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Coverity vs Klocwork comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 27, 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
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
4th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
43
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Klocwork
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
17th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (19th), Static Code Analysis (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of Coverity is 6.3%, down from 7.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Klocwork is 1.5%, down from 1.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Static Application Security Testing (SAST) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Coverity6.3%
Klocwork1.5%
Other92.2%
Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
 

Featured Reviews

Jaile Sebes - PeerSpot reviewer
Resolving critical software issues demands faster implementation and better integration
We use Coverity primarily to find issues such as software bugs and memory leaks, especially in C++ and C# projects. It helps us identify deadlocks, synchronization issues, and product crashes Coverity has been instrumental in resolving product crashes by detecting various issues like deadlocks.…
AnirbanSarkar - PeerSpot reviewer
Lets you find defects during the development phase, so you don't have to wait till the development is over to find and address flaws
What needs improvement in Klocwork, compared to other products in the market, is the dashboard or reporting mechanisms that need to be a bit more flexible. The Klocwork dashboard could be improved. Though it's good, it's not as good as some of the other products in the market, which is a problem. The reporting could be more detailed and easier to sort out because sorting in Klocwork could be a bit more time-consuming, mainly when sorting defects based on filters, compared to how it's done on other tools such as Coverity. What I'd like added in the next release of Klocwork is the peer code review Cahoots which used to be a part of Klocwork, and the architecture analysis and both have been taken out of Klocwork. I found the two critical for specific deployments, so if those can be brought back to Klocwork, that would be very good.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Coverity integrates with issue-tracking systems like Jira and provides email notifications, alerts, and other features."
"In my opinion, the most effective Coverity feature for identifying critical vulnerabilities is the extra checks, which offers deep analysis."
"The reporting feature is up to the mark."
"Coverity is easy to use and easy to integrate with CI."
"I like Coverity's capability to scan codes once we push it. We don't need more time to review our colleagues' codes. Its UI is pretty straightforward."
"The tool as it is can be used for code quality improvement."
"The solution has helped to increase staff productivity and improved our work significantly by approximately 20 percent."
"It has the lowest false positives."
"I like not having to dig through false positives. Chasing down a false positive can take anywhere from five minutes for a small easy one, then something that is complicated and goes through a whole bunch of different class cases, and it can take up to 45 minutes to an hour to find out if it is a false positive or not."
"Technical support is quite good."
"One can increase the number of vendors, so the solution is scalable."
"The most valuable feature of Klocwork is its reduced setup time."
"Klocwork is user-friendly, with a client-server architecture that provides all needed compliance."
"There is a central Klocwork server at our headquarter in France so we connect the client directly to the server on-premises remotely."
"On-the-fly analysis and incremental analysis are the best parts of Klocwork. Currently, we are using both of these features very effectively."
"The ability to create custom checkers is a plus."
 

