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Fortify on Demand vs SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 9, 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 on Demand
Ranking in Application Security Tools
15th
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
12th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
60
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SonarQube Server (formerly ...
Ranking in Application Security Tools
1st
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
114
Ranking in other categories
Software Development Analytics (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Application Security Tools category, the mindshare of Fortify on Demand is 4.5%, down from 4.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) is 25.1%, down from 26.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Security Tools
 

Q&A Highlights

Miriam Tover - PeerSpot reviewer
Jan 11, 2019
 

Featured Reviews

Jonathan Steyn - PeerSpot reviewer
Source code analyzer, FPR file generation, reduction of false positives and generates compliance reports, for in-depth analysis
Not challenges with the product itself. The product is very reliable. It does have a steep learning curve. But, again, one thing that Fortify or OpenText does very well is training. There are a lot of free resources and training in the community forums, free training as well as commercial training where users can train on how to use the back-end systems and the scanning engines and how to use command-line arguments because some of the procedures or some of the tools do require a bit of a learning curve. That's the only challenge I've really seen for customers because you have to learn how to use the tool effectively. But Fortify has, in fact, improved its user interface and the way users engage the dashboards and the interfaces. It is intuitive. It's easy to understand. But in some regards, the cybersecurity specialist or AppSec would need a bit of training to engage the user interface and to understand how it functions. But from the point of the reliability index and how powerful the tool is, there's no challenge there. But it's just from a learning perspective; users might need a bit more skill to use the tool. The user interface isn't that tedious. It's not that difficult to understand. When I initially learned how to use the interfaces, I was able to master it within a week and was able to use it quite effectively. So training is required. All skills are needed to learn how to use the tool. I would like to see more enhancements in the dashboards. Dashboards are available. They do need some configuration and settings. But I would like to see more business intelligence capabilities within the tool. It's not particularly a cybersecurity function, but, for instance, business impact analysis or other features where you can actually use business intelligence capabilities within your security tool. That would be remarkable because not only do you have a cybersecurity tool, but you also have a tool that can give you business impact analysis and some other measurements. A bit more intelligence in terms of that from a cybersecurity perspective would be remarkable.
Wang Dayong - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to integrate and has a plug-in that supports both C and C++ languages
The product provides false reports sometimes. It also fails to understand the context of the code. It reports that a line of code has issues without considering its relation with the previous line. The product should improve the report quality. While it asks us to improve the code quality, it would be good if it also suggests how to improve the quality.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Audit workbench: for on-the-fly defect auditing."
"One of the valuable features is the ability to submit your code and have it run in the background. Then, if something comes up that is more specific, you have the security analyst who can jump in and help, if needed."
"The most valuable feature is that it connects with your development platforms, such as Microsoft Information Server and Jira."
"I do not remember any issues with stability."
"The most valuable features are the server, scanning, and it has helped identify issues with the security analysis."
"The user interface is good."
"While using Micro Focus Fortify on Demand we have been very happy with the results and findings."
"Almost all the features are good. This solution has simplified designing and architecting for our solutions. We were early adopters of microservices. Their documentation is good. You don't need to put in much effort in setting it up and learning stuff from scratch and start using it. The learning curve is not too much."
"It provides the security that is required from a solution for financial businesses."
"Any developer can easily identify issues using the process flow or steps provided by SonarQube. In terms of integration, SonarQube makes it quite easy, simplifying the steps for users."
"The stability is good."
"Strong code evaluation for budget-minded clients."
"The software quality gate streamlines the product's quality."
"SonarQube is scalable. My company has 50 users."
"Some of the most valuable features have been the latest up-to-date of the OWASP, the monitoring, the reporting, and the ease of use with the IDE plugins, in terms of integration."
"The solution's user interface is very user-friendly."
 

