Fortify Static Code Analyzer vs Sonatype Lifecycle comparison

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89% willing to recommend
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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Fortify Static Code Analyzer and Sonatype Lifecycle based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Veracode, Checkmarx, OpenText and others in Static Code Analysis.
To learn more, read our detailed Static Code Analysis Report (Updated: April 2024).
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Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"I like the Fortify taxonomy as it provides us with a list of all of the vulnerabilities found. Fortify release updated rule packs quarterly, with accompanying documentation, that lets us know what new features are being released.""I like Fortify Software Security Center or Fortify SSC. This tool is installed on each developer's machine, but Fortify Software Security Center combines everything. We can meet there as security professionals and developers. The developers scan their code and publish the results there. We can then look at them from a security perspective and see whether they fixed the issues. We can agree on whether something is a false positive and make decisions.""You can really see what's happening after you've developed something.""Integrating the Fortify Static Code Analyzer into our software development lifecycle was straightforward. It highlights important information beyond just syntax errors. It identifies issues like password credentials and access keys embedded in the code.""It's helped us free up staff time.""Automating the Jenkins plugins and the build title is a big plus.""The Software Security Center, which is often overlooked, stands out as the most effective feature.""The integration Subset core integration, using Jenkins is one of the good features."

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"Some of the more profound features include the REST APIs. We tend to make use of those a lot. They also have a plugin for our CI/CD; we use Jenkins to do continuous integration, and it makes our pipeline build a lot more streamlined. It integrates with Jenkins very well.""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.""I like Fortify Software Security Center or Fortify SSC. This tool is installed on each developer's machine, but Fortify Software Security Center combines everything. We can meet there as security professionals and developers. The developers scan their code and publish the results there. We can then look at them from a security perspective and see whether they fixed the issues. We can agree on whether something is a false positive and make decisions.""The REST API is the most useful for us because it allows us to drive it remotely and, ideally, to automate it.""The key feature for Nexus Lifecycle is the proprietary data they have on vulnerabilities. The way that they combine all the different sources and also their own research into one concise article that clearly explains what the problem is. Most of the time, and even if you do notice that you have a problem, the public information available is pretty weak. So, if we want to assess if a problem applies to our product, it's really hard. We need to invest a lot of time digging into the problem. This work is basically done by Sonatype for us. The data that it delivers helps us with fixing or understanding the issue a lot quicker than without it.""The most valuable feature is that I get a quick overview of the libraries that are included in the application, and the issues that are connected with them. I can quickly understand which problems there are from a security point of view or from a licensing point of view. It's quick and very exact.""For us, it's seeing not only the licensing and security vulnerabilities but also seeing the age of the open-sources included within our software. That allows us to take proactive steps to make sure we're updating the software to versions that are regularly maintained and that don't have any vulnerabilities.""Lifecycle lets developers see any vulnerabilities or AGPL license issues associated with code in the early stages of development. The nice thing is that it's built into the ID so that they can see all versions of a specific code."

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Cons
"Fortify Static Code Analyzer has a bit of a learning curve, and I don't find it particularly helpful in narrowing down the vulnerabilities we should prioritize.""The troubleshooting capabilities of this solution could be improved. This would reduce the number of cases that users have to submit.""The generation of false positives should be reduced.""Fortify's software security center needs a design refresh.""The product shows false positives for Python applications.""I know the areas that they are trying to improve on. They've been getting feedback for several years. There are two main points. The first thing is keeping current with static code languages. I know it is difficult because code languages pop up all the time or there are new variants, but it is something that Fortify needs to put a better focus on. They need to keep current with their language support. The second thing is a philosophical issue, and I don't know if they'll ever change it. They've done a decent job of putting tools in place to mitigate things, but static code analysis is inherently noisy. If you just take a tool out of the box and run a scan, you're going to get a lot of results back, and not all of those results are interesting or important, which is different for every organization. Currently, we get four to five errors on the side of tagging, and it notifies you of every tiny inconsistency. If the tool sees something that it doesn't know, it flags, which becomes work that has to be done afterward. Clients don't typically like it. There has got to be a way of prioritizing. There are a ton of filter options within Fortify, but the problem is that you've got to go through the crazy noisy scan once before you know which filters you need to put in place to get to the interesting stuff. I keep hearing from their product team that they're working on a way to do container or docker scanning. That's a huge market mover. A lot of people are interested in that right now, and it is relevant. That is definitely something that I'd love to see in the next version or two.""It can be tricky if you want to exclude some files from scanning. For instance, if you do not want to scan and push testing files to Fortify Software Security Center, that is tricky with some IDEs, such as IntelliJ. We found that there is an Exclude feature that is not working. We reported that to them for future fixing. It needs some work on the plugins to make them consistent across IDEs and make them easier.""Fortify Static Code Analyzer is a good solution, but sometimes we receive false positives. If they could reduce the number of false positives it would be good."

