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Black Duck SCA vs Polaris Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 22, 2026

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

Black Duck SCA
Ranking in Software Composition Analysis (SCA)
2nd
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Polaris Platform
Ranking in Software Composition Analysis (SCA)
12th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
3.2
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Static Code Analysis (11th), Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Software Composition Analysis (SCA) category, the mindshare of Black Duck SCA is 11.7%, down from 19.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Polaris Platform is 1.7%, down from 1.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Software Composition Analysis (SCA) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Black Duck SCA11.7%
Polaris Platform1.7%
Other86.6%
Software Composition Analysis (SCA)
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2587080 - PeerSpot reviewer
IP Head at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Delivers robust accuracy for identifying and mitigating risks but setup and security can improve
My deployment of Black Duck will take a few hours minimum. In the earlier on-premise scenario, which I've seen in other organizations, it takes a few days because you have to get the server installed, then actually keep installing various patch upgrades as it happens. The cloud version is a lot faster, probably taking only a few hours to complete. Regarding Black Duck leveraging AI to enhance security scanning of open-source components, I would not be able to address that because I have not yet explored that area significantly. Based on my experience, I would recommend Black Duck to other people if they can digest the higher cost. It helps in many aspects. I would rate this solution overall at 7 to 8. Disclaimer: The review is provided in personal capacity as an individual and not the opinion of the organization or corporate to which I belong to.
Alina-Eugenia Negulescu - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of Procurement and Vendor Manger at twoday
Company consistently identifies security vulnerabilities with current solution but considers moving to a more developer-oriented tool due to complexity and costs
I wouldn't recommend it for small and medium customers, both in terms of the complexity and organizational processes and operational processes around it. I wouldn't go with Black Duck. It's not straightforward as it is with more developer-oriented and plug-and-play versions, so it requires a bit of knowledge and documentation to set it up. On the support part, in the past, we had some issues regarding the availability of the information on the knowledge portal. That was particularly due to the fact that when they integrated their knowledge hub or knowledge portal different kind of documentation, they have not adapted the text. There were circular references on the documentation that was misleading and confusing our people rather than helping them.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The software composition analysis is most effective for security risk management."
"It highlights what the developers have done, and it shows the impact from an intellectual property point of view."
"Policy management is a valuable feature."
"The most valuable feature of Black Duck is the composition analysis feature, which is effective for security risk management."
"The knowledge base and the management system are the most valuable features of Black Duck Hub. It has a very helpful management environment. They offer an editor where we can check the discovered license, which is retrieved from their knowledge base. They have a huge knowledge base build over the years. It gives you some possibilities, such as this license with possibility A could cause a vulnerability issue or a potential breach."
"The UI is the solution's most valuable feature since it allows for easy pipeline integration."
"The cloud option of the product is always available and a positive aspect of the solution."
"The installation is very easy."
"We have detected security vulnerabilities, which is absolutely one big benefit."
"We have detected security vulnerabilities, which is absolutely one big benefit."
 

Cons

"I would like to see more integration with other solutions, such as IntelliJ IDEA."
"The initial setup could be simplified. It was somewhat complex."
"Black Duck can improve the time it takes for a scan. Most of the time it's not ideal when integrated with the live DevSecOps pipeline. We have to create a separate job to scan the library because it takes a couple of hours to scan all those libraries. The scanning could be faster."
"It is a cloud-only solution. In many cases, companies like to evaluate the software, but they're very reluctant to give you the software. It would be great if they could offer an on-prem component that could be used to scan the code and then upload the discovery results to the cloud and get all the information from there, but there is no such possibility. You have to upload the code to the Black Duck cloud system. Of course, they have a strong legal department, and they offer some configuration, but it is never enough. You have to give the code, which is a drawback. In modern designs like Snyk or FOSSA, you don't need to give the code. It requires more native integration with Coverity because they go together technically. You need both Coverity and Black Duck Hub. It would be really helpful for companies working in this space to get a combined offer from the same company. They should provide an option to buy Coverity for an additional fee. Coverity combined with Black Duck Hub will provide a one-step analysis to get everything you need and a unified report. It would be really great to be able to connect Black Duck Hub with Coverity unified reports."
"Black Duck does not have the SBOM management part. I would like to see this feature added in the future."
"The scanner client is limited by the size of software it can handle."
"The initial setup of Black Duck is complex. It's not very straightforward. You need a lot of support and hand-holding from the Black Duck team itself for it to be deployed successfully across the organization."
"I would like to see improvements in Black Duck's reporting capabilities."
"I wouldn't recommend it for small and medium customers, both in terms of the complexity and organizational processes and operational processes around it."
"I wouldn't recommend it for small and medium customers, both in terms of the complexity and organizational processes and operational processes around it."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is a little high."
"Depending on the use case, the cost could range from $10,000 USD to $70,000 USD."
"It is expensive."
"Black Duck is more suitable if you require a lot of licensing compliance. For smaller organizations, WhiteSource is better because its pricing policies are not really suitable for huge organizations."
"The price is quite high because the behavior of the software during the scan is similar to competing products."
"The price charged by Black Duck is exorbitant."
"I rate the product's price one on a scale of one to ten, where one is a high price, and ten is a low price."
"The price is low. It's not an expensive solution."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
11%
University
4%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Large Enterprise17
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

How does WhiteSource compare with Black Duck?
We researched Black Duck but ultimately chose WhiteSource when looking for an application security tool. WhiteSource is a software solution that enables agile open source security and license compl...
What do you like most about Black Duck?
The cloud option of the product is always available and a positive aspect of the solution.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Black Duck?
The price charged by Black Duck is exorbitant. For the features provided by the product, I would not want to pay a high price. There are many other products in the market that offer better features...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Polaris Platform?
In my opinion, I think that it's a very good product for mature companies. It is quite expensive compared with competitors, with other providers of similar services of application security manageme...
What needs improvement with Polaris Platform?
I wouldn't recommend it for small and medium customers, both in terms of the complexity and organizational processes and operational processes around it. I wouldn't go with Black Duck. It's not str...
What is your primary use case for Polaris Platform?
The product teams use them under supervision from the security department. I'm not extremely familiar with the details on how the product teams are using it, but I think they have integrated it int...
 

Also Known As

Blackduck Hub, Black Duck Protex, Black Duck Security Checker
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Samsung, Siemens, ScienceLogic, BryterCX, Dynatrace
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Snyk, Black Duck, Veracode and others in Software Composition Analysis (SCA). Updated: March 2026.
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