Cons

"We want a user-based control and role-based access for developers. We want to give limited access to developers so that it only pertains to the code that they write and scanning of the codes for any vulnerabilities as they're progressing with writing the code. As of now, the interface to give restricted access to the developers is not the best. It gives them more access than what is basically required, but we don't want over-provisioning and over-access."
"There is room for improvement in the integration process."
"They have a release coming out, which is full of new features. Based on their roadmap, there's nothing that I would suggest for them to put in it that they haven't already suggested. However, I am a customer, so I always think the pricing is something that could be improved. I am working with them on that, and they're very flexible. They work with their customers and kind of tailor the product to the customer's needs. So far, I am very happy with what they're able to provide. Their subscriptions could use a little bit of a reworking, but that would be about it."
"The thing that could be improved is reducing the cost of usage and including some of the most pricey features, such as dynamic analysis and that sort of functionality, which makes the difference between different types of tools."
"Integration to CI/CD pipelines could be improved. The reporting format could be more user friendly so that it is easy to read."
"This solution would be improved if the code-quality perspective were added to it, on top of the security aspect."
"The technical support is actually a problem that needs to be addressed. Since the acquisition and merger with Hewlett Packard, it has been really hard to know who the technical or salesperson to talk to."
"There are frequent complaints about false positives from Fortify."
"It requires advanced heuristics to recognize more complex constructs that could be disregarded as issues."
"SonarQube is not development-centric like Snyk."
"In terms of what can be improved, the areas that need more attention in the solution are its architecture and development."
"If I configure a project in SonarQube, it generates a token. When we're compiling our code with SonarQube, we have to provide the token for security reasons. If IP-based connectivity is established with the solution, the project should automatically be populated without providing any additional token. It will be easy to provide just the IP address. It currently supports this functionality, but it makes a different branch in the project dashboard. From the configuration and dashboard point of view, it should have some transformations. There can be dashboard integration so that we can configure the dashboard for different purposes."
"There needs to be a shareable reporting piece or something we can click and generate easily."
"We found a solution with dynamic testing, and are looking to find a solution that can be used for both types of testing."
"The time it took for me to do the whole process was approximately two hours because I had to download, read the documentation, and do the configurations."
"SonarQube could improve by adding automatic creation of tasks after scanning and more support for the Czech language."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I believe the rental license is not too expensive, but it provides a lot of information about the vulnerabilities."
"It is quite expensive. Pricing and the licensing model could be improved."
"The price is fair compared to that of other solutions."
"Despite being on the higher end in terms of cost, the biggest value lies in its abilities, including robust features, seamless integration, and high-quality findings."
"If I exceed one million lines of code, there might be an extra cost or a change in the pricing bracket."
"Fortify on Demand is moderately priced, but its pricing could be more flexible."
"It is not more expensive than other solutions, but the pricing is competitive."
"It is cost-effective."
"Some of the plugins that were previously free are not free now."
"I do not know about the pricing as I am using the community edition, which is free. But I compared the pricing with Sigma, and it is higher than SonarQube."
"We use the free version; there are no hidden costs or licensing required."
"The licence is standard open source licensing"
"I use the full trial version of SonarQube."
"I am satisfied with the pricing."
"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."
"We are using the open-source version, which is available free of cost."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Manufacturing Company
15%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
8%
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 Micro Focus Fortify on Demand?
It helps deploy and track changes easily as per time-to-time market upgrades.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Micro Focus Fortify on Demand?
In comparison with other tools, they're competitive. It is not more expensive than other solutions, but their pricing is competitive. The licenses for Fortify On Demand are generally bought in unit...
What needs improvement with Micro Focus Fortify on Demand?
There are frequent complaints about false positives from Fortify. One day it may pass a scan with no issues, and the next day, without any code changes, it will report vulnerabilities such as passw...
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

Micro Focus Fortify on Demand
Sonar
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SAP, Aaron's, British Gas, FICO, Cox Automative, Callcredit Information Group, Vital and more.
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortify on Demand vs. SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.