Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Contrast Security Assess vs SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 9, 2025

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

Contrast Security Assess
Ranking in Application Security Tools
25th
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
22nd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SonarQube Server (formerly ...
Ranking in Application Security Tools
1st
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
114
Ranking in other categories
Software Development Analytics (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Application Security Tools category, the mindshare of Contrast Security Assess is 0.6%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) is 24.5%, down from 27.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Security Tools
 

Featured Reviews

ToddMcAlister - PeerSpot reviewer
It has an excellent API interface to pull APIs.
Assess has brought our development time down because it helps create code the first time. Instead of going through the Jenkins process to build an application, they can see right off the bat that if there are errors in the code and fix them before it even goes to build.
Wang Dayong - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to integrate and has a plug-in that supports both C and C++ languages
The product provides false reports sometimes. It also fails to understand the context of the code. It reports that a line of code has issues without considering its relation with the previous line. The product should improve the report quality. While it asks us to improve the code quality, it would be good if it also suggests how to improve the quality.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We use the Contrast OSS feature that allows us to look at third-party, open-source software libraries, because it has a cool interface where you can look at all the different libraries. It has some really cool additional features where it gives us how many instances in which something has been used... It tells us it has been used 10 times out of 20 workloads, for example. Then we know for sure that OSS is being used."
"It is a stable solution...Contrast Security Assess is one of the first players in this market, so they have experience and customers, especially abroad. Overall, it's a good product."
"No other tool does the runtime scanning like Contrast does. Other static analysis tools do static scanning, but Contrast is runtime analysis, when the routes are exercised. That's when the scan happens. This is a tool that has a very unique capability compared to other tools. That's what I like most about Contrast, that it's runtime."
"The solution is very accurate in identifying vulnerabilities. In cases where we are performing application assessment using Contrast Assess, and also using legacy application security testing tools, Contrast successfully identifies the same vulnerabilities that the other tools have identified but it also identifies significantly more. In addition, it has visibility into application components that other testing methodologies are unaware of."
"This has changed the way that developers are looking at usage of third-party libraries, upfront. It's changing our model of development and our culture of development to ensure that there is more thought being put into the usage of third-party libraries."
"In our most critical applications, we have a deep dive in the code evaluation, which was something we usually did with periodic vulnerability assessments, code reviews, etc. Now, we have real time access to it. It's something that has greatly enhanced our code's quality. We have actually embedded a KPI in regards to the improvement of our code shell. For example, Contrast provides a baseline where libraries and the usability of the code are evaluated, and they produce a score. We always aim to improve that score. On a quarterly basis, we have added this to our KPIs."
"The most valuable feature is the continuous monitoring aspect: the fact that we don't have to wait for scans to complete for the tool to identify vulnerabilities. They're automatically identified through developers' business-as-usual processes."
"By far, the thing that was able to provide value was the immediate response while testing ahead of release, in real-time."
"Offers multi-programming language support"
"We have the software metrics that SonarQube gives us, which is something we did not have before. This helps us work towards aiming coding standards to empower us to move in the direction of better code quality. SonarQube provides targets and metrics for that."
"This has improved our organization because it has helped to find Security Vulnerabilities."
"Integrate it into the developers' workbench so that they can bench check their code against what will be done in the server-based audit version."
"Code Convention: Using the tool to implement some sort of coding convention is really useful and ensures that the code is consistent no matter how many contributors."
"There are many options and examples available in the tool that help us fix the issues it shows us."
"The reporting and the results are quick. It gets integrated within the pipeline well."
"The code coverage feature is very good."
 

