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Fortify Software Security Center 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 Software Security C...
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
26th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
8.3
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SonarQube Server (formerly ...
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
114
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (1st), Software Development Analytics (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of Fortify Software Security Center is 0.4%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) is 25.0%, down from 27.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
 

Featured Reviews

Jonathan Steyn - PeerSpot reviewer
Comprehensive vulnerability analysis and customization features with decent pricing
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. WebInspect supports a number of APIs and web endpoints. I find its feature of macro recording allows for testing vulnerabilities during multi-factor authentication sessions very valuable. I appreciate the ability to further analyze data with tools like Audit Workbench.
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

"The overall rating for this tool is ten out of ten."
"The reporting is very useful because you can always view an entire list of the issues that you have."
"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."
"I like the explanation of issues provided by Fortify Software Security Center."
"Fortify Analytics' AI function helps scan and provides more detailed explanations and recommendations about vulnerabilities."
"You can easily download the tool's rule packs and update them."
"This is a stable solution at the end of the day."
"SonarQube is a fantastic tool which saves us precious time."
"This solution is simple to use and can be quickly deployed."
"Improve the code coverage and evaluates the technical steps and percentage of code being resolved."
"The solution is stable."
"It is working fine. It provides a good value for money."
"Strong code evaluation for budget-minded clients."
"I like that it helps us maintain our work quality and code security."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is that it is free."
 

Cons

"Fortify Software Security Center's setup is really painful."
"I am not satisfied with the percentage of false positives, which is around eighteen percent."
"We are having issues with false positives that need to be resolved."
"This solution is difficult to implement, and it should be made more comfortable for the end-users."
"Improvements needed for Software Security Center include better aggregation views of datasets."
"The product's overlap feature is restrictive and requires more customization efforts, which can be expensive."
"Improvements needed for Software Security Center include better aggregation views of datasets."
"We found a solution with dynamic testing, and are looking to find a solution that can be used for both types of testing."
"It would be a great add-on if SonarQube could update its database for vulnerabilities or plugging parts."
"There is need for support for the additional languages and ease of use in adding new rules for detecting issues."
"New plug-ins should be integrated into SonarCloud to give more flexibility to the product."
"There is no automation. You need to put the code there and test. You then pull the results and put them back in the development environment. There is no integration with the development environment. We would like it to be integrated with our development environment, which is basically the CI/CD pipeline or the IDE that we have."
"The scanning part could be improved in SonarQube. We have used Coverity for scanning, and we have the critical issues reported by Coverity. When we used SonarQube for scanning and looked at the results, it seems that some of them have incorrect input. This part can be improved for C and C++ languages."
"I would also like SonarQube to be able to write custom scanning rules. More documentation would be helpful as well because some of our guys were struggling with the customization script."
"Our developers have complained about the Quality Gates and the number of false positives that this product reports."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This is a costly solution that could be cheaper."
"The solution is priced fair."
"As a Fortify partner company providing technical support, I find the product expensive in our country, where local, inexpensive products are available."
"SonarQube enterprise, I am not sure of the price but from what I understand they are charging a fee. It's is not clear if it is an annual fee or a one-off."
"The beauty of this solution is the free open-source version is capable enough in doing pretty much what an enterprise-level version can do."
"We are using the free, unlicensed version."
"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."
"A low cost long-term solution for non-critical situations."
"Some of the plugins that were previously free are not free now."
"It's an open-source product."
"The product’s price is lower than Veracode’s price."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
5%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Micro Focus Software Security Center?
You can easily download the tool's rule packs and update them.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Micro Focus Software Security Center?
In the beginning, it was difficult for me to verify that our usage of Fortify Software Security Center corresponded to the license and criteria. Now, we have negotiated a number of details to respe...
What needs improvement with Micro Focus Software Security Center?
I would like the false positive issue to diminish. I have experienced a lot of false positives, but I think this is due to using an older version. I hope the new version will resolve my problem.
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
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Neosecure, Acxiom, Skandinavisk Data Center A/S, Parkeon
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortify Software Security Center vs. SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,963 professionals have used our research since 2012.