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Fortify Application Defender vs SonarQube comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 8, 2026

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

Fortify Application Defender
Ranking in Application Security Tools
33rd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SonarQube
Ranking in Application Security Tools
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
136
Ranking in other categories
Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (1st), Software Development Analytics (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Application Security Tools category, the mindshare of Fortify Application Defender is 1.4%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SonarQube is 13.6%, down from 25.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Security Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SonarQube13.6%
Fortify Application Defender1.4%
Other85.0%
Application Security Tools
 

Featured Reviews

VS
CTO at Abcl
Useful for fast code review in devOps pipelines
I rate the tool's scalability a seven out of ten. However, I'm concerned about how it handles an increasing number of lines of code. As the complexity grows, so does the time it takes for the tool to review everything. I want more clarity on how Fortify Application Defender handles multiple threats. We have numerous endpoints, but the tool runs in our pipeline, meaning it operates in the cloud. All our code is configured there, and the tool runs integration testing, unit testing, user testing, and final production code tests. It's a day-to-day experience. It's utilized almost every day as part of our pipeline runs. Each team responsible for integration testing, human testing, user access testing, and preproduction testing runs it whenever they take a build.
KH
Sr Software Engineering Supervisor at Mozarc Medical
Gains control over rule customization and achieves reliable vulnerability assessment
The deployment process took me about 2 or 3 hours to deploy SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube), although I do not remember exactly since it was done about 2 years back. Currently, about 10 of my developers are using SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) in my company. I do not have plans to increase the usage of SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) in the future as there will not be any requirement to increase. I am a senior software engineer and supervisor at Mozark Medical. My corporate email address is karthik.k.a.r.t.h.i.k.h.a.r.p.a.n.h.a.l.l.i@mozarkmedical.com. Overall, I would rate SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) as a 9 out of 10.

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 features of Fortify Application Defender are the code packages that are default."
"The information from Fortify Application Defender on how to fix and solve issues is very good compared to other solutions."
"Its ability to find security defects is valuable."
"The product saves us cost and time."
"Fortify Application Defender has a few drawbacks, it has its own pros and cons, but it's a good tool to use in any industry."
"The information from Fortify Application Defender on how to fix and solve issues is very good compared to other solutions."
"Fortify Application Defender's most valuable features are machine learning algorithms, real-time remediation, and automatic vulnerability notifications."
"The solution helped us to improve the code quality of our organization."
"Apart from the security point of view, I like that it makes it easy to detect code smells and other issues in terms of code quality and standards."
"We have the software metrics that SonarQube gives us, which is something we did not have before, and this helps us work towards aiming coding standards to empower us to move in the direction of better code quality."
"The depth features I have found most valuable. You receive a quick comprehensive comparison overview regarding the current release and the last release and what type of depths dependency or duplication should be used. This is going to help you to make a more readable code and have more flexibility for the engineers to understand how things should work when they do not know."
"The fact that the solution does security scanning is valuable."
"The most valuable features are the dashboard reports and the ease of integrating it with Jenkins."
"We can create a Quality Gate in order to fail Jenkins jobs where the code coverage is lower than the set percentage."
"It provides the security that is required from a solution for financial businesses."
"However, I've talked to the people who deploy the tools, and they are happy with how easy setting up SonarCloud is."
 

Cons

"The false positive rate should be lower."
"The biggest complaint that I have heard concerns additional platform support because right now, it only supports applications that are written in .NET and Java."
"The solution could improve the time it takes to scan. When comparing it to SonarQube it does it in minutes while in Fortify Application Defender it can take hours."
"The solution is quite expensive."
"I encountered many false positives for Python applications."
"The solution is quite expensive."
"The solution could improve the time it takes to scan. When comparing it to SonarQube it does it in minutes while in Fortify Application Defender it can take hours."
"Fortify Application Defender gives a lot of false positives."
"I am not very pleased with the technical debt computation."
"There could be better integration with other products."
"We called support and complained but have not received any information as we use the free version. We had to fix it on our own and could not escalate it to the tool's developer."
"There are times that we have the database crash."
"The product provides false reports sometimes."
"I am not very pleased with the technical debt computation, it's a bit arbitrary."
"Code security scanning could be improved."
"I find it is light on the security side."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing is very complex, it's project based and can range from $10,000 to $200,000+ depending on the project type and size."
"I rate the solution's pricing a five out of ten. It comes as an annual cloud subscription. The tool's pricing is around 50 lakhs."
"The product’s price is much higher than other tools."
"Fortify Application Defender is very expensive."
"The base licensing costs for the SaaS platform is about $900 USD per application, per year."
"The price of this solution could be less expensive."
"We use the tool's community edition."
"I requested this license for one million lines of code and they accepted this."
"We are using the free, unlicensed version."
"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."
"We pay €10 per month for this solution, which is good. It provides a good value for money."
"I was using the Community Edition, which is available free of charge."
"We use the solution free of cost."
"I think comparing the product to competitors it should be less expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Construction Company
6%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business43
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise79
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
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 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...
 

Also Known As

HPE Fortify Application Defender, Micro Focus Fortify Application Defender
Sonar, SonarQube Cloud
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ServiceMaster, Saltworks, SAP
Snowflake, Booking.com, Deutsche Bank, AstraZeneca, and Ford Motor Company.
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortify Application Defender vs. SonarQube and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
894,830 professionals have used our research since 2012.