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CodeSonar vs Contrast Security Protect comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 8, 2024

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

CodeSonar
Ranking in Application Security Tools
35th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
Static Code Analysis (10th)
Contrast Security Protect
Ranking in Application Security Tools
36th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.8
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Application Security Tools category, the mindshare of CodeSonar is 1.0%, down from 1.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Contrast Security Protect is 1.1%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Security Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
CodeSonar1.0%
Contrast Security Protect1.1%
Other97.9%
Application Security Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Mathieu ALBRESPY - PeerSpot reviewer
Intigration Developer at ez-Wheel
Nice interface, quick to deploy, and easy to expand
This is the first time I've used this kind of software. It was the only one we could apply to analyze with MISRA rules. At my new company, I tried to use Klocwork. I tried to use it, just once so I cannot compare it exactly with CodeSonar. I also have a plugin for my Visual Studio and I try to make it work. It's not easy, however, I don't think that we have this kind of functionality with CodeSonar. It can do some incremental analysis. However, since this feature is also available on CodeSonar, it would be a good idea to have a plugin on Visual Studio just to have a quick analysis.
ToddMcAlister - PeerSpot reviewer
Lead Application and Data Security Engineer at a insurance company with 5,001-10,000 employees
It provides us with more in-depth visibility into ongoing attacks.
I rate Contrast Security Protect eight out of 10. Overall, it's a solid product, but I deduct a couple of points because of the interface and some shortcomings in the reporting. If you have a large enterprise where you're dealing with a lot of servers, then it makes sense not to use the internal MySQL database. You should use something like Oracle or Microsoft SQL, but if you don't have many transactions, the embedded MySQL database works great.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable features of CodeSonar were all the categorized classes provided, and reports of future bugs which might occur in the production code. Additionally, I found the buffer overflow and underflow useful."
"The solution is very stable and we have used it for a long time with no issues."
"It has helped us a lot with some issues and has helped us avoid bad code."
"There is nice functionality for code surfing and browsing."
"The tool is very good for detecting memory leaks."
"I would suggest trying out automated tools along with CodeSonar on your project, and you will find out that CodeSonar reports many more defects compared to other static analysis tools, so this is a very important tool."
"CodeSonar’s most valuable feature is finding security threats."
"What I like best about CodeSonar is that it has fantastic speed, analysis and configuration times. Its detection of all runtime errors is also very good, though there were times it missed a few. The configuration of logs by CodeSonar is also very fantastic which I've not seen anywhere else. I also like the GUI interface of CodeSonar because it's very user friendly and the tool also shows very precise logs and results."
"Protect provides us with more in-depth visibility into ongoing attacks."
"The solution has excellent real-time capabilities."
"The Protect solution allows applications to continue to run, even with known vulnerabilities, but will report or block attempts to exploit the vulnerabilities."
"Contrast Security's support is great. They're willing to spend a lot of time on your problem."
"The product gives a few false positives. We get 99 percent true positives."
 

Cons

"It would be beneficial for the solution to include code standards and additional functionality for security."
"There could be a shared licensing model for the users."
"CodeSonar could improve by having better coding rules so we did not have to use another solution, such as MISRA C."
"In terms of areas for improvement, the use case for CodeSonar was good, but compared to other tools, it seems CodeSonar isn't a sound static analysis tool, and this is a major con I've seen from it. Right now, in the market, people prefer sound static analysis tools, so I would have preferred if CodeSonar was developed into a sound static analysis tool formally, in terms of its algorithms, so then you can see it extensively used in the market because at the moment, here in India, only fifty to sixty customers use CodeSonar. If the product is developed into a sound static analysis tool, it could compete with Polyspace, and from its current fifty customers, that number could go up to a hundred."
"It was difficult for us to apply a rule, especially to a part of the code, and not apply it to the rest of the code."
"The scanning tool for core architecture could be improved."
"The MISRA guidelines were not appropriately reported and there were some flags or errors."
"It was expensive."
"Contrast Security Protect needs to improve integration."
"We're not using it much anymore because we had some performance issues."
"There's room for improvement in the initial setup."
"Protect's reporting GUI is very basic. To get all statuses from the APIs, we needed to write our own KPI dashboard to provide reports."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Our organization purchased a license to use the solution."
"Pricing is a bit costly."
"The solution's price depends on the number of licenses needed and the source code for the project."
"The application’s pricing is high compared to other tools."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
22%
Computer Software Company
8%
University
7%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Construction Company
9%
Computer Software Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise2
No data available
 

Also Known As

No data available
Contrast Protect
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Viveris, Micrel Medical Devices, Olympus, SOFTEQ, SONY
Williams-Sonoma, Autodesk, HUAWEI, Chromeriver, RingCentral, Demandware.
Find out what your peers are saying about CodeSonar vs. Contrast Security Protect and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.