the price."
"It is cost-effective."
"The price is fair compared to that of other solutions."
"If I exceed one million lines of code, there might be an extra cost or a change in the pricing bracket."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
25%
Computer Software Company
13%
University
9%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Manufacturing Company
15%
Computer Software Company
12%
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: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.