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Black Duck vs Semgrep 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

Black Duck
Ranking in Software Composition Analysis (SCA)
1st
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Semgrep
Ranking in Software Composition Analysis (SCA)
13th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (27th), Supply Chain Management Software (3rd), Static Code Analysis (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Software Composition Analysis (SCA) category, the mindshare of Black Duck is 18.2%, down from 22.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Semgrep is 2.9%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Software Composition Analysis (SCA)
 

Featured Reviews

Saravanan_Radhakrishnan - PeerSpot reviewer
Enables applications to be secure, but it must provide more open APIs
The product enables other applications to be secure. We use it to onboard 400 to 500 applications into the DevOps platform, protect them, and have a secure environment. The tool integrates well with different technologies, application stacks, and databases. The APIs are available. We can read the blogs in the community for open-source compliance and security. The community feeds are important. Black Duck is a leader in Gartner. It is a reliable solution.
Henry Mwawai - PeerSpot reviewer
Automated code reviews and good scalability with custom rule adaptability
We use Semgrep to check custom user pipelines and test their claims for any vulnerabilities. We process the code by passing it through the testing process for any operability issues before sending feedback to the developers and providing the final product. This is part of the static testing…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The installation is very easy."
"Black Duck's ability to identify dependencies very accurately has been most valuable in identifying and mitigating risks."
"We didn't have a central inventory to quickly identify issues or determine how many products were affected. Now under Black Duck, it's all consolidated. You search for a component and immediately see which products use it."
"It is able to drill down to the source level."
"The solution is stable."
"We accidentally use third-party library APIs, which may not be secure. Our technical team may not have the end time or expertise to figure it out. Black Duck helps us with that and saves us time."
"The most valuable feature is the vulnerability scanning, and that it's easy to use."
"I like the fact that the product auto analyzes components."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to write our custom rules."
 

Cons

"Due to the fact that, with our software developer life cycle, we don't need to scan our source code every day or every week. For that reason, we find the cost is too high. We might only actually use it five to ten times a year, which makes it expensive."
"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."
"We have been having some issues with the latest releases where we are not able to scan our applications with the help of Black Duck."
"The documentation is quite scattered."
"The initial setup could be simplified. It was somewhat complex."
"The scanner client is limited by the size of software it can handle."
"The tool needs to improve its pricing. Its configuration is complex and can be improved."
"Black Duck does not have the SBOM management part. I would like to see this feature added in the future."
"There should be more information on how to acquire the system, catering to beginners in application security, to make it more user-friendly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is quite high because the behavior of the software during the scan is similar to competing products."
"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."
"Depending on the use case, the cost could range from $10,000 USD to $70,000 USD."
"The pricing is a little high."
"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."
"It is expensive."
"The price charged by Black Duck is exorbitant."
"The price is low. It's not an expensive solution."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Manufacturing Company
16%
Computer Software Company
13%
Insurance Company
4%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
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 needs improvement with Semgrep?
There should be more information on how to acquire the system, catering to beginners in application security, to make it more user-friendly.
What is your primary use case for Semgrep?
We use Semgrep to check custom user pipelines and test their claims for any vulnerabilities. We process the code by passing it through the testing process for any operability issues before sending ...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Blackduck Hub, Black Duck Protex, Black Duck Security Checker
Semgrep Code, Semgrep Supply Chain, Semgrep AppSec Platform
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Samsung, Siemens, ScienceLogic, BryterCX, Dynatrace
Policygenius, Tide, Lyft, Thinkific, FloQast, Vanta, and Fareportal
Find out what your peers are saying about Black Duck, Snyk, Veracode and others in Software Composition Analysis (SCA). Updated: June 2025.
860,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.