Cons

"The setup of the solution is different for each application. That's the one thing that has been a challenge for us. The deployment itself is simple, but it's tough to automate because each application is different, so each installation process for Contrast is different."
"The out-of-the-box reporting could be improved. We need to write our own APIs to make the reporting more robust."
"Contrast Security Assess covers a wide range of applications like .NET Framework, Java, PSP, Node.js, etc. But there are some like Ubuntu and the .NET Core which are not covered. They have it in their roadmap to have these agents. If they have that, we will have complete coverage."
"I think there was activity underway to support the centralized configuration control. There are ways to do it, but I think they were productizing more of that."
"I would like to see them come up with more scanning rules."
"Contrast's ability to support upgrades on the actual agents that get deployed is limited. Our environment is pretty much entirely Java. There are no updates associated with that. You have to actually download a new version of the .jar file and push that out to your servers where your app is hosted. That can be quite cumbersome from a change-management perspective."
"The solution needs to improve flexibility...The scalability of the product is a problem in the solution, especially from a commercial perspective."
"The product's retesting part needs improvement. The tool also needs improvement in the suggestions provided for fixing vulnerabilities. It relies more on documentation rather than on quick fixes."
"It would be a great add-on if SonarQube could update its database for vulnerabilities or plugging parts."
"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."
"The pricing could be reduced a bit. It's a little expensive."
"The exporting capabilities could be improved. Currently, exporting is fully dependent on the SonarQube environment."
"You may need to purchase add-ons to get the useability you desire."
"This solution finds issues that are similar to what is found by Checkmarx, and it would be nice if the overlap could be eliminated."
"We're in the process of figuring out how to automate the workflow for QA audit controls on it. I think that's perhaps an area that we could use some buffing. We're a Kubernetes shop, so there are some things that aren't direct fits, which we're struggling with on the component Docker side. But nothing major."
"Any suggestions for potential improvements may include bill of materials functionality."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"You only get one license for an application. Ours are very big, monolithic applications with millions of lines of code. We were able to apply one license to one monolithic application, which is great. We are happy with the licensing. Pricing-wise, they are industry-standard, which is fine."
"I like the per-application licensing model... We just license the app and we look at different vulnerabilities on that app and we remediate within the app. It's simpler."
"For what it offers, it's a very reasonable cost. The way that it is priced is extremely straightforward. It works on the number of applications that you use, and you license a server. It is something that is extremely fair, because it doesn't take into consideration the number of requests, etc. It is only priced based on the number of onboarded applications. It suits our model as well, because we have huge traffic. Our number of applications is not that large, so the pricing works great for us."
"The solution is expensive."
"It's a tiered licensing model. The more you buy, as you cross certain quantity thresholds, the pricing changes. If you have a smaller environment, your licensing costs are going to be different than a larger environment... The licensing is primarily per application. An application can be as many agents as you need. If you've got 10 development servers and 20 production servers and 50 QA servers, all of those agents can be reporting as a single application that utilizes one license."
"The good news is that the agent itself comes in two different forms: the unlicensed form and the licensed form. Unlicensed gives use of that software composition analysis for free. Thereafter, if you apply a license to that same agent, that's when the instrumentation takes hold. So one of my suggestions is to do what we're doing: Deploy the agent to as many applications as possible, with just the SCA feature turned on with no license applied, and then you can be more choosy and pick which teams will get the license applied."
"The product's pricing is low. I would rate it a two out of ten."
"The costs for this application, for the kind of job it does, are pretty decent."
"I do not know about the pricing as I am using the community edition, which is free. But I compared the pricing with Sigma, and it is higher than SonarQube."
"SonarQube is a fairly affordable solution for a larger scale if you have a specific role or specific department for secure code."
"We use the tool's community edition."
"I requested this license for one million lines of code and they accepted this."
"This solution is free."
"I am satisfied with the pricing."
"We are using the Developer Edition and the cost is based on the amount of code that is being processed."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Security Tools solutions are best for your needs.
850,671 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
24%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Computer Software Company
9%
Insurance Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Contrast Security Assess?
When we access the application, it continuously monitors and detects vulnerabilities.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Contrast Security Assess?
The product's pricing is low. I would rate it a two out of ten.
What needs improvement with Contrast Security Assess?
Technical support for the solution should be faster. We have to further analyze what kind of CVEs are in the reported libraries and what part of the code is affected. That analysis can be added to ...
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 tools that are the best for for Static Code Analysis, I suggest you have a look...
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. SonarQube has a great community edition, which is open-source and free. Easy to use...
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 security. It helps to guide our development teams during code reviews by providing rem...
 

Also Known As

Contrast Assess
Sonar
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Williams-Sonoma, Autodesk, HUAWEI, Chromeriver, RingCentral, Demandware.
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Contrast Security Assess vs. SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,671 professionals have used our research since 2012.