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Fortify Software Security Center vs SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 15, 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)
30th
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
116
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (1st), Software Development Analytics (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 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 23.9%, down from 27.8% 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.
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.

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."
"You can easily download the tool's rule packs and update them."
"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."
"The overall rating for this tool is ten out of ten."
"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."
"This is a stable solution at the end of the day."
"This has improved our organization because it has helped to find Security Vulnerabilities."
"I follow Quality Gate's graduation model within organization, and it is extremely helpful for me to benchmark products."
"When comparing other static code analysis tools, SonarQube has fewer false-positive issues being reported. They have a lot of support for different tech stacks. It covers the entire developer community which includes Salesforce or it could be the regular Java.net project. It has actually sufficed all the needs in one tool for static code analysis."
"The static code analysis of the solution is the most important aspect for us. When it comes to security breaches within the code, we can leverage some rules to allow us to identify the repetition in our code and the possible targets that we may have. It makes it very easy to review our code for security purposes."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is that it is free."
"The depth features I have found most valuable. You receive a quick comprehensive comparison overview regarding the current release and the last release and what type of depths dependency or duplication should be used. This is going to help you to make a more readable code and have more flexibility for the engineers to understand how things should work when they do not know."
"If you want to have your code scanned and timed then this is a good tool."
"Engineers have also learned from the results and have improved themselves as engineers. This will help them with their careers."
 

Cons

"We are having issues with false positives that need to be resolved."
"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."
"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."
"Improvements needed for Software Security Center include better aggregation views of datasets."
"Improvements needed for Software Security Center include better aggregation views of datasets."
"A better design of the interface and add some new rules."
"SonarQube needs to improve its ease of use, integration with third-party platforms, and scalability."
"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."
"We had some issues scanning the master branch but when we upgraded to version 7.9 we noticed it does scan the master branch but we had to do a workaround for it to happen. This process could be improved in a future release."
"SonarQube could be improved by implementing inter-procedural code analysis capabilities, allowing for a more comprehensive detection of defects and vulnerabilities across the entire codebase."
"An improvement is with false positives. Sometimes the tool can say there is an issue in your code but, really, you have to do things in a certain way due to external dependencies, and I think it's very hard to indicate this is the case."
"The reporting is good, but I am not able to download a specific report as a PDF, so downloading reports is something that should be looked at."
"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."
 

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."
"On the pricing side, it's 3,000 Euros for 1 million lines of code."
"There are many different packages with different pricing options available. We are able to try what we have and if we need extra features we can upgrade the license."
"I was using the Community Edition, which is available free of charge."
"SonarQube is an open-source product that can be used free of charge."
"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."
"It's a bit expensive for us. The currency rate of the dollar is a problem but it may be fine for other countries."
"I think comparing the product to competitors it should be less expensive."
"This is open source."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
7%
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: June 2025.
859,129 professionals have used our research since 2012.