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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
5.9
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
3.8
JFrog Xray's customer service receives mixed reviews, with varying satisfaction in support response times and account manager interactions.
Sentiment score
5.7
Sonatype Lifecycle's customer service is praised for responsiveness and effectiveness, despite occasional delays with product enhancement requests.
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
7.4
JFrog Xray is viewed as scalable, accommodating growth plans, despite some PostgreSQL constraints, and rates scalability 7-8/10.
Sentiment score
6.9
Sonatype Lifecycle is praised for infrastructure scalability and flexibility, but users report challenges with clustering and configuration complexities.
It handles high availability at the database level, such as synchronizing JFrog repository servers without complicated configurations.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
JFrog Xray is praised for stability and performance, though its provided PostgreSQL is considered unstable, needing enterprise support.
Sentiment score
8.0
Sonatype Lifecycle is reliable and efficient, with minimal downtime and ease of use, even for large implementations.
Sonatype Lifecycle is very stable, especially in the binary repository management use case for managing binary artifacts.
 

Room For Improvement

JFrog Xray needs improvements in documentation, UI, reporting, performance, vulnerability management, integration, APIs, and troubleshooting support.
Sonatype Lifecycle should improve integration, reporting, support, user interface, and adapt to modern practices for better user experience.
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.
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 efficiently blocks vulnerabilities with policy watches, integrates with Artifactory, and excels in scanning and license compliance.
Sonatype Lifecycle enhances security with seamless DevOps integration, user-friendly interface, real-time updates, and efficient dependency management.
The most valuable features of JFrog Xray are its curation capabilities, its native integration with Artifactory, scanning for vulnerabilities, and license compliance features.
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
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (32nd), Container Security (20th)
Sonatype Lifecycle
Ranking in Software Composition Analysis (SCA)
4th
Ranking in Software Supply Chain Security
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
45
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Software Composition Analysis (SCA) category, the mindshare of JFrog Xray is 10.2%, up from 8.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sonatype Lifecycle is 5.3%, down from 6.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Software Composition Analysis (SCA)
 

Featured Reviews

Mokshi Pandita - PeerSpot reviewer
An intelligent solution that prioritizes which vulnerability to target first in your project
We could create any number of repositories, but we can create only thirty projects with JFrog Xray. If I want things to work, it has to be one project and multiple repositories that belong to different real projects. So I have a limitation of thirty projects, despite being a premium customer. JFrog Xray does not have a dashboard. Although I am able to generate reports, there is no proper dashboard where I can see the total number of vulnerabilities, the total number of license issues, and how many vulnerabilities are fixed. Second, I found the shift left approach missing with JFrog Xray. JFrog Xray has integration with IDEs, but it does not tell you about the vulnerabilities until the artifact is created. However, Snyk could directly integrate with your repository and would not allow you to build unless you fix the problem.
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%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Government
5%
Financial Services Firm
33%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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?
X-ray needs improvement in supporting more than one database, as it currently only supports PostgreSQL. More support during troubleshooting sessions would also be beneficial.
What is your primary use case for JFrog Xray?
Our primary use case for X-ray includes multiple activities such as security and vulnerability scanning. We already use Black Duck for these purposes, and we are evaluating how JFrog Xray can offer...
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: May 2025.
860,632 professionals have used our research since 2012.