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Checkmarx SAST vs SonarQube comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 5, 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

Checkmarx SAST
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
23rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SonarQube
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
134
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (1st), Software Development Analytics (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of Checkmarx SAST is 1.6%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SonarQube is 18.8%, down from 26.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Static Application Security Testing (SAST) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
SonarQube18.8%
Checkmarx SAST1.6%
Other79.6%
Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
 

Featured Reviews

Tharindu Malwenna - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Application Security Engineer at a newspaper with 5,001-10,000 employees
Has supported early vulnerability detection but requires tuning to reduce false positives and scanning delays
When assessing the accuracy and efficiency of Checkmarx SAST scanning capabilities, they are currently recommending that doing the full scan is the main, correct way of scanning the repositories. However, based on the repository size we have, it sometimes takes more than 10 minutes for larger repositories, which is a downside. The accuracy of the results depends on various factors, as some of the test folders tend to give us false positives, which makes a huge impact on the vulnerabilities. Those are the major things that we have to fine-tune from our end. I would rate Checkmarx SAST around a seven, as it does have some false positives we have to work with, which are the major concerning things. The number of false positives is significant because we cannot implement policies because of this.
KH
Sr Software Engineering Supervisor at Mozarc Medical
Gains control over rule customization and achieves reliable vulnerability assessment
The deployment process took me about 2 or 3 hours to deploy SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube), although I do not remember exactly since it was done about 2 years back. Currently, about 10 of my developers are using SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) in my company. I do not have plans to increase the usage of SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) in the future as there will not be any requirement to increase. I am a senior software engineer and supervisor at Mozark Medical. My corporate email address is karthik.k.a.r.t.h.i.k.h.a.r.p.a.n.h.a.l.l.i@mozarkmedical.com. Overall, I would rate SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) as a 9 out of 10.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most important feature is that Checkmarx protects our company against attacks."
"The most important feature is that Checkmarx protects our company against attacks."
"The CX1 is a unified platform that covers all components such as SAST, SCA, DAST, container scanning, and infrastructure code, which is quite beneficial because some clients need one-stop solutions for all their needs."
"The detailed reports from Checkmarx SAST help with our security process by showing details about which line is actually vulnerable, which is beneficial for the developers, and I do not have any suggestions or inputs on that area."
"This helps us a lot in identifying vulnerabilities in early stages, and the integration within the IDEs helps developers get the results into their IDE itself, making it easier for them to fix vulnerabilities."
"The most important competitive advantage and benefit is the ability to identify vulnerabilities in the source code immediately without needing to complete the coding."
"SonarQube's unit test coverage and exhaustive information at the module, project, and overall code repo levels are quite good."
"The stability is good."
"All the features of the solution are quite good."
"Provides local scanning for developers."
"With SonarQube's web interface, it is easy to drill down to see the individual problems, but also to look at the project from above and get the big picture, with possible larger problem areas."
"The most valuable feature is the security hotspot feature that identifies where your code is prone to have security issues."
"I find SonarQube Cloud very easy to use and simple to integrate initially."
"The ability to tailor metrics tracking with SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) has been beneficial to my team and stakeholders as we are able to get portfolio reports and project-wise reports, though there are areas for improvement."
 

Cons

"The main challenge with Checkmarx SAST is the price. The price is a challenge because Checkmarx SAST is a very big brand, and many mid-sized companies cannot afford it as they are very price-conscious."
"I believe that nothing in particular could be improved about Checkmarx SAST, only the turnaround time and the fact that technical account managers keep moving around, which leads to some lag in communication."
"We had some issues where Checkmarx did not recognize a vulnerability."
"We had some issues where Checkmarx did not recognize a vulnerability. We had to talk with the vendor, and they had to include an improvement in the tool to resolve this issue."
"The accuracy of the results depends on various factors, as some of the test folders tend to give us false positives, which makes a huge impact on the vulnerabilities."
"The on-premises version is more expensive compared to the cloud version."
"SonarQube needs to improve its ease of use, integration with third-party platforms, and scalability."
"The exporting capabilities could be improved. Currently, exporting is fully dependent on the SonarQube environment."
"You may need to purchase add-ons to get the useability you desire."
"There is no automation. You need to put the code there and test. You then pull the results and put them back in the development environment. There is no integration with the development environment. We would like it to be integrated with our development environment, which is basically the CI/CD pipeline or the IDE that we have."
"Depending on the tool's configuration, sometimes you get false alarms that are unimportant to you."
"Lacks sufficient visibility and documentation."
"The scanning part could be improved in SonarQube. We have used Coverity for scanning, and we have the critical issues reported by Coverity. When we used SonarQube for scanning and looked at the results, it seems that some of them have incorrect input. This part can be improved for C and C++ languages."
"SonarCloud can improve the false positives. Sometimes the gates sometimes act a little weird. We then need to manually go and mark the false positive."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"As a user and a consumer of this solution, it can be pricey for my company to support and use, even though there are many benefits. For this reason, we use the free version. In the future, as our product cycles develop and evolve at a more steady pace, we hope to invest in the licensing for this tool."
"There are many different packages with different pricing options available. We are able to try what we have and if we need extra features we can upgrade the license."
"We are using the community version of the solution and we plan on purchasing licenses for the upgraded version soon. There is a limitation on how many lines of code can be scanned and this is why we are going to purchase a license for an increased amount."
"We are using the open-source version, which is available free of cost."
"We pay €10 per month for this solution, which is good. It provides a good value for money."
"I am using the free version of the solution."
"The developer edition is based on cost per lines of code."
"The price point on SonarQube is good."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Insurance Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business41
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise79
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Checkmarx SAST?
We were users in a small country, and we paid one consolidated bill for all the tools, so I don't know the specific amount for Checkmarx.
What needs improvement with Checkmarx SAST?
When assessing the accuracy and efficiency of Checkmarx SAST scanning capabilities, they are currently recommending that doing the full scan is the main, correct way of scanning the repositories. H...
What is your primary use case for Checkmarx SAST?
Our main use cases with Checkmarx SAST are currently in the implementation stage where we have utilized integrations with IDEs and have already integrated within the entire organization, which will...
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...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

SAST
Sonar, SonarQube Cloud
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Checkmarx SAST vs. SonarQube and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.