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Coverity vs Klocwork comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 20, 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)
16th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (18th), Static Code Analysis (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of Coverity is 7.4%, up from 6.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Klocwork is 1.6%, down from 1.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
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

"The most valuable feature of Coverity is the wrapper. We use the wrapper to build the C++ component, then we use the other code analysis to analyze the code to the build object, and then send back the result to the SonarQube server. Additionally, it is a powerful capabilities solution."
"The interface of Coverity is quite good, and it is also easy to use."
"The solution has helped to increase staff productivity and improved our work significantly by approximately 20 percent."
"Coverity gives advisory and deviation features, which are some of the parts I liked."
"Coverity is quite stable and we haven’t had any issues or any downtime."
"What I find most effective about Coverity is its low rate of false positives. I've seen other platforms with many false positives, but with Coverity, most vulnerabilities it identifies are genuine. This allows me to focus on real issues."
"Coverity is easy to use and easy to integrate with CI."
"Coverity integrates with issue-tracking systems like Jira and provides email notifications, alerts, and other features."
"The most valuable feature of Klocwork is its reduced setup time."
"The reporting helps us understand the trend of our results and whether we improve over time. We can see the history within Klocwork's server architecture and know that we're making things better. It creates a great story for our management. We can demonstrate value and how our software is developing over time."
"The most valuable feature of Klocwork is finding defects while you're doing the coding. For example, if you have an IDE plug-in of Klocwork on Visual Studio or Eclipse, you can find the faults; similar to using spell check on Word, you can find out defects during the development phase, which means that you don't have to wait till the development is over to find the flaws and address the deficiencies. I also find language support in Klocwork good because it used to support only C, C++, C#, and Java, but now, it also supports Java scripts and Python."
"We like using the static analysis and code refactoring, which are very valuable because of our requirements to meet safety critical levels and reliability."
"Technical support is quite good."
"On-the-fly analysis and incremental analysis are the best parts of Klocwork. Currently, we are using both of these features very effectively."
"It's integrated into our CI, continuous integration."
"There's a feature in Klocwork called 'on-the-fly analysis', which helps developers to find and fix the defects at the time of development itself."
 

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."
"They could improve the usability. For example, how you set things up, even though it's straightforward, it could be still be easier."
"The tool needs to improve its reporting."
"Reporting engine needs to be more robust."
"It should be easier to specify your own validation routines and sanitation routines."
"Coverity concerns its dashboards and reporting."
"Sometimes, vulnerabilities remain unidentified even after setting up the rules."
"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."
"I would like to see better codes between projects and a more user-friendly desktop in the next release."
"Klocwork does have a problem with true positives. It only found 30% of true positives in the Juliet test case."
"Now the only issue we have is that whenever we need to get the code we have to build it first. Then we can get the report."
"Customers using different static analysis tools report more issues than with Klocwork, indicating that Klocwork's engine is not as superior."
"Klocwork has to improve its features to stay ahead of other free solutions."
"Modern languages, such as Angular and .NET, should be included as a part of Klocwork. They have recently added Kotlin as a part of their project, but we would like to see more languages in Klocwork. That's the reason we are using Coverity as a backup for some of the other languages."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"Depending on the usage types, one has to opt for different types of licenses from Coverity, especially to be able to use areas like report viewing or report generation."
"The solution's pricing is comparable to other products."
"The pricing is on the expensive side, and we are paying for a couple of items."
"I would rate the tool's pricing a one out of ten."
"Coverity is very expensive."
"Coverity is quite expensive."
"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 solution offers competitive pricing."
"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."
"Licensing fees are paid annually, but they also have a perpetual license."
"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."
"Klocwork should not to be quite so heavy handed on the licensing for very specific programs."
"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."
"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."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
32%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Government
4%
Educational Organization
24%
Manufacturing Company
22%
Computer Software Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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 was competitively priced, making it a cost-effective solution for us.
What needs improvement with Klocwork?
We would like Klocwork to connect to Git and notify developers of issues tied to specific commits. Currently, this feature is absent, but we have suggested it to the team.
 

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: June 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.