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OpenText Core Application Security vs Sonatype Lifecycle comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 19, 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

OpenText Core Application S...
Ranking in Application Security Tools
14th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
60
Ranking in other categories
Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (13th)
Sonatype Lifecycle
Ranking in Application Security Tools
6th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
45
Ranking in other categories
Software Composition Analysis (SCA) (4th), Software Supply Chain Security (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Application Security Tools category, the mindshare of OpenText Core Application Security is 4.0%, down from 5.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sonatype Lifecycle is 2.5%, down from 2.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Security Tools Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Sonatype Lifecycle2.5%
OpenText Core Application Security4.0%
Other93.5%
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.
SrinathKuppannan2 - PeerSpot reviewer
Easily identifies problematic versions and ensures adherence to regulatory standards like HIPAA, critical for industries dealing with sensitive information
While Sonatype Lifecycle effectively manages artifacts in Nexus Repository and performs code firewall checks based on rules, it has the potential to expand further. I am looking forward to additional features similar to SonarQube, especially since licenses are often split per component. SonarType could integrate cloud-based capabilities, addressing the increasing shift towards cloud workloads. While there have been demos and discussions around this, significant progress on scanning and analyzing cloud images remains to be seen. I am looking forward to Sonatype incorporating these enhancements, particularly in regard to cloud-based features. On-prem workloads are getting to the cloud workloads. * I would like to see more cloud-related insights, such as logging capabilities for the images we use and image scanning information. * Additionally, it would be beneficial to have insights into the stages of dependencies and ensure they comply with standards. If there are any violations in respect to CVSS reports, * Integrating CVSS (Common Vulnerability Scoring System) report rules into the Lifecycle module to detect and report violations would be valuable. I am hoping to see these enhancements from Sonatype in the future. On the security side, I think there's a lot of development needed. There are many security tools on the market, like open-source ones, that Sonatype doesn't integrate with.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Being able to reduce risk overall is a very valuable feature for us."
"Its ability to perform different types of scans, keep everything in one place, and track the triage process in Fortify SSC stands out."
"The most valuable features are the server, scanning, and it has helped identify issues with the security analysis."
"The most valuable feature of Micro Focus Fortify on Demand is the information it can provide. There is quite a lot of information. It can pinpoint right down to where the problem is, allowing you to know where to fix it. Overall the features are easy to use, you don't have to be a coder. You can be a manager, or in IT operations, et cetera, anyone can use it. It is quite a well-rounded functional solution."
"The features that I have found most valuable include its security scan, the vulnerability finds, and the web interface to search and review the issues."
"While using Micro Focus Fortify on Demand we have been very happy with the results and findings."
"The most important feature of the product is to follow today's technology fast, updated rules and algorithms (of the product)."
"Fortify on Demand can be scaled very easily."
"The integrations into developer tooling are quite nice. I have the integration for Eclipse and for Visual Studio. Colleagues are using the Javascript IDE from JetBrains called WebStorm and there is an integration for that from Nexus Lifecycle. I have not heard about anything that is not working. It's also quite easy to integrate it. You just need to set up a project or an app and then you just make the connection in all the tools you're using."
"The application onboarding and policy grandfathering features are good and the solution integrates well with our existing DevOps tools."
"The price is high."
"You can really see what's happening after you've developed something."
"The dashboard is usable and gives us clear visibility into what is happening. It also has a very cool feature, which allows us to see the clean version available to be downloaded. Therefore, it is very easy to go and trace which version of the component does not have any issues. The dashboard can be practical, as well. It can wave a particular version of a Java file or component. It can even grandfather certain components, because in a real world scenarios we cannot always take the time to go and update something because it's not backward compatible. Having these features make it a lot easier to use and more practical. It allows us to apply the security, without having an all or nothing approach."
"The REST API is the most useful for us because it allows us to drive it remotely and, ideally, to automate it."
"When I started to install the Nexus products and started to integrate them into our development cycle, it helped us construct or fill out our development process in general. The build stage is a really good template for us and it helped establish a structure that we could build our whole continuous integration and development process around. Now our git repos are tagged for different build stages data, staging, and for release. That aligns with the Nexus Lifecycle build stages."
"The component piece, where you can analyze the component, is the most valuable. You can pull the component up and you can look at what versions are bad, what versions are clean, and what versions haven't been reported on yet. You can make decisions based off of that, in terms of where you want to go. I like that it puts all that information right there in a window for you."
 

