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Fortify on Demand vs SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) vs Veracode comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Application Security Tools category, the mindshare of Fortify on Demand is 4.3%, down from 5.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) is 23.5%, down from 26.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Veracode is 9.2%, down from 10.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Security Tools
 

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.
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.
David-Robertson - PeerSpot reviewer
Static scanning and software composition analysis are very helpful, but the usability needs improvement
Static scanning and software composition analysis are very helpful. My colleagues and I don't need to be experts on all of those ancillary things, so we can focus more on the business deliverables. They have a pretty good tool that allows me to run scans of my local integrated development environment. I can find a lot of those flaws a lot sooner than I would if I had to wait for these cloud-based scans. They've come out with some sort of automated fix feature. I haven't used it, but they gave us a demo of it, and that one looks promising. I don't know if it's ready for prime time yet.

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 are the detailed reporting and the ability to set up deep scanning of the software, both of which are in the same place."
"Fortify supports most languages. Other tools are limited to Java and other typical languages. IBM's solutions aren't flexible enough to support any language. Fortify also integrates with lots of tools because it has API support."
"Speed and efficiency are great features."
"It's a stable and scalable solution."
"It helps deploy and track changes easily as per time-to-time market upgrades."
"It has saved us a lot of time as we focus primarily on programming rather than tool operational work."
"One of the top features is the source code review for vulnerabilities. When we look at source code, it's hard to see where areas may be weak in terms of security, and Fortify on Demand's source code review helps with that."
"The quality of application security testing reduces risk and gives very few false positives."
"SonarQube is a fantastic tool which saves us precious time."
"SonarQube's unit test coverage and exhaustive information at the module, project, and overall code repo levels are quite good."
"It easily ties into our continuous integration pipeline."
"The fact that the solution does security scanning is valuable."
"My focus is mainly on the DevOps pipeline side of things, and from my perspective, the ease of use and configuration is valuable. It is pretty straightforward to take a deployment pipeline or CI/CD pipeline and integrate SonarQube into it."
"It is a very good tool for analysis and security vulnerability checking."
"The good thing with SonarQube is it covers a lot of issues, it's a very robust framework."
"It is a good deal compared to all other tools on the market."
"The static scan is the feature that we use the most, as it gives us insight into our source code. We have it integrated with our continuous integration, continuous delivery system, so we can get insight quickly."
"The most important feature is the static scanning analysis, and the reason is that it can tell us vulnerability in that code, right before we go ahead and push something to production or provide something to a client... Dynamic scanning actually hits our Web applications, to try to detect any well known Web application vulnerabilities as well."
"It's comprehensive from a feature standpoint."
"We use Veracode static analysis during development to eliminate vulnerability issues"
"The integration capabilities with our existing development tools are very good."
"We used it for performing security checks. We have many Java applications and Android applications. Essentially it was used for checking the security validations for compliance purposes."
"The pricing is worth it."
"The most important features, I would say, are the scanning abilities and the remediation abilities within the product. Scanning because, obviously, we want to make sure that our application code is flaw-free. And the remediation tools are helpful to the developers to help them track and manage their flaws."
 

