SonarQube vs Sonatype Lifecycle comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary
Updated on Mar 21, 2022

We performed a comparison between SonarQube and Sonatype Nexus Lifecycle based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.

  • Ease of Deployment: Reviewers of SonarQube say the deployment was straightforward. Reviewers of Sonatype Nexus Lifecycle say the software was straightforward for the most part, but was slightly technical.
  • Features: Reviewers of SonarQube were happy with the software's stability and friendly UI but felt it needed more security scanning features.

    Reviewers of Sonatype Nexus Lifecycle felt the scanning capability was extremely valuable, and it had great reporting features, but thought it needed to be more code-driven as a software.

  • Pricing: Users of SonarQube said that the licensing fees are pricey. Reviewers of Sonatype Nexus Lifecycle had mixed reviews; some said the price was reasonable, while others felt it was extremely costly.
  • Service and Support: Most reviewers of SonarQube say they are using the free version of the software, which doesn’t come with support, but those who have paid support are happy with the level of support. Users of Sonatype Nexus Lifecycle found the support extremely helpful and quick in their response time.
  • ROI: Both SonarQube and Sonatype Nexus Lifecycle reviewers remarked that they saw ROI, but it wasn’t quantifiable; they noticed that their teams saved time and that developer productivity increased.

Comparison Results: Based on the parameters we compared, SonarQube and Sonatype Nexus Lifecycle seem to have a similar rating among users regarding ease of deployment, pricing, service and support, and ROI. In terms of features, users of SonarQube felt more scanning features were needed, while users of Sonatype Nexus Lifecycle felt the software needed to be more code-driven.

To learn more, read our detailed SonarQube vs. Sonatype Lifecycle Report (Updated: March 2024).
765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"It is a very good tool for analysis and security vulnerability checking.""The most valuable feature of this solution is that it is free.""The product has a friendly UI that is easy to use and understand.""This solution has the capability to analyze source code in almost all the languages in the market.""Engineers have also learned from the results and have improved themselves as engineers. This will help them with their careers.""The solution offers a very good community edition.""Code Convention: Using the tool to implement some sort of coding convention is really useful and ensures that the code is consistent no matter how many contributors.""SonarQube is good for checking and maintaining code quality."

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"The key feature for Nexus Lifecycle is the proprietary data they have on vulnerabilities. The way that they combine all the different sources and also their own research into one concise article that clearly explains what the problem is. Most of the time, and even if you do notice that you have a problem, the public information available is pretty weak. So, if we want to assess if a problem applies to our product, it's really hard. We need to invest a lot of time digging into the problem. This work is basically done by Sonatype for us. The data that it delivers helps us with fixing or understanding the issue a lot quicker than without it.""The reference provided for each issue is extremely helpful.""Vulnerability detection accuracy is good.""The data quality is really good. They've got some of the best in the industry as far as that is concerned. As a result, it helps us to resolve problems faster. The visibility of the data, as well as their features that allow us to query and search - and even use it in the development IDE - allow us to remediate and find things faster.""Due to the sheer amount of vulnerabilities and the fact that my company is still working on eliminating all vulnerabilities, it's still too early for me to say what I like most about Sonatype Nexus Lifecycle. Still, one of the best functions of the product is the guidance it gives in finding which components or applications have vulnerabilities. For example, my team had a vulnerability or a CVE connected to Apache last week. My team couldn't find which applications had the vulnerability initially, but using Sonatype Nexus Lifecycle helped. My team deployed new versions on that same day and successfully eliminated the vulnerabilities, so right now, the best feature of Sonatype Nexus Lifecycle is finding which applications have 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.""The most important features of the Sonatype Nexus Lifecycle are the vulnerability reports.""The dashboard is usable and gives us clear visibility into what is happening. It also has a very cool feature, which allows us to see the clean version available to be downloaded. Therefore, it is very easy to go and trace which version of the component does not have any issues. The dashboard can be practical, as well. It can wave a particular version of a Java file or component. It can even grandfather certain components, because in a real world scenarios we cannot always take the time to go and update something because it's not backward compatible. Having these features make it a lot easier to use and more practical. It allows us to apply the security, without having an all or nothing approach."

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Cons
"You may need to purchase add-ons to get the useability you desire.""We did have some trouble with the LDAP integration for the console.""The reporting is good, but I am not able to download a specific report as a PDF, so downloading reports is something that should be looked at.""For improvement, this solution could be offered on Docker and the cloud and the support for this solution could be improved. Customizing rules could also be made simpler.""There are sometimes security breaches in our code, which aren't be caught by SonarQube. In the security area, SonarCube has to improve. It needs to better compete with other products.""We previously experienced issues with security but a segregated security violation has been implemented and the issues we experienced are being fixed.""If I configure a project in SonarQube, it generates a token. When we're compiling our code with SonarQube, we have to provide the token for security reasons. If IP-based connectivity is established with the solution, the project should automatically be populated without providing any additional token. It will be easy to provide just the IP address. It currently supports this functionality, but it makes a different branch in the project dashboard. From the configuration and dashboard point of view, it should have some transformations. There can be dashboard integration so that we can configure the dashboard for different purposes.""One thing to improve would be the integration. There is a steep learning curve to get it integrated."

