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Apiiro 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

Apiiro
Ranking in Software Composition Analysis (SCA)
10th
Ranking in Software Supply Chain Security
8th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (20th), API Security (11th), Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (12th), Application Security Posture Management (ASPM) (4th)
Sonatype Lifecycle
Ranking in Software Composition Analysis (SCA)
4th
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)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Software Composition Analysis (SCA) category, the mindshare of Apiiro is 1.9%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sonatype Lifecycle is 5.2%, down from 5.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Software Composition Analysis (SCA)
 

Featured Reviews

Kunal M - PeerSpot reviewer
Comprehensive risk analysis helps identify key performance trends but report access needs improvement
My first feedback for Apiiro is that it is very slow, extremely slow. The moment I select from the entire list of repositories in my vertical, which is almost more than 400 repositories, it takes a lot of time for me to load the report. Sometimes it fails. I do not have Role-Based Access Control (RBAC). It's only given to the application security team, and Apiiro as a vendor does not have the rollback access control enabled for the clients, so that would have given me access to the reports tab, which would have made my life easier. Currently, I have to go to the risks tab to pull out all this information. I started exploring dashboards with Copilot. I need to reach out to the Apiiro teams to see if I can get an access token so that I can pull out a Power BI dashboard. I think Apiiro definitely has its own capabilities, but if there are access tokens that teams can use to build a custom dashboard, that would be great. This might already exist, but that is something which will ease the vulnerability management day-to-day activities.
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

"The workflow automation is likely the best aspect of the solution."
"Apiiro's secrets detection feature has saved us several times, which we appreciate greatly."
"The component piece, where you can analyze the component, is the most valuable. You can pull the component up and you can look at what versions are bad, what versions are clean, and what versions haven't been reported on yet. You can make decisions based off of that, in terms of where you want to go. I like that it puts all that information right there in a window for you."
"It scans and gives you a low false-positive count... The reason we picked Lifecycle over the other products is, while the other products were flagging stuff too, they were flagging things that were incorrect. Nexus has low false-positive results, which give us a high confidence factor."
"It was very easy to integrate into our build pipeline, with Jenkins and Nexus Repository as the central product."
"When developers are consuming open-source libraries from the internet, it's able to automatically block the ones that are insecure. And it has the ability to make suggestions on the ones they should be using instead."
"The IQ server and repo are the most valuable."
"You can really see what's happening after you've developed something."
"The Software Security Center, which is often overlooked, stands out as the most effective feature."
"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."
 

Cons

"I would like support for our self-hosted Git server, other than GitHub, just regular Git."
"User management is a little bit clunky."
"The biggest thing is getting it put uniformly across all the different teams. It's more of a process issue. The process needs to be thought out about how it's going to be used, what kind of training there will be, how it's going to be socialized, and how it's going to be rolled out and controlled, enterprise-wide. That's probably more of a challenge than the technology itself."
"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."
"The team managing Nexus Lifecycle reported that their internal libraries were not being identified, so they have asked Sonatype's technical team to include that in the upcoming version."
"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..."
"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."
"Not all languages are supported in Fortify."
"Sometimes we face difficulties with Maven Central... if I'm using the 1.0.0 version, after one or two years, the 1.0.0 version will be gone from Maven Central but our team will still be using that 1.0.0 version to build. When they do builds, it won't build completely because that version is gone from Maven Central. There is a difference in our Sonatype Maven Central."
"One thing that I would like to give feedback on is to scan the binary code. It's very difficult to find. It's under organization and policies where there are action buttons that are not very obvious. I think for people who are using it and are not integrated into it, it is not easy to find the button to load the binary and do the scan. This is if there is no existing, continuous integration process, which I believe most people have, but some users don't have this at the moment. This is the most important function of the Nexus IQ, so I expect it should be right on the dashboard where you can apply your binary and do a quick scan. Right now, it's hidden inside organization and policies. If you select the organization, then you can see in the top corner that there is a manual action which you can approve. There are multiple steps to reach that important function that we need. When we were initially looking at the dashboard, we looked for it and couldn't find it. So, we called our coworker who set up the server and they told us it's not on the dashboard."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Its pricing is competitive within the market. It's not very cheap, it's not very expensive."
"Cost is a drawback. It's somewhat costly."
"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."
"Lifecycle, to the best of my recollection, had the best pricing compared with other solutions."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Manufacturing 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 Apiiro?
Apiiro's secrets detection feature has saved us several times, which we appreciate greatly.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Apiiro?
My understanding is the pricing is pretty competitive.
What needs improvement with Apiiro?
My first feedback for Apiiro is that it is very slow, extremely slow. The moment I select from the entire list of repositories in my vertical, which is almost more than 400 repositories, it takes a...
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...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Apiiro Control Plane (ASOC), Apiiro API Security (SAST), Apiiro Open Source (SCA)
Sonatype Nexus Lifecycle, Nexus Lifecycle
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Morgan Stanley, Rakuten, Jack Henry, SoFi, Colgate, Navan
Genome.One, Blackboard, Crediterform, Crosskey, Intuit, Progress Software, Qualys, Liberty Mutual Insurance
Find out what your peers are saying about Apiiro vs. Sonatype Lifecycle and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.