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GitHub Advanced Security vs Sonatype Lifecycle comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 8, 2024

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

GitHub Advanced Security
Ranking in Application Security Tools
11th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Sonatype Lifecycle
Ranking in Application Security Tools
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
45
Ranking in other categories
Software Composition Analysis (SCA) (4th), Software Supply Chain Security (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Application Security Tools category, the mindshare of GitHub Advanced Security is 8.8%, up from 3.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sonatype Lifecycle is 2.7%, down from 3.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Security Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Sabna Sainudeen - PeerSpot reviewer
Seamlessly integrates into developer environment for streamlined code scanning
GitHub Advanced Security should look into API security issues, which they currently do not. Additionally, open-source security vulnerabilities are not getting updated in a timely manner. There are features in GitHub Advanced Security that cannot be used within Microsoft, which is strange since they are the same company. It should also focus on developing a software bill of materials (SBOM) to see all open software used in one place.
SrinathKuppannan2 - PeerSpot reviewer
Easily identifies problematic versions and ensures adherence to regulatory standards like HIPAA, critical for industries dealing with sensitive information
While Sonatype Lifecycle effectively manages artifacts in Nexus Repository and performs code firewall checks based on rules, it has the potential to expand further. I am looking forward to additional features similar to SonarQube, especially since licenses are often split per component. SonarType could integrate cloud-based capabilities, addressing the increasing shift towards cloud workloads. While there have been demos and discussions around this, significant progress on scanning and analyzing cloud images remains to be seen. I am looking forward to Sonatype incorporating these enhancements, particularly in regard to cloud-based features. On-prem workloads are getting to the cloud workloads. * I would like to see more cloud-related insights, such as logging capabilities for the images we use and image scanning information. * Additionally, it would be beneficial to have insights into the stages of dependencies and ensure they comply with standards. If there are any violations in respect to CVSS reports, * Integrating CVSS (Common Vulnerability Scoring System) report rules into the Lifecycle module to detect and report violations would be valuable. I am hoping to see these enhancements from Sonatype in the future. On the security side, I think there's a lot of development needed. There are many security tools on the market, like open-source ones, that Sonatype doesn't integrate with.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is a stable solution...It is a scalable solution as it can handle new applications along with the analysis part."
"It ensures user passwords or sensitive information are not accidentally exposed in code or reports."
"The most valuable is the developer experience and the extensibility of the overall ecosystem."
"I have not experienced any performance or stability issues with GitHub Advanced Security."
"GitHub Advanced Security uses artificial intelligence in the backend, specifically CodeQL, to analyze code and provide fewer but more reliable findings, so there are less false positives."
"The product's most valuable features are security scan, dependency scan, and cost-effectiveness."
"GitHub Advanced Security is ten out of ten scalable."
"Dependency scanning is a valuable feature."
"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."
"There is a feature called Continuous Monitoring. As time goes on we'll be able to know whether a platform is still secure or not because of this feature."
"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."
"When developers are consuming open-source libraries from the internet, it's able to automatically block the ones that are insecure. And it has the ability to make suggestions on the ones they should be using instead."
"Sonatype support is quite responsive. When we needed something, we could reach out and set up a meeting. They provide the best support possible."
"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."
"The most important features of the Sonatype Nexus Lifecycle are the vulnerability reports."
"Among its valuable features, it's easy to handle and easy configure, it's user-friendly, and it's easy to map and integrate."
 

Cons

"The report limitations are the main issue."
"The customizations are a little bit difficult."
"Open-source security vulnerabilities are not getting updated in a timely manner."
"A more refined approach, categorizing and emphasizing specific vulnerabilities, would be beneficial."
"The reporting feature might need improvement. While it integrates seamlessly with my workflow, it doesn't provide management with oversight, such as statistics and the number of vulnerabilities."
"For GitHub Advanced Security, I would like to see more support for various programming languages."
"The deployment part of the product is an area of concern that needs to be made easier from an improvement perspective."
"There could be a centralized dashboard to view reports of all the projects on one platform."
"We created the Wiki page for each team showing an overview of their outstanding security issues because the Lifecycle reporting interface isn't as intuitive. It is good for people on my team who use it quite often. But for a tech engineer who doesn't interact with it regularly, it's quite confusing."
"We had some issues, and I think we might still have some issues, where the Sonatype Nexus Repository has integrations with IQ and SonarQube. We're getting some errors on the UI, so we've had Sonatype look into that a little bit."
"Not all languages are supported in Fortify."
"Both JFrog and Sonatype should redesign their products to separate the binary repository management solution from the software composition analysis solutions."
"Fortify's software security center needs a design refresh."
"We do not use it for more because it is still too immature, not quite "finished." It is missing important features for making it a daily tool. It's not complete, from my point of view..."
"There is room for improvement in the code analysis aspect of Sonatype Lifecycle, specifically in the area of deployment security."
"As far as the relationship of, and ease of finding the relationships between, libraries and applications across the whole enterprise goes, it still does that. They could make that a little smoother, although right now it's still pretty good."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is expensive."
"The current licensing model, which relies on active commitments, poses challenges, particularly in predicting and managing growth."
"There are additional costs in commercial offerings for add-ons such as Nexus Container or IDE Advanced Toolkit. They come with additional fees or licenses."
"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."
"Cost is a drawback. It's somewhat costly."
"Given the number of users we have, it is one of the most expensive tools in our portfolio, which includes some real heavy-duty tools such as GitLab, Jira, etc. It is definitely a bit on the expensive side, and the ambiguity in how the licenses are calculated adds to the cost as well. If there is a better understanding of how the licenses are being calculated, there would be a better agreement between the two parties, and the cost might also be a little less. There is no extra cost from Sonatype. There is an operational cost on the BT side in terms of resources, etc."
"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."
"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."
"Lifecycle, to the best of my recollection, had the best pricing compared with other solutions."
"Its pricing is competitive within the market. It's not very cheap, it's not very expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
34%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about GitHub Advanced Security?
It is a stable solution...It is a scalable solution as it can handle new applications along with the analysis part.
What needs improvement with GitHub Advanced Security?
For GitHub Advanced Security, I would like to see more support for various programming languages. Additionally, it would be beneficial to have more control at an organizational level rather than ha...
What is your primary use case for GitHub Advanced Security?
I use GitHub Advanced Security ( /products/github-advanced-security-reviews ) at my workplace to scan for code vulnerabilities and secrets in our software development workflow. It is used across mu...
How does Sonatype Nexus Lifecycle compare with SonarQube?
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 t...
What do you like most about Sonatype Nexus Lifecycle?
Fortify integrates with various development environments and tools, such as IDEs (Integrated Development Environments) and CI/CD pipelines.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sonatype Nexus Lifecycle?
According to my calculations, if you are working with up to 200 developers, Sonatype is cheaper than JFrog. However, for larger numbers like our case with 1,000 user licenses, JFrog becomes much mo...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Sonatype Nexus Lifecycle, Nexus Lifecycle
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Genome.One, Blackboard, Crediterform, Crosskey, Intuit, Progress Software, Qualys, Liberty Mutual Insurance
Find out what your peers are saying about GitHub Advanced Security vs. Sonatype Lifecycle and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
852,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.