More SonarQube Cons →

"Sonatype Nexus Lifecycle can improve the functionality. Some functionalities are missing from the UI that could be accessed using the API but they are not available. For example, seeing more than the 100 first reports or, seeing your comments when you process a waiver for a vulnerability or a violation.""One of the things that we specifically did ask for is support for transitive dependencies. Sometimes a dependency that we define in our POM file for a certain library will be dependent on other stuff and we will pull that stuff in, then you get a cascade of libraries that are pulled in. This caused confusing to us at first, because we would see a component that would have security ticket or security notification on it and wonder "Where is this coming in from?" Because when we checked what we defined as our dependencies it's not there. It didn't take us too long effort to realize that it was a transitive dependency pulled in by something else, but the question then remains "Which dependency is doing that?"""One area of improvement, about which I have spoken to the Sonatype architect a while ago, is related to the installation. We still have an installation on Linux machines. The installation should move to EKS or Kubernetes so that we can do rollover updates, and we don't have to take the service down. My primary focus is to have at least triple line availability of my tools, which gives me a very small window to update my tools, including IQ. Not having them on Kubernetes means that every time we are performing an upgrade, there is downtime. It impacts the 0.1% allocated downtime that we are allowed to have, which becomes a challenge. So, if there is Kubernetes installation, it would be much easier. That's one thing that definitely needs to be improved.""In terms of features, the reports natively come in as PDF or JSON. They should start thinking of another way to filter their reports. The reporting tool used by most enterprises, like Splunk and Elasticsearch, do not work as well with JSON.""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...""We had some issues, and I think we might still have some issues, where the Sonatype Nexus Repository has integrations with IQ and SonarQube. We're getting some errors on the UI, so we've had Sonatype look into that a little bit.""If you look at NPM-based applications, JavaScript, for example, these are only checkable via the build pipeline. You cannot upload the application itself and scan it, as is possible with Java, because a file could change significantly.""Since Nexus Repository just keeps on adding the .jar artifacts whenever there is a build, whenever an application is going up, there is always a space issue on the server. That is one of the things that we are looking for Nexus to notify us about: if it is running out of space."

More Sonatype Lifecycle Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "This is open source."
  • "We did not purchase a license (required for C++ support), but this option was considered."
  • "Get the paid version which allows the customized dashboard and provides technical support."
  • "People can try the free licenses and later can seek buying plugins/support, etc. once they started liking it."
  • "This product is open source and very convenient."
  • "The licence is standard open source licensing"
  • "The price point on SonarQube is good."
  • "Some of the plugins that were previously free are not free now."
  • More SonarQube Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "Its pricing is competitive within the market. It's not very cheap, it's not very expensive."
  • "We're pretty happy with the price, for what it is delivering for us and the value we're getting from it."
  • "Pricing is comparable with some of the other products. We are happy with the pricing."
  • "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."
  • "The license fee may be a bit harder for startups to justify. But it will save you a headache later as well as peace of mind. Additionally, it shows your own customers that you value security stuff and will protect yourselves from any licensing issues, which is good marketing too."
  • "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."
  • "Pricing is decent. It's not horrible. It's middle-of-the-road, as far as our ranking goes. They're a little bit more but that's also because they provide more."
  • "Lifecycle, to the best of my recollection, had the best pricing compared with other solutions."
  • More Sonatype Lifecycle Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer: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… more »
    Top Answer: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… more »
    Top Answer: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… more »
    Top Answer: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… more »
    Top Answer:Fortify integrates with various development environments and tools, such as IDEs (Integrated Development Environments) and CI/CD pipelines.
    Top Answer:I would rate the affordability of the solution as an eight out of ten.
    Ranking
    Views
    57,256
    Comparisons
    45,052
    Reviews
    18
    Average Words per Review
    397
    Rating
    8.0
    Views
    14,134
    Comparisons
    7,815
    Reviews
    16
    Average Words per Review
    1,011
    Rating
    8.1
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    Sonar
    Sonatype Nexus Lifecycle, Nexus Lifecycle
    Learn More
    Interactive Demo
    Sonatype
    Demo Not Available
    Overview

    SonarQube is a self-managed open-source platform that helps developers create code devoid of quality and vulnerability issues. By integrating seamlessly with the top DevOps platforms in the Continuous Integration (CI) pipeline, SonarQube continuously inspects projects across multiple programming languages, providing immediate status feedback while coding. SonarQube’s quality gates become part of your release pipeline, displaying pass/fail results for new code based on quality profiles you customize to your company standards. Following Sonar’s Clean as You Code methodology guarantees that only software of the highest quality makes it to production.

