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Contrast Security Protect vs Fortify on Demand 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 June 2025, in the Application Security Tools category, the mindshare of Contrast Security Protect is 0.5%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortify on Demand is 4.3%, down from 5.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) is 23.5%, down from 26.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Security Tools
 

Featured Reviews

ToddMcAlister - PeerSpot reviewer
It provides us with more in-depth visibility into ongoing attacks.
I rate Contrast Security Protect eight out of 10. Overall, it's a solid product, but I deduct a couple of points because of the interface and some shortcomings in the reporting. If you have a large enterprise where you're dealing with a lot of servers, then it makes sense not to use the internal MySQL database. You should use something like Oracle or Microsoft SQL, but if you don't have many transactions, the embedded MySQL database works great.
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.
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 solution has excellent real-time capabilities."
"Protect provides us with more in-depth visibility into ongoing attacks."
"The product gives a few false positives. We get 99 percent true positives."
"The scanning capabilities, particularly for our repositories, have been invaluable."
"The SAST feature is the most valuable."
"The most valuable feature of Micro Focus Fortify on Demand is the information it can provide. There is quite a lot of information. It can pinpoint right down to where the problem is, allowing you to know where to fix it. Overall the features are easy to use, you don't have to be a coder. You can be a manager, or in IT operations, et cetera, anyone can use it. It is quite a well-rounded functional solution."
"It has saved us a lot of time as we focus primarily on programming rather than tool operational work."
"There is not only one specific feature that we find valuable. The idea is to integrate the solution in DevSecOps which we were able to do."
"It improves future security scans."
"The solution is user-friendly."
"The most important feature of the product is to follow today's technology fast, updated rules and algorithms (of the product)."
"SonarQube is a fantastic tool which saves us precious time."
"The tool helps us to monitor and manage violations. It manages the bugs and security violations."
"This solution has the capability to analyze source code in almost all the languages in the market."
"SonarQube is one of the more popular solutions because it supports 29 languages."
"With SonarQube's web interface, it is easy to drill down to see the individual problems, but also to look at the project from above and get the big picture, with possible larger problem areas."
"We've configured it to run on each commit, providing feedback on our software quality. ]"
"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."
"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."
 

Cons

"There's room for improvement in the initial setup."
"Protect's reporting GUI is very basic. To get all statuses from the APIs, we needed to write our own KPI dashboard to provide reports."
"Contrast Security Protect needs to improve integration."
"They have a release coming out, which is full of new features. Based on their roadmap, there's nothing that I would suggest for them to put in it that they haven't already suggested. However, I am a customer, so I always think the pricing is something that could be improved. I am working with them on that, and they're very flexible. They work with their customers and kind of tailor the product to the customer's needs. So far, I am very happy with what they're able to provide. Their subscriptions could use a little bit of a reworking, but that would be about it."
"Takes up a lot of resources which can slow things down."
"Sometimes when we run a full scan, we have a bunch of issues in the code. We should not have any issues."
"The vulnerability analysis does not always provide guidelines for what the developer should do in order to correct the problem, which means that the code has to be manually inspected and understood."
"The technical support is actually a problem that needs to be addressed. Since the acquisition and merger with Hewlett Packard, it has been really hard to know who the technical or salesperson to talk to."
"There are lots of limitations with code technology. It cannot scan .net properly either."
"Integration to CI/CD pipelines could be improved. The reporting format could be more user friendly so that it is easy to read."
"It lacks of some important features that the competitors have, such as Software Composition Analysis, full dead code detection, and Agile Alliance's Best Practices and Technical Debt."
"The pricing could be reduced a bit. It's a little expensive."
"The solution could improve by providing more advanced technologies."
"SonarQube could improve its static application security testing as per the industry standard."
"After scanning our code and generating a report, it would be helpful if SonarQube could also generate a solution to fix vulnerabilities in the report."
"Technical support and the price could be better."
"SonarQube is not development-centric like Snyk."
"The implementation of the solution is straightforward. However, we did have some initial initialization issues at the of the projects. I don't think it was SonarQube's fault. It was the way it was implemented in our organization because it's mainly integrated with many software, such as Jira, Confluence, and Butler."
"Lacks sufficient visibility and documentation."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"I believe the rental license is not too expensive, but it provides a lot of information about the vulnerabilities."
"Fortify on Demand is affordable, and its licensing comes with a year of support."
"The solution is expensive and the price could be reduced."
"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."
"Buying a license would be feasible for regular use. For intermittent use, the cloud-based option can be used (Fortify on Demand)."
"It's a yearly contract, but I don't remember the dollar amount."
"The product's cost depends on the type of license."
"We used the one-time application, Security Scan Dynamic. I believe the original fee was $8,000."
"My guess is that we have a yearly subscription. We use it quite extensively, so a monthly license wouldn't make sense. Yearly subscriptions are usually cheaper. In addition to the standard licensing fee, there is just the cost of running the hardware where it is hosted."
"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."
"SonarQube enterprise, I am not sure of the price but from what I understand they are charging a fee. It's is not clear if it is an annual fee or a one-off."
"It's an open-source product."
"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."
"I requested this license for one million lines of code and they accepted this."
"Some of the plugins that were previously free are not free now."
"This solution is free."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
26%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Computer Software Company
12%
Insurance Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Manufacturing Company
15%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Contrast Security Protect?
The product gives a few false positives. We get 99 percent true positives.
What needs improvement with Contrast Security Protect?
Contrast Security Protect needs to improve integration.
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...
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 ...
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

Contrast Protect
Micro Focus Fortify on Demand
Sonar
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Williams-Sonoma, Autodesk, HUAWEI, Chromeriver, RingCentral, Demandware.
SAP, Aaron's, British Gas, FICO, Cox Automative, Callcredit Information Group, Vital and more.
Information Not Available
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