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"The reporting could be better.""It can be tricky if you want to exclude some files from scanning. For instance, if you do not want to scan and push testing files to Fortify Software Security Center, that is tricky with some IDEs, such as IntelliJ. We found that there is an Exclude feature that is not working. We reported that to them for future fixing. It needs some work on the plugins to make them consistent across IDEs and make them easier.""The user interface needs to be improved. It is slow for us. We use Nexus IQ mostly via APIs. We don't use the interface that much, but when we use it, certain areas are just unresponsive or very slow to load. So, performance-wise, the UI is not fast enough for us, but we don't use it that much anyway.""The price can be improved.""Not all languages are supported in Fortify.""In the beginning, we sometimes struggle to access the customer environment. The customer must issue the required certificates because many customers use cell phone certificates, and Sonatype needs a valid CA certificate.""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.""There is room for improvement in the code analysis aspect of Sonatype Lifecycle, specifically in the area of deployment security."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "It has a couple of license models. The one that we use most frequently is called their flexible deployment. We use this one because it is flexible and based on the number of code-contributing developers in the organization. It includes almost everything in the Fortify suite for one developer price. It gives access to not just the secure code analyzer (SCA) but also to FSC, the secure code. It gives us accessibility to scan central, which is the decentralized scanning farm. It also gives us access to the software security center, which is the vulnerability management platform."
  • "The price of Fortify Static Code Analyzer could be reduced."
  • "The licensing is expensive and is in the 50K range."
  • "There is a licensing fee, and if you bring them to the company and you want them to do the installation and the implementation in the beginning, there is a separate cost. Similarly, if you want consultation or training, there is a separate cost. I see it as suitable only for enterprises. I do not see it suitable for a small business or individual use."
  • "From our standpoint, we are significantly better off with Fortify due to the favorable pricing we secured five years ago."
  • "Although I am not responsible for the budget, Fortify SAST is expensive."
  • More Fortify Static Code Analyzer Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "Its pricing is competitive within the market. It's not very cheap, it's not very expensive."
  • "We're pretty happy with the price, for what it is delivering for us and the value we're getting from it."
  • "Pricing is comparable with some of the other products. We are happy with the pricing."
  • "The price is good. We certainly get a lot more in return. However, it's also hard to get the funds to roll out such a product for the entire firm. Therefore, pricing has been a limiting factor for us. However, it's a fair price."
  • "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."
  • "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."
  • "Lifecycle, to the best of my recollection, had the best pricing compared with other solutions."
  • More Sonatype Lifecycle Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:Integrating the Fortify Static Code Analyzer into our software development lifecycle was straightforward. It highlights important information beyond just syntax errors. It identifies issues like… more »
    Top Answer:The product shows false positives for Python applications.
    Top Answer: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… more »
    Top Answer:Fortify integrates with various development environments and tools, such as IDEs (Integrated Development Environments) and CI/CD pipelines.
    Top Answer:I would rate the affordability of the solution as an eight out of ten.
    Ranking
    3rd
    Views
    1,501
    Comparisons
    969
    Reviews
    9
    Average Words per Review
    1,124
    Rating
    8.8
    Views
    6,172
    Comparisons
    3,384
    Reviews
    14
    Average Words per Review
    1,112
    Rating
    8.1
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    Fortify Static Code Analysis SAST
    Sonatype Nexus Lifecycle, Nexus Lifecycle
    Learn More
    Overview

    Fortify Static Code Analyzer (SCA) utilizes numerous algorithms in addition to a dynamic intelligence base of secure coding protocols to investigate an application’s source code for any potential risk of malicious or dangerous threats. Additionally, the solution will prioritize the most critical concerns and give direction on how users can repair those concerns. This solution researches each and every potential route that workflow and data can travel to discover and repair all possible vulnerabilities. Fortify SCA allows users to create safe and secure software quickly. Users are able to discover potential security gaps more quickly with precise outcomes and repair them immediately.

    Fortify Static Code Analyzer Benefits

    • CI/CD pipeline security: Fortify SCA integrates well with third-party tools such as ALM Octane, Atlassian Bamboo, Azure DevOps, Eclipse, Jenkins, and Jira. It offers real-time scan results, immediate recommendations, and collaborative auditing, and finds threats faster. It also discovers and prioritizes weaknesses to reduce risk.

    • Cost-effective: Improves coding actions by training users as they work to better understand the relationship of static application security testing (SAST). Fortify SCA is able to find more vulnerabilities than other solutions and delivers significantly fewer false positives.

    • Quick and reliable scanning: Fortify SCA will discover and eradicate weaknesses in byte, binary, or source code. SAST is able to stop the bulk of code issues at the start of development. The solution is able to discover 815 specific categories of risk, works through 27 programming languages and more than one million different APIs. Fortify SCA has a positive rate of 100% in the OWASP 1.2 benchmark.

    Fortify Static Code Analyzer Features

    • Flexible deployment: Using Fortify On Demand, users can work in a complete SaaS environment. Fortify Hosted allows users to use on-premises and SaaS to work in a secure virtual space with complete control. Fortify-On-Prem gives users absolute control of the Fortify SCA solution.

