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Fortify Application Defender 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

Fortify Application Defender
Ranking in Application Security Tools
28th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SonarQube Server (formerly ...
Ranking in Application Security Tools
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
116
Ranking in other categories
Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (1st), Software Development Analytics (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Application Security Tools category, the mindshare of Fortify Application Defender is 0.7%, down from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) is 23.5%, down from 26.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Security Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Saroj-Patnaik - PeerSpot reviewer
Reliable solution with excellent machine learning algorithms but expensive and lacking support
I primarily use Fortify Application Defender to assess whether our products can defend against applications Fortify Application Defender's most valuable features are machine learning algorithms, real-time remediation, and automatic vulnerability notifications. Fortify Application Defender gives…
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

"The product saves us cost and time."
"The most valuable features of Fortify Application Defender are the code packages that are default."
"I find the configuration of rules in Fortify Application Defender useful. Its integration is also easy."
"The most valuable feature is that it analyzes data in real-time."
"Fortify Application Defender's most valuable features are machine learning algorithms, real-time remediation, and automatic vulnerability notifications."
"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 tool's most valuable feature is software composition analysis. This feature works well with my .NET applications, providing a better understanding of library vulnerabilities."
"The solution is stable."
"The software quality gate streamlines the product's quality."
"It provides the security that is required from a solution for financial businesses."
"The SonarQube dashboard looks great."
"The most valuable features are code scanning and Quality Gates."
"The product is simple."
"The most valuable features are that it is user-friendly, easy to access, and they provide good training files."
"There are many options and examples available in the tool that help us fix the issues it shows us."
 

Cons

"Fortify Application Defender gives a lot of false positives."
"The product should integrate industry-standard code review tools internally with its system. This would streamline the coding process, as developers wouldn't need multiple tools for code review and security checks. Many independent and open-source tools are available, from Apache to various libraries. Using multiple DevOps pipeline tools can slow the turnaround time."
"The solution is quite expensive."
"Fortify Application Defender could improve by supporting more code languages, such as GRAAS and Groovy."
"I encountered many false positives for Python applications."
"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 false positive rate should be lower."
"We have tens of millions of code to be analyzed and processed. There can be some performance degradation if we are applying Sonar Link to large code or code that is complex. When the code had to be analyzed is when we ran into the main issues. There were several routines involved to solve those performance issues but this process should be improved."
"The product provides false reports sometimes."
"A robust credential scanner would be a huge bonus as it would remove the need for yet another niche product."
"I would like to see SonarQube implement a good amount of improvements to the product's security features. Another aspect of SonarQube that could be improved is the search functionality."
"The learning curve can be fairly steep at first, but then, it's not an entry-level type of application. It's not like an introduction to C programming. You should know not just C programming and how to make projects but also how to apply its findings to the bigger picture. I've had users who said that they wish it was easier to understand how to configure, but I don't know if that's doable because what it's doing is a very complicated thing. I don't know if it is possible to make a complicated thing trivially simple."
"We're in the process of figuring out how to automate the workflow for QA audit controls on it. I think that's perhaps an area that we could use some buffing. We're a Kubernetes shop, so there are some things that aren't direct fits, which we're struggling with on the component Docker side. But nothing major."
"I find it is light on the security side."
"This is a well-rounded solution, however, some features could be made available on the free version. The price of the solution could be reduced."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Fortify Application Defender is very expensive."
"The base licensing costs for the SaaS platform is about $900 USD per application, per year."
"The product’s price is much higher than other tools."
"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 price of this solution could be less expensive."
"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."
"People can try the free licenses and later can seek buying plugins/support, etc. once they started liking it."
"The tool's pricing is reasonable."
"The price of the solution could be reduced."
"We have a license with 125,000 lines of code. We did not purchase a lot of lines but it is specific to our code environment."
"I was using the Community Edition, which is available free of charge."
"The development license cost is reasonable, and we've had no concerns about SonarQube when it comes to cost."
"The costs for this application, for the kind of job it does, are pretty decent."
"We use the tool's community edition."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
9%
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

What do you like most about Fortify Application Defender?
I find the configuration of rules in Fortify Application Defender useful. Its integration is also easy.
What needs improvement with Fortify Application Defender?
The product should integrate industry-standard code review tools internally with its system. This would streamline the coding process, as developers wouldn't need multiple tools for code review and...
What is your primary use case for Fortify Application Defender?
We use the solution for fast code review. It is integrated into our DevOps pipeline.
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
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

ServiceMaster, Saltworks, SAP
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortify Application Defender vs. SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.