Klocwork vs Semgrep comparison

Perforce and Semgrep are both solutions in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category. Perforce is ranked #16 with an average rating of 8.2, while Semgrep is ranked #18 with an average rating of 8.0. Perforce holds a 1.5% mindshare in SAST, compared to Semgrep’s 2.9% mindshare. Additionally, 93% of Perforce users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Semgrep users who would recommend it.

Klocwork

Read 25 Klocwork reviews

3,380 Views
2,332 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

Semgrep

Read 2 Semgrep reviews

2,639 Views
2,032 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Klocwork

Semgrep

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Klocwork and Semgrep based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Static Application Security Testing (SAST) solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Klocwork vs. Semgrep Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Klocwork vs. Semgrep

December 2025

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Helped 879,259 peers since 2012

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

Klocwork

Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

16th

Ranking in Static Code Analysis

4th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Security Tools (17th)

Semgrep

Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

18th

Ranking in Static Code Analysis

7th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Supply Chain Management Software (3rd), Software Composition Analysis (SCA) (11th)

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2025, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of Klocwork is 1.5%, down from 1.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Semgrep is 2.9%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Static Application Security Testing (SAST) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Klocwork	1.5%
Semgrep	2.9%
Other	95.6%

Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

Featured Reviews

Krishna M Gopalakrishnan

Manager, Quality, Functional Safety, Cybersecurity Embedded Processing at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

Experience with compliance improvements and efficiency boosts but static analysis engine shows a need for enhancement

One area for improvement is that when customers use different static analysis tools, they report more issues compared to Klocwork. The static analysis engine of Klocwork has areas that need improvement. Customers using different static analysis tools report more issues than with Klocwork, indicating that Klocwork's engine is not as superior. Klocwork should be able to analyze large codebases efficiently, supporting a desktop version for periodic small delta changes before pushing to the server.

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Manjunath Maneppagol

Cloud & Application Security at Sixt SE

Context-aware code analysis has reduced noise and now improves developer experience with actionable security findings

I have consistently observed that their scan time is an issue for mono repos. Sometimes with their AI-based scanning, when you triage that scan, the scan never completes or finishes(, which makes it difficult. Another consistent issue is that whenever you have a new repo to onboard to the platform, the tool ideally should detect the master branch by default. However, sometimes the tool fails to identify it and will never scan it unless manually somebody looks into it and fixes the issue. Although their support team is really good, this issue was present six or eight months ago during the POC and is still present now. If it is affecting multiple customers, it should be prioritized and fixed. I would say that their integration aspects could have been improved. I see a lot of different security solutions that provide flexibility to the security teams based on Jira project, team divisions, Slack, and all those can be very much easily customized. Semgrep needs to work on the enhancement of their notification capabilities. Currently, they are working on identifying business logic vulnerabilities or privilege escalation vulnerabilities by looking at the code, and they should continue to focus on and improve this effort. Regarding stability, whenever you have a mono-repo which is a very large repository, the scan never finishes or the scan never kicks in. At that time, you have to reach out to the support team and ask them to expand the resources in the back end to fix it. This is an issue I keep seeing often on that platform.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature is the Incremental analysis."

"The tool helps the team to think beforehand about corner cases or potential bugs that might arise in real-time."

"Klocwork is user-friendly, with a client-server architecture that provides all needed compliance."

"The best advantage of Klocwork is the reduced setup time."

"On-the-fly analysis and incremental analysis are the best parts of Klocwork. Currently, we are using both of these features very effectively."

"Klocwork's most valuable feature is the static code analysis feature. It detects the potential problem earlier to allow the developer to receive feedback quickly and then address it before it becomes a problem."

"One can increase the number of vendors, so the solution is scalable."

More Klocwork pros

"The most valuable feature is the ability to write our custom rules."

"Compared to other competitors in the market, the AI-backed capability is the biggest strength of Semgrep."

Cons

"There are too many warnings, and it requires expertise to determine the correct category for them."

"We'd like to see integration with Agile DevOps and Agile methodologies."

"What needs improvement in Klocwork, compared to other products in the market, is the dashboard or reporting mechanisms that need to be a bit more flexible. The Klocwork dashboard could be improved. Though it's good, it's not as good as some of the other products in the market, which is a problem. The reporting could be more detailed and easier to sort out because sorting in Klocwork could be a bit more time-consuming, mainly when sorting defects based on filters, compared to how it's done on other tools such as Coverity."

"Every update that we receive requires of us a lengthy and involved process."

"Modern languages, such as Angular and .NET, should be included as a part of Klocwork. They have recently added Kotlin as a part of their project, but we would like to see more languages in Klocwork. That's the reason we are using Coverity as a backup for some of the other languages."

"We bought Klocwork, but it was limited to one little program, but the program is now sort of failing. So, we have a license for usage on a program that is sort of failing, and we really can't use the license on anything else."

"I would like to see better codes between projects and a more user-friendly desktop in the next release."

"Customers using different static analysis tools report more issues than with Klocwork, indicating that Klocwork's engine is not as superior."

More Klocwork cons

"There should be more information on how to acquire the system, catering to beginners in application security, to make it more user-friendly."

"I have consistently observed that their scan time is an issue; sometimes with their AI-based scanning, when you triage that scan, the scan never completes or finishes, which makes it difficult."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Klocwork should not to be quite so heavy handed on the licensing for very specific programs."

"This solution offers competitive pricing."