Cons

"The UI could be better. Fortify should also suggest new packages in the product that can be upgraded. Currently, it shows that, but it's not visible enough. In future versions, I would like more insights about the types of vulnerabilities and the pages associated with the exact CVE."
"It would be highly beneficial if Fortify on Demand incorporated runtime analysis, similar to how Contrast Security utilizes agents for proactive application security."
"Micro Focus Fortify on Demand could improve the reports. They could benefit from being more user-friendly and intuitive."
"This solution would be improved if the code-quality perspective were added to it, on top of the security aspect."
"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."
"There are lots of limitations with code technology. It cannot scan .net properly either."
"Not fully integrated with CIT processes."
"With Rapid7 I utilized its reporting capabilities to deliver Client Reports within just a few minutes of checking the data. I believe that HP’s FoD Clients could sell more services to clients if HP put more effort into delivering visually pleasing reporting capabilities."
"Not all languages are supported in Fortify."
"The team managing Nexus Lifecycle reported that their internal libraries were not being identified, so they have asked Sonatype's technical team to include that in the upcoming version."
"It would be helpful if it had a more detailed view of what has been quarantined, for people who don't have Lifecycle licenses. Other than that, it's pretty good."
"One thing that I would like to give feedback on is to scan the binary code. It's very difficult to find. It's under organization and policies where there are action buttons that are not very obvious. I think for people who are using it and are not integrated into it, it is not easy to find the button to load the binary and do the scan. This is if there is no existing, continuous integration process, which I believe most people have, but some users don't have this at the moment. This is the most important function of the Nexus IQ, so I expect it should be right on the dashboard where you can apply your binary and do a quick scan. Right now, it's hidden inside organization and policies. If you select the organization, then you can see in the top corner that there is a manual action which you can approve. There are multiple steps to reach that important function that we need. When we were initially looking at the dashboard, we looked for it and couldn't find it. So, we called our coworker who set up the server and they told us it's not on the dashboard."
"Since Nexus Repository just keeps on adding the .jar artifacts whenever there is a build, whenever an application is going up, there is always a space issue on the server. That is one of the things that we are looking for Nexus to notify us about: if it is running out of space."
"The biggest thing is getting it put uniformly across all the different teams. It's more of a process issue. The process needs to be thought out about how it's going to be used, what kind of training there will be, how it's going to be socialized, and how it's going to be rolled out and controlled, enterprise-wide. That's probably more of a challenge than the technology itself."
"The GUI is simple, so it's easy to use. It started as great to use, but for larger scale companies, it also comes with some limitations. This is why we tried to move to more of an API approach. So, the GUI could use some improvements potentially."
"Nexus Lifecycle is multiple products. One drawback I've noticed is that there are some differences in the features between the products within Lifecycle. They need to maintain the same structure, but there are some slight differences."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We are still using the trial version at this point but I can already see from the trial version alone that it is a good product. For others, I would say that Fortify on Demand might look expensive at the beginning, but it is very powerful and so you shouldn't be put off by the price."
"We make an annual purchase of the licenses we need."
"It is not more expensive than other solutions, but the pricing is competitive."
"It's a yearly contract, but I don't remember the dollar amount."
"Fortify on Demand is moderately priced, but its pricing could be more flexible."
"Their subscriptions could use a little bit of a reworking, but I am very happy with what they're able to provide."
"Fortify on Demand is more expensive than Burpsuite. I rate its pricing a nine out of ten."
"The price is fair compared to that of other solutions."
"Pricing is decent. It's not horrible. It's middle-of-the-road, as far as our ranking goes. They're a little bit more but that's also because they provide more."
"There are additional costs in commercial offerings for add-ons such as Nexus Container or IDE Advanced Toolkit. They come with additional fees or licenses."
"Given the number of users we have, it is one of the most expensive tools in our portfolio, which includes some real heavy-duty tools such as GitLab, Jira, etc. It is definitely a bit on the expensive side, and the ambiguity in how the licenses are calculated adds to the cost as well. If there is a better understanding of how the licenses are being calculated, there would be a better agreement between the two parties, and the cost might also be a little less. There is no extra cost from Sonatype. There is an operational cost on the BT side in terms of resources, etc."
"The license fee may be a bit harder for startups to justify. But it will save you a headache later as well as peace of mind. Additionally, it shows your own customers that you value security stuff and will protect yourselves from any licensing issues, which is good marketing too."
"In addition to the license fee for IQ Server, you have to factor in some running costs. We use AWS, so we spun up an additional VM to run this. If the database is RDS that adds a little bit extra too. Of course someone could run it on a pre-existing VM or physical server to reduce costs. I should add that compared to the license fee, the running costs are so minimal they had no effect on our decision to use IQ Server."
"It's expensive, but you get what you pay for. There were no problems with the base license and how they do it. It was transparent. You don't have to worry. You can scan to your heart's delight."
"Cost is a drawback. It's somewhat costly."
"Lifecycle, to the best of my recollection, had the best pricing compared with other solutions."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Manufacturing Company
15%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
31%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise43
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise29
 

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...
How does Sonatype Nexus Lifecycle compare with SonarQube?
We like the data that Sonatype Nexus Lifecycle consistently delivers. This solution helps us in fixing and understanding the issues a lot quicker. The policy engine allows you to set up different t...
What do you like most about Sonatype Nexus Lifecycle?
Fortify integrates with various development environments and tools, such as IDEs (Integrated Development Environments) and CI/CD pipelines.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sonatype Nexus Lifecycle?
According to my calculations, if you are working with up to 200 developers, Sonatype is cheaper than JFrog. However, for larger numbers like our case with 1,000 user licenses, JFrog becomes much mo...
 

Also Known As

Micro Focus Fortify on Demand
Sonatype Nexus Lifecycle, Nexus Lifecycle
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SAP, Aaron's, British Gas, FICO, Cox Automative, Callcredit Information Group, Vital and more.
Genome.One, Blackboard, Crediterform, Crosskey, Intuit, Progress Software, Qualys, Liberty Mutual Insurance
Find out what your peers are saying about OpenText Core Application Security vs. Sonatype Lifecycle and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
867,445 professionals have used our research since 2012.