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Legit Security 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Legit Security
Ranking in Software Supply Chain Security
7th
Average Rating
10.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Posture Management (ASPM) (5th)
Sonatype Lifecycle
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 (7th), Software Composition Analysis (SCA) (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Software Supply Chain Security category, the mindshare of Legit Security is 4.7%, up from 4.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sonatype Lifecycle is 6.8%, down from 10.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Software Supply Chain Security
 

Featured Reviews

Tim Crothers - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides strong visibility, straightforward integration, and reduces the risk of attacks
Legit Security is a product that hyper-focuses on the various aspects of the software development pipeline. For example, if an engineer spins off a new project and stands up a new Git project, Legit automatically detects it, connects Snyk and other tools, and ensures the engineering team doesn't have to think about it. This way, we stay on top of security from the beginning. On the other hand, Legit provides a clear view of the controls around repositories. We have standards requiring code reviews and similar practices, and Legit shows us whether these are being followed. Additionally, Legit helps us identify unmaintained repositories, which often arise when engineering teams try something and leave it behind. This knowledge allows us to determine the appropriate action for these neglected projects. One area where Legit falls short is secret detection. While it functions well overall, the feature has a 10-20 percent false positive rate, requiring some manual intervention. Almost everything else works flawlessly. The true value proposition of Legit lies not in its features but in its ability to support our product security program's focus on creating guardrails instead of toll gates. Unlike traditional programs that require security reviews at specific stages, hindering development flow, we strive to partner with the product engineering team to ship secure code seamlessly within their existing workflows. Legit plays a crucial role in this by automatically notifying us of new projects, eliminating the need for manual communication. This partnership approach, enabled by Legit, allows us to work much closer with our engineering teams than ever before.
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

"We implemented Legit Security to gain visibility into all development teams and ensure that consistent controls are in place and accounted for on every route."
"Legit has increased my security posture to a level I couldn't achieve before. I don't need to worry as much about what's happening within my developer environments. I can rest assured that my vulnerabilities are being detected."
"Legit has had a positive effect on our overall security posture."
"The true value proposition of Legit lies not in its features but in its ability to support our product security program's focus on creating guardrails instead of toll gates."
"The most valuable feature for us is Sonatype Lifecycle's capability in identifying vulnerabilities."
"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."
"With the plugin for our IDE that Sonatype provides, we can check whether a library has security, quality, or licensing issues very easily. Which is nice because Googling for this stuff can be a bit cumbersome. By checking it before code is even committed, we save ourselves from getting notifications."
"The most important features of the Sonatype Nexus Lifecycle are the vulnerability reports."
"The solution provides a comprehensive overview of dependencies and their security status."
"The quality or the profiles that you can set are most valuable. The remediation of issues that you can do and how the information is offered is also valuable."
"The application onboarding and policy grandfathering features are good and the solution integrates well with our existing DevOps tools."
"The solution is very easy to use."
 

Cons

"I would like them to have their own static code scanner, and I'd like them to have their own open-source software scanners."
"The one we're working on right now is the ability to dynamically rerun development teams and groups."
"Legit Security could do a little better with detecting publicly exposed keys. It's not bad. The detections that they are running get to everything eventually, but it would be great if they could increase some of that awareness."
"One issue is that engineering teams don't always embed secrets in the same way, making it difficult for the tool to consistently identify them."
"The user interface needs to be improved. It is slow for us. We use Nexus IQ mostly via APIs. We don't use the interface that much, but when we use it, certain areas are just unresponsive or very slow to load. So, performance-wise, the UI is not fast enough for us, but we don't use it that much anyway."
"The biggest thing that I have run into, which there are ways around, is being able to easily access the auditing data from a third-party tool; being able to pull all of that into one place in a cohesive manner where you can report off of that. We've had a little bit of a challenge with that. There are a number of things available to work with, to help with that in the tool, but we just haven't explored them yet."
"If they had a more comprehensive online tutorial base, both for admin and developers, that would help. It would be good if they actually ran through some scenarios, regarding what happens if I do pick up a vulnerability. How do I fork out into the various decisions? If the vulnerability is not of a severe nature, can I just go ahead with it until it becomes severe? This is important because, obviously, business demands certain deliverables to be ready at a certain time."
"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."
"One thing that it is lacking, one thing I don't like, is that when you label something or add a status to it, you do it as an overall function, but you can't go back and isolate a library that you want to call out individually and remove a status from it. It's still lacking some functionality-type things for controlling labels and statuses. I'd like to be able to apply it across all of my apps, but then turn it off for one, and I can't do that."
"The reporting capability is good but I wish it was better. I sent the request to support and they raised it as an enhancement within the system. An example is filtering by version. If I have a framework that is used in all applications, but version 1 is used in 50 percent of them and version 2 in 25 percent, they will show as different libraries with different usage. But in reality, they're all using one framework."
"Nexus Lifecycle is multiple products. One drawback I've noticed is that there are some differences in the features between the products within Lifecycle. They need to maintain the same structure, but there are some slight differences."
"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..."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is reasonable."
"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."
"Cost is a drawback. It's somewhat costly."
"Lifecycle, to the best of my recollection, had the best pricing compared with other solutions."
"In comparison with other tools, Sonatype Nexus Lifecycle could be more expensive. Still, at the same time, my company prioritizes security, so the pricing for Sonatype Nexus Lifecycle hasn't been an issue. If IT security weren't at the top of the list for my company, somebody would have raised the question about cost and how Sonatype Nexus Lifecycle is in terms of ROI. So far, there's been no question about the price. The cost of Sonatype Nexus Lifecycle hasn't been a problem so far. My company pays for the license yearly, plus technical support."
"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."
"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."
"The price is good. We certainly get a lot more in return. However, it's also hard to get the funds to roll out such a product for the entire firm. Therefore, pricing has been a limiting factor for us. However, it's a fair price."
"We're pretty happy with the price, for what it is delivering for us and the value we're getting from it."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
13%
University
12%
Pharma/Biotech Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
32%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Legit Security?
The true value proposition of Legit lies not in its features but in its ability to support our product security program's focus on creating guardrails instead of toll gates.
What needs improvement with Legit Security?
Legit Security's secret detection works. However, there are some limitations to its effectiveness. One issue is that engineering teams don't always embed secrets in the same way, making it difficul...
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

Google, NYSE, Kraft-Hienz, Takeda Pharmaceuticals, and many other large enterprise and Fortune 500 customers. Learn more by going to: https://www.legitsecurity.com/...
Genome.One, Blackboard, Crediterform, Crosskey, Intuit, Progress Software, Qualys, Liberty Mutual Insurance
Find out what your peers are saying about Legit Security vs. Sonatype Lifecycle and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,164 professionals have used our research since 2012.