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JFrog Xray vs Sonatype Lifecycle comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 29, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
3.5
JFrog Xray improved efficiency, security, and compliance, reduced downtime, and sped up release cycles with enhanced vulnerability detection and reporting.
Sentiment score
7.0
Sonatype Lifecycle enhances visibility, security, and productivity, reducing vulnerability analysis time and lowering risks in application development.
We have seen cost savings and efficiency improvements as we now know what happens in what was previously a black box.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
4.0
JFrog Xray's customer service is generally well-received, with positive technical support, though not all users engage directly.
Sentiment score
5.7
Sonatype Lifecycle's customer service is praised for responsiveness and effectiveness, despite occasional delays with product enhancement requests.
On a scale of 1 to 10, I would rate the technical support of JFrog Xray an eight because they are very knowledgeable.
When we need clarifications, we contact our account manager, and they arrange demos.
They are helpful when we raise any tickets.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.8
JFrog Xray is scalable and suitable for multiple applications, despite PostgreSQL limitations and some performance challenges.
Sentiment score
6.9
Sonatype Lifecycle is praised for infrastructure scalability and flexibility, but users report challenges with clustering and configuration complexities.
According to my use case, it is highly scalable.
It handles high availability at the database level, such as synchronizing JFrog repository servers without complicated configurations.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
JFrog Xray is praised for stability and security, compared favorably to competitors, with minor concerns about PostgreSQL support.
Sentiment score
8.0
Sonatype Lifecycle is reliable and efficient, with minimal downtime and ease of use, even for large implementations.
I use JFrog Xray primarily for security purposes, and I find it reliable.
We did experience crashes, downtimes, and performance issues with JFrog Xray.
Sonatype Lifecycle is very stable, especially in the binary repository management use case for managing binary artifacts.
 

Room For Improvement

Users demand better reporting, documentation, UI, site performance, API limits, custom reports, vulnerability management, and integration support.
Sonatype Lifecycle should improve integration, reporting, support, user interface, and adapt to modern practices for better user experience.
When we have given a very long tag, it doesn't work as expected and requires excessive scrolling.
somehow you need to adapt your GitLab pipeline and turn them into JFrog pipeline, and this is something they don't really advertise at first—you're obliged to use the JFrog CLI.
X-ray needs improvement in supporting more than one database, as it currently only supports PostgreSQL.
We also noticed a lack of detailed information for configuring Sonatype Lifecycle for high availability and data recovery.
 

Setup Cost

Sonatype Lifecycle offers competitive pricing with valuable features, though costs may impact startups due to licensing complexity.
JFrog Xray provides a free trial of 14 days.
The basic scanning capabilities come with Artifactory, however, curation requires additional licenses.
For larger numbers like our case with 1,000 user licenses, JFrog becomes much more cost-effective, roughly ten times cheaper than Sonatype.
 

Valuable Features

JFrog Xray offers deep scanning, seamless integration with Artifactory, robust vulnerabilities management, flexible deployment, and attractive pricing.
Sonatype Lifecycle enhances security with seamless DevOps integration, user-friendly interface, real-time updates, and efficient dependency management.
The policy-driven approach of JFrog Xray helped me maintain security standards by integrating it in the development pipeline.
The most valuable features of JFrog Xray are its curation capabilities, its native integration with Artifactory, scanning for vulnerabilities, and license compliance features.
With other registries such as ECR, we can use the images only in the AWS cloud. With JFrog, we can use this registry from any cloud or work locally as well.
The integration into our CICD pipeline enables us to continuously monitor code changes and identify new vulnerabilities.
The most valuable feature for us is Sonatype Lifecycle's capability in identifying vulnerabilities.
 

Categories and Ranking

JFrog Xray
Ranking in Software Composition Analysis (SCA)
6th
Ranking in Software Supply Chain Security
2nd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (36th), Container Security (16th)
Sonatype Lifecycle
Ranking in Software Composition Analysis (SCA)
4th
Ranking in Software Supply Chain Security
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
45
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Software Composition Analysis (SCA) category, the mindshare of JFrog Xray is 10.0%, up from 9.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sonatype Lifecycle is 5.2%, down from 5.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Software Composition Analysis (SCA) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Sonatype Lifecycle5.2%
JFrog Xray10.0%
Other84.8%
Software Composition Analysis (SCA)
 

Featured Reviews

Anand Nanwana - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers flexibility across clouds and easy credential management while interface improvements are needed
For JFrog Xray, the Artifactory and package repositories are valuable features. There are many benefits from JFrog Xray. For example, with other registries such as ECR, we can use the images only in the AWS cloud. With JFrog, we can use this registry from any cloud or work locally as well. JFrog can support multiple packages, such as NuGet package, pip, and other technologies. It can be used for Terraform as well. The credential management is very easy in JFrog. For instance, when using GitHub action as a CI/CD tool, I just need to create a token and set up JFrog CLI there and give access to the repository. With multiple repositories, I can generate a token for a specific repository, add that token in the GitHub secret, fetch from the CI/CD, run the command JFrog CLI, and authenticate through the token. Then we can push the images into JFrog.
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.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
25%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
5%
Financial Services Firm
30%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business1
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise29
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about JFrog Xray?
JFrog Xray shows us a list of vulnerabilities that can impact our code.
What needs improvement with JFrog Xray?
I would assess the integration of JFrog Xray with CI/CD tools as the weak point. You have two means to do that: one is using the API, or the other is using the command line from JFrog. That part is...
What is your primary use case for JFrog Xray?
For JFrog Xray product, you can use it for two main goals: compliance and security. You can use it to check if your licenses are compliant, and you can check if your dependencies you want to use ar...
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

JFrog Security Essentials
Sonatype Nexus Lifecycle, Nexus Lifecycle
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

google, amazon, cisco, netflix, oracle, vmware, facebook
Genome.One, Blackboard, Crediterform, Crosskey, Intuit, Progress Software, Qualys, Liberty Mutual Insurance
Find out what your peers are saying about JFrog Xray vs. Sonatype Lifecycle and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
872,098 professionals have used our research since 2012.