    • Security assistant: Users have an interactive guide as they create code that provides risk analysis and anticipated outcomes. Security Assistant is an outstanding immediate feedback tool that gives instant results with significantly fewer false positives.

    • Audit assistant: This feature uses machine learning to reduce manual audit time while prioritizing the most important risks to users' networks. It provides automated audits in minutes. Any manual examinations are reduced, all issues are prioritized in accordance with organizational needs, and Fortify SCA consistently provides audit results to all projects.

    Results from Real Users

    Fortify Static Code Analyzer tells us if there are any security leaks or not. If there are, then it's notifying us and does not allow us to pass the DevOps pipeline. If it finds everything's perfect, as per our given guidelines, then it is allowing us to go ahead and start it, and we are able to deploy it.” - Arun D., Senior Architect at a healthcare company.

    “Its flexibility is most valuable. It is such a flexible tool. It can be implemented in a number of ways. It can do anything you want it to do. It can be fully automated within a DevOps pipeline. It can also be used in an ad hoc, special test case scenario and anywhere in between.” - Tom H., Director of Security at Merito

    Sonatype Lifecycle is an open-source security and dependency management software that uses only one tool to automatically find open-source vulnerabilities at every stage of the System Development Life Cycle (SDLC). Users can now minimize security vulnerabilities, permitting organizations to enhance development workflow. Sonatype Lifecycle gives the user complete control over their software supply chain, allowing them to regain wasted time fighting risks in the SDLC. In addition, this software unifies the ability to define rules, actions, and policies that work best for your organizations and teams.

    Sonatype Lifecycle allows users to help their teams discover threats before an attack has the chance to take place by examining a database of known vulnerabilities. With continuous monitoring at every stage of the development life cycle, Sonatype Lifecycle enables teams to build secure software. The solution allows users to utilize a complete automated solution within their existing workflows. Once a potential threat is identified, the solution’s policies will automatically rectify it.

    Benefits of Open-source Security Monitoring

    As cybersecurity attacks are on the rise, organizations are at constant risk for data breaches. Managing your software supply chain gets trickier as your organization grows, leaving many vulnerabilities exposed. With easily accessible source code that can be modified and shared freely, open-source monitoring gives users complete transparency. A community of professionals can inspect open-source code to ensure fewer bugs, and any open-source dependency vulnerability will be detected and fixed rapidly. Users can use open-source security monitoring to avoid attacks through automatic detection of potential threats and rectification immediately and automatically.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Sonatype Lifecycle software receives high praise from users for many reasons. Among them are the abilities to identify and rectify vulnerabilities at every stage of the SDLC, help with open-source governance, and minimize risk.

    Michael E., senior enterprise architect at MIB Group, says "Some of the more profound features include the REST APIs. We tend to make use of those a lot. They also have a plugin for our CI/CD.”

    R.S., senior architect at a insurance company, notes “Specifically features that have been good include:

    • the email notifications
    • the API, which has been good to work with for reporting, because we have some downstream reporting requirements
    • that it's been really user-friendly to work with.”

    "Its engine itself is most valuable in terms of the way it calculates and decides whether a security vulnerability exists or not. That's the most important thing. Its security is also pretty good, and its listing about the severities is also good," says Subham S., engineering tools and platform manager at BT - British Telecom.

    Sample Customers
    Information Not Available
    Genome.One, Blackboard, Crediterform, Crosskey, Intuit, Progress Software, Qualys, Liberty Mutual Insurance
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company31%
    Financial Services Firm23%
    Healthcare Company8%
    Government8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm28%
    Computer Software Company14%
    Manufacturing Company10%
    Government7%
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm32%
    Computer Software Company11%
    Insurance Company11%
    Energy/Utilities Company8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm33%
    Computer Software Company11%
    Government9%
    Manufacturing Company6%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business62%
    Large Enterprise38%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business17%
    Midsize Enterprise9%
    Large Enterprise74%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business28%
    Midsize Enterprise15%
    Large Enterprise57%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business14%
    Midsize Enterprise10%
    Large Enterprise76%
    Buyer's Guide
    Static Code Analysis
    April 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Veracode, Checkmarx, OpenText and others in Static Code Analysis. Updated: April 2024.
    770,292 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Fortify Static Code Analyzer is ranked 3rd in Static Code Analysis with 13 reviews while Sonatype Lifecycle is ranked 5th in Software Composition Analysis (SCA) with 42 reviews. Fortify Static Code Analyzer is rated 8.4, while Sonatype Lifecycle is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Fortify Static Code Analyzer writes "Seamless to integrate and identify vulnerabilities and frees up staff time". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Sonatype Lifecycle writes "Seamless to integrate and identify vulnerabilities and frees up staff time". Fortify Static Code Analyzer is most compared with Black Duck, Snyk, Veracode, GitLab and Mend.io, whereas Sonatype Lifecycle is most compared with SonarQube, Black Duck, GitLab, Checkmarx One and Mend.io.

    We monitor all Static Code Analysis reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.