Cons

"New technologies and DevOps could be improved. Fortify on Demand can be slow (slower than other vendors) to support new technologies or new software versions."
"The Visual Studio plugin seems to hang when a scan is run on big projects. I would expect some improvements there."
"Micro Focus Fortify on Demand cannot be run from a Linux Agent. When we are coding the endpoint it will not work, we have to use Windows Agent. This is something they could improve."
"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."
"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. One day it may pass a scan with no issues, and the next day, without any code changes, it will report vulnerabilities such as password exposure."
"I would like the solution to add AI support."
"This solution would be improved if the code-quality perspective were added to it, on top of the security aspect."
"A better design of the interface and add some new rules."
"The BPM language is important and should be considered in SonarQube."
"It does not provide deeper scanning of vulnerabilities in an application, on a live session. This is something we are not happy about. Maybe the reason for that is we are running the community edition currently, but other editions may improve on that aspect."
"In terms of analysis and findings, other tools provide more in-depth insights and detailed steps to mitigate or handle issues."
"I would like to see improvements in defining the quality sets of rules and the quality to ensure code with low-performance does not end up in production."
"The tool needs to be more compatible with C/C++ language"
"We also use Fortify, which is another tool to find security errors. Fortify is a better security tool. It is better than SonarQube in finding errors. Sometimes, SonarQube doesn't find some of the errors that Fortify is able to find. Fortify also has a community, which SonarQube doesn't have. Its installation is a little bit complex. We need to install a database, install the product, and specify the version of the database and the product. They can simplify the installation and make it easier. We use docker for the installation because it is easier to use. Its dashboard needs to be improved. It is not intuitive. It is hard to understand the interface, and it can be improved to provide a better user experience."
"From a reporting perspective, we sometimes have problems interpreting the vulnerability scan reports. For example, if it finds a possible threat, our analysts have to manually check the provided reports, and sometimes we have issues getting all the data needed to properly verify if it's accurate or not."
"Veracode scans provide a higher number of false positives."
"False positives are a problem. Sometimes the flow paths are not accurate and don't represent real attack vectors, but this happens with every application that performs static analysis of the code. But it's under control. The number of false positives is not so high that it is unmanageable on our side."
"Reporting. Some of the reporting features of Veracode do need improvement. They do not have the most robust access to data. That would be a bit more beneficial to a lot of our clients as well as our actual in-house staff. I've been talking to our program management at Veracode about that, and that is actually on their radar to have that improved, I think actually this year."
"The training lab is not very user-friendly and takes a long time to set up."
"The pricing for qualified startups such as Neo4j could be improved."
"When Veracode updates the pool of tests and security checks, it could be a little more transparent about what it is releasing. It's not clear what it's adding. They do thousands of checks, and when they add more, there aren't many details about what the new tests are doing."
"The policies you have, where you can tune the findings you get, don't allow you not to file tickets about certain findings. It will always report the findings, even if you know you're not that concerned about a library writing to a system log, for example. It will keep raising them, even though you may have a ticket about it. The integration will keep updating the ticket every time the scan runs."
"The interface is one thing I find a little challenging. Veracode's interface feels a little outdated compared to other solutions, and it could be modernized. I'm mostly happy with the features, but Vercaode could add Docker image scanning."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The subscription model, on a per-scan basis, is a bit expensive. That's another reason we are not using it for all the apps."
"Fortify on Demand is more expensive than Burpsuite. I rate its pricing a nine out of ten."
"If I exceed one million lines of code, there might be an extra cost or a change in the pricing bracket."
"The solution is expensive and the price could be reduced."
"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."
"We used the one-time application, Security Scan Dynamic. I believe the original fee was $8,000."
"The licensing was good because the licenses have the heavy centralized server."
"I believe the rental license is not too expensive, but it provides a lot of information about the vulnerabilities."
"A low cost long-term solution for non-critical situations."
"SonarQube is an open-source product that can be used free of charge."
"The costs for this application, for the kind of job it does, are pretty decent."
"The price of this solution is more expensive than competitors. However, it works better than competitors."
"People can try the free licenses and later can seek buying plugins/support, etc. once they started liking it."
"SonarQube price is a little bit higher than Kiuwan's. Kiuwan also gives a little bit of flexibility in terms of pricing."
"We pay €10 per month for this solution, which is good. It provides a good value for money."
"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."
"They have just streamlined the licensing and they have a number of flexible options available, so overall it is quite good, albeit pricey."
"The cost of scanning code is cheaper. It's typically $0.50 per line of code. However, it's expensive to run a high-level process that would normally require a human security expert. For example, penetration testing costs about $1,000 per application for penetration testing. The cost of these features may be too high for smaller organizations. On the other hand, Veracode's interactive application security testing is fast and cheaper compared to other software."
"I'm unfamiliar with the solution's pricing, but it must be worth the cost from a company perspective, as we have been using it for years and have no plans to move away from it."
"Get a license at the beginning of a project. Don't wait until the end, because you want to use the product throughout the entire software development lifecycle, not just at the end. You could be surprised, and not in a positive way, with all the vulnerabilities there are in your code."
"The pricing is really fair compared to a lot of other tools on the market."
"The licensing and prices were upfront and clear. They stand behind everything that is said during the commercial phase and during the onboarding phase. Even the most irrelevant "that can be done" was delivered, no matter how important the request was."
"The pricing and licensing are reasonable, and relatively straightforward, and different licensing and subscription models are available."
"We're very comfortable with their model. We think they're a good value. We worked very closely with Veracode on understanding their license model, understanding what comprises the fee and what does not. With their assistance in design, we decomposed our application in a way where we are scanning a very significant amount of code without wasting their capacity and generating redundant reported issues. You scan in profiles, per se. And we work with them, in their offices, to design the most effective approach. So the advice I would have for customers is, you can get up and live fast, but work closely with Veracode to refine the method you use for scanning and the way you compile the applications. There's a concept called entry-point scanning, and that's probably not used well by the rest of their customers. We see our licensing as a good value because we leverage it heavily."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Manufacturing Company
15%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Insurance Company
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...
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 ...
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 ...
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. Son...
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 securi...
What do you like most about Veracode?
The SAST and DAST modules are great.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Veracode?
The product’s price is a bit higher compared to other solutions. However, the tool provides good vulnerability and da...
What needs improvement with Veracode?
Veracode Greenlight scans the code while the developer writes it. It will be beneficial for developers if Veracode Gr...
 

Also Known As

Micro Focus Fortify on Demand
Sonar
Crashtest Security , Veracode Detect
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SAP, Aaron's, British Gas, FICO, Cox Automative, Callcredit Information Group, Vital and more.
Information Not Available
Manhattan Associates, Azalea Health, Sabre, QAD, Floor & Decor, Prophecy International, SchoolCNXT, Keap, Rekner, Cox Automotive, Automation Anywhere, State of Missouri and others.
Find out what your peers are saying about Sonar, Veracode, Checkmarx and others in Application Security Tools. Updated: May 2025.
853,960 professionals have used our research since 2012.