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GitHub 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

GitHub
Ranking in Application Security Tools
6th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
93
Ranking in other categories
Version Control (3rd)
SonarQube Server (formerly ...
Ranking in Application Security Tools
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
114
Ranking in other categories
Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (1st), Software Development Analytics (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Application Security Tools category, the mindshare of GitHub is 0.8%, down from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) is 24.5%, down from 27.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Security Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Pervez Roy - PeerSpot reviewer
Very good for collaboration on software projects
We use GitHub for code repository alongside Bitbucket GitHub is very good for collaboration on software projects. We prefer Bitbucket for commercial use, while GitHub is used for open source. You can get the differences, history of changes, and version control for various pull requests. You can…
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

"Our code is secure."
"It is really simple to set up."
"The solution can scale."
"GitHub is convenient and easy to use."
"GitHub is good for collaboration because everyone can access it or we can restrict access to a few users. If I upload a file and share the URL, it's not restricted to a set number of users. Everyone with the link can download the files."
"The versioning of the code and the tracking of changes are definitely some of my top features."
"It provides Draft Pull Requests for review purposes without needing immediate merging and GitHub Actions for CI/CD implementation."
"Complication free with good ability for third-party integrations."
"Using SonarQube benefits us because we are able to avoid the inclusion of malware in our applications."
"If code coverage is a low number then that's of great value to me."
"Improve the code coverage and evaluates the technical steps and percentage of code being resolved."
"I like that it's easy to navigate not just in terms of code findings but you can actually see them in the context of your source code because it gives you a copy of your code with the items that it found and highlights them. You can see it directly in your code, so you can easily go back and make the corrections in the code. It basically finds the problems for you and tells you where they are."
"It easily ties into our continuous integration pipeline."
"We have the software metrics that SonarQube gives us, which is something we did not have before. This helps us work towards aiming coding standards to empower us to move in the direction of better code quality. SonarQube provides targets and metrics for that."
"It is a very good tool for analysis despite its limitations."
"We consider it a handy tool that helps to resolve our issues immediately."
 

Cons

"When I was new, I faced challenges with Git commands, such as reversing or deleting mistakes."
"The initial setup and implementation could be easier, I had some difficulties with it at first but I don't have a development background."
"The ticketing system is not working."
"One area for improvement in GitHub could be integration with other tools, such as test management or project management tools."
"I think one area where GitHub could improve is its search and navigation functionality within repositories. For example, we use IDEs like IntelliJ or Visual Studio Code when developing code. These IDEs allow us to easily navigate from one piece of code to another file where a method is being called. It would be really helpful if the solution could add this navigation feature."
"Github needs more storage."
"The sign in process is a bit difficult. Signing up was challenging at that time."
"GitHub uses basic configuration, but messaging is not clear."
"You may need to purchase add-ons to get the useability you desire."
"The interface could be a little better and should be enhanced."
"Monitoring is a feature that can be improved in the next version."
"Although it has Sonar built into it, it is still lacking. Customization features of identifying a particular attack still need to be worked on. To give you an example: if we want to scan and do a false positive analysis, those types of features are missing. If we want to rescan something from a particular point that is a feature that is also missing. It’s in our queue. That will hopefully save a lot of time."
"The implementation of the solution is straightforward. However, we did have some initial initialization issues at the of the projects. I don't think it was SonarQube's fault. It was the way it was implemented in our organization because it's mainly integrated with many software, such as Jira, Confluence, and Butler."
"Ease of use/interface."
"It should be user-friendly."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If there are only 10 people using a particular repository, then GitHub is free. But if we increase the number of users, we need to pay the normal charge for GitHub."
"The product is reasonably priced."
"GitHub is a cost-effective solution."
"I use the free version of GitHub."
"The basic licensing model is free, and if you need to have technical support and such things, then it does cost something. You only need to pay extra if you need technical support."
"The licensing model for GitHub is user-based. Whenever the new developer joins we have to get a new license and register their ID. The overall price of the solution is reasonable."
"I think, in terms of price, GitHub is okay compared to other tools."
"We have an enterprise licensing agreement, and I am not part of the finance department so I can't say how much it costs."
"This is open source."
"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."
"We are using the open-source version, which is available free of cost."
"I requested this license for one million lines of code and they accepted this."
"The free version of SonarQube does everything that we need it to."
"My guess is that we have a yearly subscription. We use it quite extensively, so a monthly license wouldn't make sense. Yearly subscriptions are usually cheaper. In addition to the standard licensing fee, there is just the cost of running the hardware where it is hosted."
"On the pricing side, it's 3,000 Euros for 1 million lines of code."
"We use the solution free of cost."
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Top Industries

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

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about GitHub?
The control is the most valuable feature as developers can work on a single code.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for GitHub?
The pricing of GitHub depends on the choice of solutions, such as building one's own GitHub Runners to save money or using GitHub's Runners with extra costs. The pricing is considered reasonable an...
What needs improvement with GitHub?
There are still areas for improvement with GitHub Actions and their deployment workflows, as they have made significant progress but are not yet polished. Occasionally, stability can be an issue, t...
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

No data available
Sonar
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Dominion Enterprises, NASA, Braintree, SAP, CyberAgent
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about GitHub vs. SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.