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Fortify Software Security Center 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 Software Security C...
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
19th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
4.6
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SonarQube
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
135
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (1st), Software Development Analytics (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of Fortify Software Security Center is 1.5%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SonarQube is 14.5%, down from 24.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Static Application Security Testing (SAST) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SonarQube14.5%
Fortify Software Security Center1.5%
Other84.0%
Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
 

Featured Reviews

Diego Caicedo Lescano - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Innovation Officer at SAGGA
Enables centralized analysis and improves governance through seamless tool integration
The main use case for Fortify Software Security Center is exceptional because we have governance and control through that console. You can centralize both static analysis and dynamic analysis, and correlate both analyses in one tool to get better results by combining those independent results from each solution. That is outstanding, and there is no tool I have seen on the market that offers these capabilities. I appreciate the interoperability with other solutions from Fortify Software Security Center. Because we are using Kiuwan, you can run Kiuwan analyses and integrate them with Fortify Software Security Center to get those results in a single console. That is a good console for centralizing things in one point. That is one of the best features of the on-premises Fortify.
Sathyamurthi Natarajan - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Officer (Solution Architect) at World Bank
We maintain high code standards with effective static code analysis and integration
SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) could be improved on the reporting front. Instead of grouping, I would prefer to scan the code as part of development and then generate a report on a daily basis among different units or projects, which is currently complicated. We need to change it to more of a portfolio report, where configuring or setting up things on the portfolio requires tagging at the ADO level.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The reporting is very useful because you can always view an entire list of the issues that you have."
"I like the explanation of issues provided by Fortify Software Security Center."
"The main use case for Fortify Software Security Center is exceptional because we have governance and control through that console."
"You can easily download the tool's rule packs and update them."
"This is a stable solution at the end of the day."
"Software Security Center is highly customizable and helps me test all vulnerability data against the latest conventions like OWASP Top Ten, CVE Top twenty-five, and several other legal compliances."
"The overall rating for this tool is ten out of ten."
"Fortify Analytics' AI function helps scan and provides more detailed explanations and recommendations about vulnerabilities."
"We've configured it to run on each commit, providing feedback on our software quality. ]"
"SonarQube: Recording of issues over a period of time, with an indication of the addition in the new issues or the reduction of existing issues (which were fixed)."
"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."
"When we push our code to the repo, while in continuous integration, it will run a few tests and based on the vulnerability data set it has, it can track the vulnerabilities, indicate the code line where the issue exists, and show how much code is covered by all the unit tests, integration tests, and those sorts of things."
"With this, we have delivered a quality product to our stakeholders."
"SonarQube is a Code Quality Assurance tool that collects and analyzes source code and provides reports on the code quality of your project."
"The most valuable features are that it is user-friendly, easy to access, and they provide good training files."
"The SonarQube dashboard looks great."
 

Cons

"The product's overlap feature is restrictive and requires more customization efforts, which can be expensive."
"Fortify Software Security Center's setup is really painful."
"We are having issues with false positives that need to be resolved."
"The initial setup of this solution is very complex. Specifically, the integration between other parts of the solution is difficult."
"Improvements needed for Software Security Center include better aggregation views of datasets."
"The support for Fortify on-premises is the same as for the other products. I would say the support is not good and I would rate it a three out of ten."
"This solution is difficult to implement, and it should be made more comfortable for the end-users."
"I am not satisfied with the percentage of false positives, which is around eighteen percent."
"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."
"The interface could be a little better and should be enhanced."
"There is no automation. You need to put the code there and test."
"Monitoring is a feature that can be improved in the next version."
"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."
"In the next release, I would like to have notifications because now, it is a bit difficult. I think that's a feature which we could add there and it would benefit the users as well. For every full request, they should be able to see their bugs or vulnerability directly on the surface."
"Improvements could be made in terms of security. I would like to see dynamic code analysis in the next version of the software."
"If you don't have any experience with the configuration or how to configure the files, it can be complicated."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This is a costly solution that could be cheaper."
"As a Fortify partner company providing technical support, I find the product expensive in our country, where local, inexpensive products are available."
"The solution is priced fair."
"The developer edition is based on cost per lines of code."
"For the Community edition, there is no extra cost. It's totally free. The Enterprise edition, Data Center edition, and Developer edition are the paid versions."
"We did not purchase a license (required for C++ support), but this option was considered."
"I rate the pricing a five out of ten."
"SonarQube is a fairly affordable solution for a larger scale if you have a specific role or specific department for secure code."
"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."
"People can try the free licenses and later can seek buying plugins/support, etc. once they started liking it."
"The current pricing is quite cheap."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Computer Software Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business43
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise79
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Micro Focus Software Security Center?
In my opinion, there are no areas that could be improved with Fortify Software Security Center. I would say it is a good product and a mature product. However, the SAST has many improvement areas. ...
What is your primary use case for Micro Focus Software Security Center?
We have installed Fortify Static Code Analysis, SAST, in Ecuador in two customers. The Fortify ScanCentral includes three components: SAST, Fortify Software Security Center, and the WebInspect.
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 Software Security Center, Application Security Center, HPE Application Security Center, WebInspect
Sonar, SonarQube Cloud
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Neosecure, Acxiom, Skandinavisk Data Center A/S, Parkeon
Snowflake, Booking.com, Deutsche Bank, AstraZeneca, and Ford Motor Company.
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortify Software Security Center vs. SonarQube and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,747 professionals have used our research since 2012.