We performed a comparison between SonarCloud and SonarQube based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Result: Based on the parameters we compared, SonarQube comes out ahead of SonarCloud. Although both products have valuable features and can be estimated as high-end solutions, our reviewers found that SonarCloud lacks technical support.
"The most valuable feature of SonarCloud is its overall performance."
"The reports from SonarCloud are very good."
"The solution can be installed locally."
"I'm not implementing the solutions. However, I've talked to the people who deploy the tools, and they are happy with how easy setting up SonarCloud is."
"The solution provides continuous code analysis which has improved the quality of our code. It can raise alarms on vulnerabilities with immediate reports on the dashboard. Few things are false positives and we can customize the rules."
"The most valuable features of SonarCloud are the ability to discover vulnerabilities, security weak points, security hotspots, and all the feedback that comes into the feature branch. You can deploy the code with the security, you can eliminate the problem at the developer level rather than identifying the problem in the productions."
"Using SonarQube benefits us because we are able to avoid the inclusion of malware in our applications."
"My focus is mainly on the DevOps pipeline side of things, and from my perspective, the ease of use and configuration is valuable. It is pretty straightforward to take a deployment pipeline or CI/CD pipeline and integrate SonarQube into it."
"One of the most valuable features of SonarQube is its ability to detect code quality during development. There are rules that define various technologies—Java, C#, Python, everything—and these rules declare the coding standards and code quality. With SonarQube, everything is detectable during the time of development and continuous integration, which is an advantage. SonarQube also has a Quality Gate, where the code should reach 85%. Below that, the code cannot be promoted to a further environment, it should be in a development environment only. So the checks are there, and SonarQube will provide that increase. It also provides suggestions on how the code can be fixed and methods of going about this, without allowing hackers to exploit the code. Another valuable feature is that it is tightly integrated with third-party tools. For example, we can see the SonarQube metrics in Bitbucket, the code repository. Once I raise the full request, the developer, team lead, or even the delivery lead can see the code quality metrics of the deliverable so that they can make a decision. SonarQube will also cover all of the top OWASP vulnerabilities, however it doesn't have penetration testing or hacker testing. We use other tools, like Checkmarx, to do penetration testing from the outside."
"This solution has the capability to analyze source code in almost all the languages in the market."
"We've configured it to run on each commit, providing feedback on our software quality. ]"
"We consider it a handy tool that helps to resolve our issues immediately."
"Can tweak rules and feed them into our build pipelines."
"The most valuable feature of SonarQube I have found to be the configuration that has allowed us to can make adjusts to the demands of the code review. It gives a specified classification regarding the skill, prioritization, and it is easy for me to review and make my code."
"We had some issues with the scanner."
"The reports could improve by providing more information. We are not able to use the reports in our operation until they are improved. Additionally, if the vendor provided more customization capabilities it would be a benefit."
"It would be helpful if notifications could go out to an extra person."
"CI/CD pipeline is part of a whole chain of design, development, and production, and it's becoming increasingly crucial to optimize the various tools across different stages. However, it's still a silo approach because the full integration is missing. This isn't just an issue with SonarCloud. It's a general problem with tooling."
"SonarCloud can improve the false positives. Sometimes the gates sometimes act a little weird. We then need to manually go and mark the false positive."
"The solution needs to improve its customization and flexibility."
"SonarQube is not development-centric like Snyk."
"There needs to be a shareable reporting piece or something we can click and generate easily."
"There is no automation. You need to put the code there and test. You then pull the results and put them back in the development environment. There is no integration with the development environment. We would like it to be integrated with our development environment, which is basically the CI/CD pipeline or the IDE that we have."
"SonarQube can improve by scanning the internal library which currently it does not do. We are looking for a solution for this."
"The product's pricing could be lower."
"Lacks sufficient visibility and documentation."
"It should be user-friendly."
"SonarQube could be improved with more dynamic testing—basically, now, it's a static code analysis scan. For example, when the developer writes the code and does the corresponding unit test, he can cover functional and non-functional. So the SonarQube could be improved by helping to execute unit tests and test dynamically, using various parameters, and to help detect any vulnerabilities. Currently, it'll just give the test case and say whether it passes or fails—it won't give you any other input or dynamic testing. They could use artificial intelligence to build a feature that would help developers identify and fix issues in the early stages, which would help us deliver the product and reduce costs. Another area with room for improvement is in regard to automating things, since the process currently needs to be done manually."
SonarCloud is ranked 10th in Application Security Testing (AST) with 6 reviews while SonarQube is ranked 1st in Application Security Testing (AST) with 30 reviews. SonarCloud is rated 8.4, while SonarQube is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of SonarCloud writes "It helps us detect vulnerabilities, but the integration with other tools in the CI/CD pipeline could be better". On the other hand, the top reviewer of SonarQube writes "Open-source, stable, and finds the problems for you and tells you where they are". SonarCloud is most compared with Veracode, Checkmarx, OWASP Zap, GitLab and Fortify on Demand, whereas SonarQube is most compared with Checkmarx, Coverity, Veracode, Snyk and Sonatype Nexus Lifecycle. See our SonarCloud vs. SonarQube report.
See our list of best Application Security Testing (AST) vendors.
We monitor all Application Security Testing (AST) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
