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Coverity Static vs HCL AppScan comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 21, 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

Coverity Static
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
6th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
43
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
HCL AppScan
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
17th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (20th), Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of Coverity Static is 4.2%, down from 7.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HCL AppScan is 2.2%, down from 2.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Static Application Security Testing (SAST) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Coverity Static4.2%
HCL AppScan2.2%
Other93.6%
Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
 

Featured Reviews

KT
Software Engineering Manager at Visteon Corporation
Using tools for compliance is beneficial but cost concerns persist
We have been using Coverity for quite a long period. It has been fine for our needs. I would rate Coverity between eight to nine, though the cost is high. I would rate their support from Coverity as six. That is the main complaint, but we still appreciate having it.
Ravi Khanchandani - PeerSpot reviewer
Founder Director at Techsa Services
Has improved identification of encryption and authentication issues across cloud and on-prem applications
During the learning curve of onboarding HCL AppScan, we learned that HCL has altered the portfolio and now offers HCL AppScan 360, which has a much better look and feel with an improved user interface. However, there is one feature called SCA, which stands for Software Composition Analysis, that could be improved. When I'm doing an application scan, HCL AppScan has the ability to generate information about what components are in use. For example, if I'm scanning a web application, it shows me the various components being used. It tells me whether I have Java libraries, .NET frameworks, or other log management libraries such as Log4j, and what versions of those specific components are present. I would like to see more detailed reports from the tool. Currently, you can find out the components belonging to a specific software, but if detailed reporting became available, you would be in a better position to identify vulnerabilities. For instance, I could identify that I had the Log4j vulnerability and know that I need to fix my application accordingly. If they add the features I'm describing, I would consider giving them a higher rating. However, I've only been experienced with the product for three months.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's pretty stable. I rate the stability of Coverity nine out of ten."
"The interface of Coverity is quite good, and it is also easy to use."
"The tool as it is can be used for code quality improvement."
"The product has deeper scanning capabilities."
"The most valuable feature is that there were not a whole lot of false positives, at least on the codebases that I looked at."
"It provides reports about a lot of potential defects."
"Provides software security, and helps to find potential security bugs or defects."
"One of the most valuable features is Contributing Events. That particular feature helps the developer understand the root cause of a defect. So you can locate the starting point of the defect and figure out exactly how it is being exploited."
"HCL AppScan has helped us improve our security posture, as we've been able to identify quite a few issues."
"It provides a better integration for our ecosystem."
"The product has valuable features for static and dynamic testing."
"We are now deploying less defects to production."
"The solution is cheap."
"This solution saves us time due to the low number of false positives detected."
"The HCL AppScan turnaround time for Burp Suite or any new feature request is pretty good, and that is why we are sticking with the HCL."
"IBM AppScan has made our work easy, as we can do four to five scans of websites at a time, which saves time when it comes to vulnerability."
 

Cons

"The price is a concern, and there are a lot of false positives coming through."
"When I put my code into Coverity for scanning, the code information of the product is in the system. The solution could be improved by providing a SBOM, a software bill of material."
"Right now, the Coverity executable is around 1.2GB to download. If they can reduce it to approximately 600 or 700MB, that would be great. If they decrease the executable, it will be much easier to work in an environment like Docker."
"There is an extra step in my organization that involves uploading to servers, which adds overhead."
"We'd like it to be faster."
"Coverity's implementation cycle is very slow when integrating changes, especially for problems related to event handling and memory leaks."
"It would be great if we could customize the rules to focus on critical issues."
"Coverity concerns its dashboards and reporting."
"They have to improve support."
"I think being able to search across more containers, especially some of the docker elements. We need a little tighter integration there. That's the only thing I can see at this point."
"Visibility is an issue for us. Our partners do not know we have integrations with some of IBM products."
"The pricing has room for improvement."
"The solution often has a high number of false positives. It's an aspect they really need to improve upon."
"IBM Security AppScan needs to add performance optimization for quickly scanning the target web applications."
"Sometimes it doesn't work so well."
"Scans become slow on large websites."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Coverity’s price is on the higher side. It should be lower."
"The licensing fees are based on the number of lines of code."
"The price is competitive with other solutions."
"Coverity is very expensive."
"The pricing is very reasonable compared to other platforms. It is based on a three year license."
"I rate Coverity's price a ten on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive."
"Coverity is quite expensive."
"Offers varying prices for different companies"
"I rate the product's price a seven on a scale of one to ten, where one is low, and ten is high. HCL AppScan is an expensive tool."
"HCL AppScan is expensive."
"With the features, that they offer, and the support, they offer, AppScan pricing is on a higher level."
"The product is moderately priced, though it's an investment due to extensive code analysis needs."
"The product has premium pricing and could be more competitive."
"The price of HCL AppScan is okay, in my opinion. You just buy HCL AppScan and don't pay anything anymore, meaning it is just a one-time purchase."
"I would rate the product's pricing a nine out of ten. The product's pricing is expensive compared to the features that they offer."
"The price is very expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
32%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Comms Service Provider
4%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise31
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise31
 

Questions from the Community

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...
What do you like most about Coverity?
The solution has improved our code quality and security very well.
What do you like most about HCL AppScan?
The most valuable feature of HCL AppScan is its integration with the SDLC, particularly during the coding phase.
What needs improvement with HCL AppScan?
During the learning curve of onboarding HCL AppScan, we learned that HCL has altered the portfolio and now offers HCL AppScan 360, which has a much better look and feel with an improved user interf...
What is your primary use case for HCL AppScan?
I'm currently working with BigFix and HCL AppScan. At least three people in my company are using HCL AppScan. Since we are a reseller, we run it in both lab environments and live production applica...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Synopsys Static Analysis
IBM Security AppScan, Rational AppScan, AppScan
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SAP, Mega International, Thales Alenia Space
Essex Technology Group Inc., Cisco, West Virginia University, APIS IT
Find out what your peers are saying about Coverity Static vs. HCL AppScan and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.
881,565 professionals have used our research since 2012.