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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)
28th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
5.7
Number of Reviews
7
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 August 2025, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of Fortify Software Security Center is 0.4%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) is 22.1%, down from 27.6% 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 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."
"Fortify Analytics' AI function helps scan and provides more detailed explanations and recommendations about vulnerabilities."
"This is a stable solution at the end of the day."
"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."
"You can easily download the tool's rule packs and update them."
"Strong code evaluation for budget-minded clients."
"The customizable dashboard and ability to include results and coverage from unit test and other static analysis code tools."
"Improve the code coverage and evaluates the technical steps and percentage of code being resolved."
"It easily ties into our continuous integration pipeline."
"It's a great product. If you are in a hurry and just want to focus on the functional requirements of any kind of project, SonarQube is highly helpful. It enables the developers to code securely. SonarQube has a Community edition, which is open source and free. There are also three proprietary or paid versions: Enterprise edition, Data Center edition, and Developer edition."
"I like that it has a better dashboard compared to Clockwork. It's also stable."
"The most valuable feature is the security hotspot feature that identifies where your code is prone to have security issues."
"The overall quality of the indicator is good."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"Improvements needed for Software Security Center include better aggregation views of datasets."
"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."
"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."
"For improvement, this solution could be offered on Docker and the cloud and the support for this solution could be improved. Customizing rules could also be made simpler."
"The solution could improve by having better-consulting services."
"This solution finds issues that are similar to what is found by Checkmarx, and it would be nice if the overlap could be eliminated."
"The tool needs to be more compatible with C/C++ language"
"SonarQube needs to improve its support model. They do not work 24/7, and they do not provide weekend support in case things go wrong. They only have a standard 8:00 am to 5:00 pm support model in which you have to raise a support ticket and wait. The support model is not effective for premium customers."
"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."
"I think SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) should improve by integrating a new feature that includes AI. As soon as I see that they've got a new feature that integrates AI that is not as generative as other GenAI platforms that actually generate the code and help developers develop faster, I believe that capability is lacking."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"As a Fortify partner company providing technical support, I find the product expensive in our country, where local, inexpensive products are available."
"This is a costly solution that could be cheaper."
"The solution is priced fair."
"We did not purchase a license (required for C++ support), but this option was considered."
"This is open source."
"It's a bit expensive for us. The currency rate of the dollar is a problem but it may be fine for other countries."
"As a user and a consumer of this solution, it can be pricey for my company to support and use, even though there are many benefits. For this reason, we use the free version. In the future, as our product cycles develop and evolve at a more steady pace, we hope to invest in the licensing for this tool."
"The solution is cheaper than other products."
"We are using the community version of the solution and we plan on purchasing licenses for the upgraded version soon. There is a limitation on how many lines of code can be scanned and this is why we are going to purchase a license for an increased amount."
"We're using an older version because it is the open-source flavor of it and we can continue using it at no cost. We're not paying any licensing at all, which was another factor in choosing this route so that we can learn and grow with it and not be committed to licenses and other similar things. If we choose to get something else, we have to relearn, but we don't have to relicense. Basically, we're paying no license costs."
"The product’s price is lower than Veracode’s price."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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.
What is your primary use case for Micro Focus Software Security Center?
They use it to scan applications and fix bugs, which are my customers' main use cases for Fortify Software Security Center. As a reseller, I sell this product to provide application security becaus...
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: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.