Cons

"We're currently facing a primary challenge with automation using Coverity. Each developer has a license and can perform manual checks, and we also have a nightly build that analyzes the entire software. The main issue is that the tool can't look behind submodules in our code base, so it doesn't see changes stored there."
"Coverity concerns its dashboards and reporting."
"We actually specified several checkers, but we found some checkers had a higher false positive rate. I think this is a problem. Because we have to waste some time is really the issue because the issue is not an issue. I mean, the tool pauses or an issue, but the same issue is the filter now.Some check checkers cannot find some issues, but sometimes they find issues that are not relevant, right, that are not really issues. Some customisation mechanism can be added in the next release so that we can define our Checker. The Modelling feature provided by Coverity helps in finding more information for potential issues but it is not mature enough, it should be mature. The fast testing feature for security testing campaign can be added as well. So if you correctly integrate it with the training team, maybe you can help us to find more potential issues."
"Coverity is not stable."
"There is an extra step in my organization that involves uploading to servers, which adds overhead."
"We use GitHub and Gitflow, and Coverity does not fit with Gitflow. I have to create a screen for our branches, and it's a pain for developers. It has been difficult to integrate Coverity with our system."
"Coverity's implementation cycle is very slow when integrating changes, especially for problems related to event handling and memory leaks."
"The product lacks sufficient customization options."
"Customers using different static analysis tools report more issues than with Klocwork, indicating that Klocwork's engine is not as superior."
"Klocwork sometimes provides too many additional warnings which require expertise to manage."
"The way to define the rules is too complex. The definition/rules for static analysis could be automated according to various SILs, so as to avoid confusion."
"Even though it does the job, there's room for feature enhancements, such as integrations with Git for better tracking and notifications."
"Klocwork does have a problem with true positives. It only found 30% of true positives in the Juliet test case."
"Every update that we receive requires of us a lengthy and involved process."
"There are too many warnings, and it requires expertise to determine the correct category for them."
"Klocwork has to improve its features to stay ahead of other free solutions."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is expensive."
"I would rate the pricing a six out of ten, where one is low, and ten is high price."
"Coverity is quite expensive."
"I rate Coverity's price a ten on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive."
"The price is competitive with other solutions."
"The tool's price is somewhere in the middle. It's neither cheap nor expensive. I would rate the pricing a five out of ten."
"This is a pretty expensive solution. The overall value of the solution could be improved if the price was reduced. Licensing is done on an annual basis."
"The solution is affordable."
"This solution offers competitive pricing."
"Klocwork is still tight on their licensing. If Klocwork would loosen up on the licensing, and where the license could be used, and how many different programs could be run on it, then we have several development programs that I would love to be able to use it for going forward."
"Klocwork should not to be quite so heavy handed on the licensing for very specific programs."
"The pricing for Klocwork is very competitive if you compare it from apple to apple. It has competitive pricing regarding the licensing model and the per-license cost. Klocwork isn't a high-end investment for anyone deploying it; even SMBs can afford it. The Klocwork cost per user would depend on the license type, so I'm unable to mention a ballpark figure because it would depend on the type of installation and how the deployment will be, and the nodes to give an accurate calculation or figure. The total price depends on the package, so my company could never publish pricing for Klocwork on the website. My team first collects information from potential clients on the deployment scenario, project environment, etc., before suggesting a package for Klocwork. My rating for Klocwork in terms of pricing is a five because of its flexible license models. There's a license model for every type of organization, whether small, midsize, or enterprise, so it's a five out of five for me."
"Licensing fees are paid annually, but they also have a perpetual license."
"The limitation that we have is that Klocwork is licensed to certain programs, and if you want to license them to other programs, you have to pay more money."
"When it comes to licensing, the solution has two packages, one for a fixed and the other for a floating server, with the former being more cost effective than the latter."
"There are other solutions on the market such as Microsoft Visual Studio. They have been adding more static code analysis features that come for free. It is getting better all the time. That is one of the possibilities is that we've been considering that we may stop using the Klocwork because it doesn't give us any added value."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
32%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Government
4%
Manufacturing Company
27%
Computer Software Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Transportation Company
5%
 

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 Business12
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise12
 

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 Klocwork?
It's integrated into our CI, continuous integration.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Klocwork?
Klocwork's pricing seems attractive, as it uses a per-user license model that does not have a lot of overhead.
What needs improvement with Klocwork?
One area for improvement is that when customers use different static analysis tools, they report more issues compared to Klocwork. The static analysis engine of Klocwork has areas that need improve...
 

Also Known As

Synopsys Static Analysis
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SAP, Mega International, Thales Alenia Space
ACCESS Co Ltd, Risk-AI, Winbond Electronics, Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharmaceutical Research Institute, University of Southern California, Alebra Technologies, SIMULIA, Risk Management Solutions, Brigham Young University, SRD, HRL
Find out what your peers are saying about Coverity vs. Klocwork and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
866,483 professionals have used our research since 2012.