"Licensing fees are paid annually, but they also have a perpetual license."

"When it comes to licensing, the solution has two packages, one for a fixed and the other for a floating server, with the former being more cost effective than the latter."

"Klocwork is still tight on their licensing. If Klocwork would loosen up on the licensing, and where the license could be used, and how many different programs could be run on it, then we have several development programs that I would love to be able to use it for going forward."

"The limitation that we have is that Klocwork is licensed to certain programs, and if you want to license them to other programs, you have to pay more money."

"There are other solutions on the market such as Microsoft Visual Studio. They have been adding more static code analysis features that come for free. It is getting better all the time. That is one of the possibilities is that we've been considering that we may stop using the Klocwork because it doesn't give us any added value."

"The pricing for Klocwork is very competitive if you compare it from apple to apple. It has competitive pricing regarding the licensing model and the per-license cost. Klocwork isn't a high-end investment for anyone deploying it; even SMBs can afford it. The Klocwork cost per user would depend on the license type, so I'm unable to mention a ballpark figure because it would depend on the type of installation and how the deployment will be, and the nodes to give an accurate calculation or figure. The total price depends on the package, so my company could never publish pricing for Klocwork on the website. My team first collects information from potential clients on the deployment scenario, project environment, etc., before suggesting a package for Klocwork. My rating for Klocwork in terms of pricing is a five because of its flexible license models. There's a license model for every type of organization, whether small, midsize, or enterprise, so it's a five out of five for me."

Information not available

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

24%

Computer Software Company

10%

Transportation Company

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

16%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Computer Software Company

11%

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	12
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	12

No data available

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Klocwork?

Klocwork's pricing seems attractive, as it uses a per-user license model that does not have a lot of overhead.

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What needs improvement with Klocwork?

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What is your primary use case for Klocwork?

I work on tools such as Klocwork, LDRA, as well as Jira and Confluence, focusing more on the software quality assurance aspect. We use Klocwork for coding and aggregate checks. We use it for static...

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What needs improvement with Semgrep?

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What is your primary use case for Semgrep?

I have been working with Semgrep for almost a year, approximately six to eight months on and off. In my current organization, I have a strong experience for SAST solution POCs, and I have conducted...

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What advice do you have for others considering Semgrep?

You should primarily focus on what your use case is and why you are moving out. If you are moving out just from the perspective of cost, I do not think Semgrep is the best solution for you. However...

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Comparisons

Coverity Static vs Klocwork

Compared 25% of the time

SonarQube vs Klocwork

Compared 23% of the time

Polyspace Code Prover vs Klocwork

Compared 11% of the time

Helix QAC vs Klocwork

Compared 7% of the time

More Klocwork Competitors

SonarQube vs Semgrep

Compared 42% of the time

Veracode vs Semgrep

Compared 5% of the time

Coverity Static vs Semgrep

Compared 5% of the time

Snyk vs Semgrep

Compared 4% of the time

Black Duck SCA vs Semgrep

Compared 3% of the time

More Semgrep Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Klocwork

December 2025

Download Klocwork product report

Buyer's Guide

Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

November 2025

Download Semgrep product report

Also Known As

No data available

Semgrep Code, Semgrep Supply Chain, Semgrep AppSec Platform

Overview

Klocwork detects security, safety, and reliability issues in real-time by using this static code analysis toolkit that works alongside developers, finding issues as early as possible, and integrates with teams, supporting continuous integration and actionable reporting.

Perforce

Semgrep is an advanced static analysis tool designed to identify vulnerabilities and enforce coding standards, catering primarily to professionals with a focus on enhancing code security and quality.

Engineered for software development environments, Semgrep delivers efficient security feedback with minimal setup. By offering a rich collection of rule sets, it allows customization and integration into CI/CD pipelines, supporting continuous code examination. Semgrep not only uncovers hidden flaws but also enforces best practices, making it a valuable asset for development teams seeking to build secure and reliable software.

What are the most important features of Semgrep?

Customizable Rules: Allows users to define specific rules to match unique coding requirements.
Open Rule Repository: Provides access to a vast array of pre-defined rules covering common security issues.
CI/CD Integration: Seamlessly integrates into development workflows, providing immediate feedback.
Multi-language Support: Detects issues across different programming languages, enhancing its usability.

What benefits or ROI should users consider?

Enhanced Security Posture: Elevates the security standards of codebases.
Time Efficiency: Reduces time spent on manual code reviews.
Adaptability: Easily adapts to evolving coding standards and practices.
Cost-effectiveness: Minimizes the need for external security audits.

In industry applications, Semgrep is a popular choice for sectors such as finance and healthcare, where code integrity and security are paramount. Its integration capabilities allow for effective oversight of compliance and secure coding standards without disrupting existing workflows. This adaptability ensures it meets sector-specific requirements, making it a trusted tool in fields where data privacy and protection are critical.

Semgrep

Sample Customers

ACCESS Co Ltd, Risk-AI, Winbond Electronics, Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharmaceutical Research Institute, University of Southern California, Alebra Technologies, SIMULIA, Risk Management Solutions, Brigham Young University, SRD, HRL

Policygenius, Tide, Lyft, Thinkific, FloQast, Vanta, and Fareportal

Buyer's Guide

Klocwork vs. Semgrep

December 2025

Free Report: Klocwork vs. Semgrep

Find out what your peers are saying about Klocwork vs. Semgrep and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.

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