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Rapid7 AppSpider vs SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 15, 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

Rapid7 AppSpider
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
32nd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SonarQube Server (formerly ...
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
116
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (1st), Software Development Analytics (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of Rapid7 AppSpider is 0.5%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) is 22.1%, down from 27.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
 

Featured Reviews

Rizwan-Alam - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy automated web app scanning, but gives many false positives and isn't always stable
One of the challenges I have with AppSpider is that it gives you a lot of false positives, especially when compared to other solutions. This is the main aspect that I hope to see Rapid7 improve on. Beyond reducing false positives, I would also like to see them implement better reporting features, particularly in the executive summary type of reports which need to be user-friendly and easily understood by non-technical people. The recommendations and solutions on these reports could always be improved to make them more relevant, too. Lastly, the stability isn't that great, and sometimes it becomes non-responsive. I feel like the stability of the application is very average and currently needs more work.
Sthembiso Zondi - PeerSpot reviewer
Consistent improvements in code quality and security with effective integration and reliable technical support
The features of SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) that I find most useful are the suggestions received from reviewing the code. When they review the code, they provide suggestions on how to fix it, and we find those very useful from a development perspective. We use SonarQube Server's (formerly SonarQube) centralized management and visualization of code quality metrics on the dashboard because that's the executive dashboard that we send to the executives to show where we are in terms of quality, security, and where the company can improve. We use that for organizational improvement purposes. The ability to tailor metrics tracking in SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) has been beneficial to my team. There are team-specific dashboards which are related to specific repositories they utilize, and we have that aggregative dashboard that shows the whole organization's performance. We can drill down per specific repository, which makes it easier for the team to improve specific things.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"What I like most about AppSpider is that it's easy to use and its automated scan gives me all the details I need to know when it comes to vulnerabilities and their solutions."
"One of the most valuable features of AppSpider is its broad range of authentication identification, which is a key reason for its utilization."
"I like the ability the product has to detect vulnerabilities quickly, when it has been released in our environment, then displaying them to us."
"Rapid7 AppSpider is good at managing different applications. It uses applets and generates reports to cover the PCA/GDPR compliance requirements."
"The solution is highly stable, rated at ten out of ten."
"I would say that it is stable, as I am not aware of any major issues."
"It scans all the components developed within a web application."
"The most valuable feature of Rapid7 AppSpider is the vulnerability reporting data. Additionally, the data is reported in a convenient way rather than seeing them as a PDF. We are able to generate all the reports exactly what we want in a flexible way."
"The most valuable features are code scanning and Quality Gates."
"SonarQube is one of the more popular solutions because it supports 29 languages."
"The most valuable function is its usability."
"The depth features I have found most valuable. You receive a quick comprehensive comparison overview regarding the current release and the last release and what type of depths dependency or duplication should be used. This is going to help you to make a more readable code and have more flexibility for the engineers to understand how things should work when they do not know."
"The overall quality of the indicator is good."
"I am only interested in the security features in SonarQube. There are plenty of features other features, such as test coverage, code anomalies, and pointer access are handled by the business logic teams. They get the reports and they have to fix them in JIRA or Bugzilla."
"Overall, I would rate SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) as a 9 out of 10."
"I like the by-default policies that are they, as they seem to cover most of what I need."
 

Cons

"The enterprise interface is too simple. It should be more customizable."
"For Japanese customers, localization is needed. The product should offer a GUI in Japanese and provide Japanese reports for end-users."
"The solution is too slow. It could take a full day to scan. Competitors are much faster."
"The tech support is responsive but issues remain unresolved."
"AppSpider has some problems with the RAM needed while scanning."
"The product needs to be able to scale for large companies, like ours. We have millions of IP addresses that need to be scanned, and the scalability is not great."
"The product should offer a GUI in Japanese and provide Japanese reports for end-users."
"There are some glitches with stability, and it is an area for improvement."
"When we have a thousand products published over it, we expect it to be more efficient in terms of serving requests from the browser."
"We're in the process of figuring out how to automate the workflow for QA audit controls on it. I think that's perhaps an area that we could use some buffing. We're a Kubernetes shop, so there are some things that aren't direct fits, which we're struggling with on the component Docker side. But nothing major."
"A better design of the interface and add some new rules."
"Their dashboarding is very limited. They can improve their dashboards for multiple areas, such as security review, maintainability, etc. They have all this information, so they should publish all this information on the dashboard so that the users can view the summary and then analyze it further. This is something that I would like to see in the next version."
"The tool needs to be more compatible with C/C++ language"
"It should be user-friendly."
"We could use some team support, but since we are using the community version, it's not available."
"I think SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) should improve by integrating a new feature that includes AI. As soon as I see that they've got a new feature that integrates AI that is not as generative as other GenAI platforms that actually generate the code and help developers develop faster, I believe that capability is lacking."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of Rapid7 AppSpider cost 9,000 annually but there is limited usage. Large companies are able to negotiate a better price or a better deal for the usage with the vendor."
"It is expensive if you want to buy the Enterprise version that is able to scan multiple applications at once."
"AppSpider is closed-source software and you need to acquire a license in order to use it."
"The price is pretty fair."
"The licensing cost depends on the number of users."
"Compared to similar solutions, SonarQube was more accessible to us and had more benefits, with regards to size of the code base and supported languages. Apart from the Enterprise licensing fee, there are no additional costs."
"I do not know about the pricing as I am using the community edition, which is free. But I compared the pricing with Sigma, and it is higher than SonarQube."
"This is open source."
"We are using the Community edition of SonarQube."
"There is both a free and licensed version. The free version has limitations on development languages and support."
"A low cost long-term solution for non-critical situations."
"The product’s price is lower than Veracode’s price."
"The price of the solution could be reduced."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Healthcare Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Rapid7 AppSpider?
The price is not high, but for Japanese customers, localization may incur additional costs.
What needs improvement with Rapid7 AppSpider?
For Japanese customers, localization is needed. The product should offer a GUI in Japanese and provide Japanese reports for end-users.
What is your primary use case for Rapid7 AppSpider?
Our clients use AppSpider to address security concerns for their websites. It is particularly used by customers who require security assessments.
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

AppSpider
Sonar
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Rapid7 AppSpider vs. SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,140 professionals have used our research since 2012.