    At its core, SonarQube includes a static code analyzer that identifies bugs, security vulnerabilities, hidden secrets, and code smells. The platform guides you through issue resolution, fostering a culture of continuous improvement. SonarQube’s comprehensive reporting is a valuable tool for dev teams to monitor their codebase's overall health and quality across multiple projects in their portfolio. With SonarQube, you can achieve a state of Clean Code, leading to secure, reliable, and maintainable software.

    Sonar is the only solution combining the power of industry-leading software quality analysis with static application security testing (SAST) and real-time coding guidance in the IDE (with SonarLint) to meet the DevOps and DevSecOps demand of putting agility, automation, and security in the hands of developers. Further accelerate DevOps continuous integration by helping developers find and fix issues in code before the software testing stage, reducing the churn of finding, fixing, rebuilding, and retesting your app.

    With over 5,000 Clean Code rules, SonarQube analyzes 30+ of the most popular programming languages, including dozens of frameworks, the top DevOps platforms (GitLab, GitHub, Azure DevOps, and Bitbucket, and more), and the leading infrastructure as code (IaC) platforms.

    SonarQube is the most trusted static code analyzer used by over 7 million developers and 400,000 organizations globally to clean over half a trillion lines of code.

    Sonatype Lifecycle is an open-source security and dependency management software that uses only one tool to automatically find open-source vulnerabilities at every stage of the System Development Life Cycle (SDLC). Users can now minimize security vulnerabilities, permitting organizations to enhance development workflow. Sonatype Lifecycle gives the user complete control over their software supply chain, allowing them to regain wasted time fighting risks in the SDLC. In addition, this software unifies the ability to define rules, actions, and policies that work best for your organizations and teams.

    Sonatype Lifecycle allows users to help their teams discover threats before an attack has the chance to take place by examining a database of known vulnerabilities. With continuous monitoring at every stage of the development life cycle, Sonatype Lifecycle enables teams to build secure software. The solution allows users to utilize a complete automated solution within their existing workflows. Once a potential threat is identified, the solution’s policies will automatically rectify it.

    Benefits of Open-source Security Monitoring

    As cybersecurity attacks are on the rise, organizations are at constant risk for data breaches. Managing your software supply chain gets trickier as your organization grows, leaving many vulnerabilities exposed. With easily accessible source code that can be modified and shared freely, open-source monitoring gives users complete transparency. A community of professionals can inspect open-source code to ensure fewer bugs, and any open-source dependency vulnerability will be detected and fixed rapidly. Users can use open-source security monitoring to avoid attacks through automatic detection of potential threats and rectification immediately and automatically.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Sonatype Lifecycle software receives high praise from users for many reasons. Among them are the abilities to identify and rectify vulnerabilities at every stage of the SDLC, help with open-source governance, and minimize risk.

    Michael E., senior enterprise architect at MIB Group, says "Some of the more profound features include the REST APIs. We tend to make use of those a lot. They also have a plugin for our CI/CD.”

    R.S., senior architect at a insurance company, notes “Specifically features that have been good include:

    • the email notifications
    • the API, which has been good to work with for reporting, because we have some downstream reporting requirements
    • that it's been really user-friendly to work with.”

    "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," says Subham S., engineering tools and platform manager at BT - British Telecom.

    Sample Customers
    Genome.One, Blackboard, Crediterform, Crosskey, Intuit, Progress Software, Qualys, Liberty Mutual Insurance
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company30%
    Financial Services Firm21%
    Comms Service Provider7%
    Insurance Company6%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm17%
    Computer Software Company15%
    Manufacturing Company11%
    Government6%
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm32%
    Computer Software Company11%
    Insurance Company11%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm33%
    Computer Software Company11%
    Government9%
    Manufacturing Company6%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business25%
    Midsize Enterprise15%
    Large Enterprise60%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business17%
    Midsize Enterprise13%
    Large Enterprise71%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business26%
    Midsize Enterprise15%
    Large Enterprise59%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business14%
    Midsize Enterprise9%
    Large Enterprise76%
    Buyer's Guide
    SonarQube vs. Sonatype Lifecycle
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about SonarQube vs. Sonatype Lifecycle and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
    765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    SonarQube is ranked 1st in Application Security Tools with 108 reviews while Sonatype Lifecycle is ranked 5th in Application Security Tools with 42 reviews. SonarQube is rated 8.0, while Sonatype Lifecycle is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of SonarQube writes "Easy to integrate and has a plug-in that supports both C and C++ languages". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Sonatype Lifecycle writes "Seamless to integrate and identify vulnerabilities and frees up staff time". SonarQube is most compared with Checkmarx, SonarCloud, Coverity, Veracode and GitHub Advanced Security, whereas Sonatype Lifecycle is most compared with Black Duck, Fortify Static Code Analyzer, GitLab, Checkmarx and Mend.io. See our SonarQube vs. Sonatype Lifecycle report.

    See our list of best Application Security Tools vendors.

    We monitor all Application Security Tools 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.