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Coverity vs SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 15, 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)
5th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
43
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SonarQube Server (formerly ...
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
116
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (1st), Software Development Analytics (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of Coverity is 7.2%, up from 6.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) is 22.7%, down from 27.6% 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.…
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

"Coverity is easy to set up and has a less lengthy process to find vulnerabilities."
"The most valuable feature is that there were not a whole lot of false positives, at least on the codebases that I looked at."
"Provides software security, and helps to find potential security bugs or defects."
"It help us identify the latest security vulnerabilities."
"I encountered a bug with Coverity, and I opened a ticket. Support provided me with a workaround. So it's working at the moment, or at least it seems to be."
"The most valuable feature of Coverity is that it shows examples of what is actually wrong with the code."
"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."
"Coverity integrates with issue-tracking systems like Jira and provides email notifications, alerts, and other features."
"I like that it covers most programming languages for source code review."
"I follow Quality Gate's graduation model within organization, and it is extremely helpful for me to benchmark products."
"The product itself has a friendly UI."
"The overall quality of the indicator is good."
"We have worked with the support from SonarQube and we have had good experiences."
"We use this solution for qualitative coding. We make use of the SonarLint plugin as well as the dashboard."
"The good thing with SonarQube is it covers a lot of issues, it's a very robust framework."
"I like that it has a better dashboard compared to Clockwork. It's also stable."
 

Cons

"The product lacks sufficient customization options."
"Some features are not performing well, like duplicate detection and switch case situations."
"They could improve the usability. For example, how you set things up, even though it's straightforward, it could be still be easier."
"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."
"The setup takes very long."
"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."
"The level of vulnerability that this solution covers could be improved compared to other open source tools."
"Reporting engine needs to be more robust."
"I would like to see dynamic code analysis in the next version of the software."
"There are limitations to the free version that limit development options as far as languages."
"The security in SonarQube could be better."
"A little bit more emphasis on security and a bit more security scanning features would be nice."
"There is no automation. You need to put the code there and test. You then pull the results and put them back in the development environment. There is no integration with the development environment. We would like it to be integrated with our development environment, which is basically the CI/CD pipeline or the IDE that we have."
"Although it has Sonar built into it, it is still lacking. Customization features of identifying a particular attack still need to be worked on. To give you an example: if we want to scan and do a false positive analysis, those types of features are missing. If we want to rescan something from a particular point that is a feature that is also missing. It’s in our queue. That will hopefully save a lot of time."
"It would be a great add-on if SonarQube could update its database for vulnerabilities or plugging parts."
"The product must improve security analysis."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Coverity is very expensive."
"The solution's pricing is comparable to other products."
"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."
"Coverity’s price is on the higher side. It should be lower."
"It is expensive."
"The pricing is on the expensive side, and we are paying for a couple of items."
"The price is competitive with other solutions."
"The tool was fairly priced."
"The beauty of this solution is the free open-source version is capable enough in doing pretty much what an enterprise-level version can do."
"I was using the Community Edition, which is available free of charge."
"We are using the open-source version, which is available free of cost."
"We are using the community version of the solution and we plan on purchasing licenses for the upgraded version soon. There is a limitation on how many lines of code can be scanned and this is why we are going to purchase a license for an increased amount."
"It's a bit expensive for us. The currency rate of the dollar is a problem but it may be fine for other countries."
"Get the paid version which allows the customized dashboard and provides technical support."
"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."
"We are using the Developer Edition and the cost is based on the amount of code that is being processed."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
33%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Government
4%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Government
6%
 

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.
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 does Snyk compare with SonarQube?
Snyk does a great job identifying and reducing vulnerabilities. This solution is fully automated and monitors 24/7 to find any issues reported on the internet. It will store dependencies that you a...
 

Also Known As

Synopsys Static Analysis
Sonar
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SAP, Mega International, Thales Alenia Space
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Coverity vs. SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
863,901 professionals have used our research since 2012.