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SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) vs Synopsys Defensics comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

SonarQube Server (formerly ...
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
114
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (1st), Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (1st), Software Development Analytics (1st)
Synopsys Defensics
Average Rating
8.6
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Fuzz Testing Tools (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Quality Assurance solutions, they serve different purposes. SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) is designed for Application Security Tools and holds a mindshare of 24.5%, down 27.0% compared to last year.
Synopsys Defensics, on the other hand, focuses on Fuzz Testing Tools, holds 25.3% mindshare, up 14.4% since last year.
Application Security Tools
Fuzz Testing Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Wang Dayong - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to integrate and has a plug-in that supports both C and C++ languages
The product provides false reports sometimes. It also fails to understand the context of the code. It reports that a line of code has issues without considering its relation with the previous line. The product should improve the report quality. While it asks us to improve the code quality, it would be good if it also suggests how to improve the quality.
it_user508521 - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps us complete testing more quickly by eliminating many unwanted test cases
Sometimes, when we are testing embedded devices, when we trigger the test cases, the target will crash immediately. It is very difficult for us to identify the root cause of the crash because they do not provide sophisticated tools on the target side. They cover only the client-side application, and from that we can generate automated test cases, but what happens on the target device, what is the reason for the crash, for that we have to do manual debugging. They do not have diagnostic tools for the target side. Rather, they have them but they are very minimal and not very helpful. They can improve a lot on that.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution can verify vulnerabilities, code smells, and hotspots. It makes the software more secure and it helps make a junior or novice developer sharper."
"The most valuable features are the analysis and detection of issues within the application code."
"Provides local scanning for developers."
"The most valuable feature is the security hotspot feature that identifies where your code is prone to have security issues."
"We use this solution for qualitative coding. We make use of the SonarLint plugin as well as the dashboard."
"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."
"We have the software metrics that SonarQube gives us, which is something we did not have before. This helps us work towards aiming coding standards to empower us to move in the direction of better code quality. SonarQube provides targets and metrics for that."
"The initial setup is simple. It requires some security, but it's simple."
"Whatever the test suit they give, it is intelligent. It will understand the protocol and it will generate the test cases based on the protocol: protocol, message sequence, protocol, message structure... Because of that, we can eliminate a lot of unwanted test cases, so we can execute the tests and complete them very quickly."
"We have found multiple issues in our embedded system network protocols, related to buffer overflow. We have reduced some of these issues."
"The product is related to US usage with TLS contact fees, i.e. how more data center connections will help lower networking costs."
 

Cons

"If the product could assist us with fixing issues by giving us more pointers then it would help to resolve more of the warnings without such a commitment in terms of time."
"The learning curve can be fairly steep at first, but then, it's not an entry-level type of application. It's not like an introduction to C programming. You should know not just C programming and how to make projects but also how to apply its findings to the bigger picture. I've had users who said that they wish it was easier to understand how to configure, but I don't know if that's doable because what it's doing is a very complicated thing. I don't know if it is possible to make a complicated thing trivially simple."
"In the next release, I would like to have notifications because now, it is a bit difficult. I think that's a feature which we could add there and it would benefit the users as well. For every full request, they should be able to see their bugs or vulnerability directly on the surface."
"A better design of the interface and add some new rules."
"Lacks sufficient visibility and documentation."
"Expression of common vulnerabilities and exposures is not always current."
"I find it is light on the security side."
"If you don't have any experience with the configuration or how to configure the files, it can be complicated."
"Codenomicon Defensics should be more advanced for the testing sector. It should be somewhat easy and flexible to install."
"Sometimes, when we are testing embedded devices, when we trigger the test cases, the target will crash immediately. It is very difficult for us to identify the root cause of the crash because they do not provide sophisticated tools on the target side. They cover only the client-side application... They do not have diagnostic tools for the target side. Rather, they have them but they are very minimal and not very helpful."
"It does not support the complete protocol stack. There are some IoT protocols that are not supported and new protocols that are not supported."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I requested this license for one million lines of code and they accepted this."
"The solution has a free version and a license version. The license is priced reasonably, the cost of hiring one programmer is more expensive than the solution."
"Can try developer version for 14 days on the free trial."
"It's an open-source product."
"The price of the solution could be reduced."
"The solution is cheaper than other products."
"We are using the Developer Edition and the cost is based on the amount of code that is being processed."
"For the Community edition, there is no extra cost. It's totally free. The Enterprise edition, Data Center edition, and Developer edition are the paid versions."
"Licensing is a bit expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
22%
Manufacturing Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Healthcare Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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...
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Also Known As

Sonar
Defensics, Codenomicon Defensics
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Coriant, CERT-FI, Next Generation Networks
Find out what your peers are saying about Sonar, Veracode, Checkmarx and others in Application Security Tools. Updated: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.