Contrast Security Assess vs SonarQube comparison

Contrast Security and SonarSource Sàrl are both solutions in the Application Security Tools category. Contrast Security is ranked #30, while SonarSource Sàrl is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.2. Contrast Security holds a 1.1% mindshare in AS, compared to SonarSource Sàrl’s 17.9% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Contrast Security users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 83% of SonarSource Sàrl users who would recommend it.

Contrast Security Assess

Read 11 Contrast Security Assess reviews

1,722 Views
1,119 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

SonarQube

Read 134 SonarQube reviews

38,470 Views
26,929 Comparison Views

83% willing to recommend

Contrast Security Assess

SonarQube

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 5, 2025

SonarQube and Contrast Security Assess are competitors in code analysis and security. While each has its strengths, Contrast Security Assess shines in real-time threat detection and integrations, whereas SonarQube excels in code analysis and reporting.

Features: SonarQube offers static code analysis, code quality insights, and support for multiple programming languages, enhancing code reliability and maintainability. Contrast Security Assess features dynamic application security testing, real-time threat detection, and deep integration with agile development processes.

Room for Improvement: SonarQube could improve its dynamic security testing and enhance real-time threat detection. Additionally, expanding integration with current DevOps tools would benefit users. Contrast Security Assess could bolster its language analysis capabilities, refine user interfaces for better usability, and offer more flexible pricing models.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SonarQube's deployment model is straightforward, with strong community support appealing to teams seeking simplicity. Contrast Security Assess features a more complex deployment process but provides robust customer service, ideal for organizations requiring professional support.

Pricing and ROI: SonarQube is budget-friendly, offering a predictable pricing structure resulting in high ROI from its code quality tools. Contrast Security Assess, while more expensive initially, justifies its cost with advanced security features and substantial ROI for security-focused enterprises.

To learn more, read our detailed Contrast Security Assess vs. SonarQube Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Contrast Security Assess vs. SonarQube

December 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 881,082 peers since 2012

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

Contrast Security Assess

Ranking in Application Security Tools

30th

Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

28th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

SonarQube

Ranking in Application Security Tools

1st

Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

1st

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

134

Ranking in other categories

Software Development Analytics (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Application Security Tools category, the mindshare of Contrast Security Assess is 1.1%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SonarQube is 17.9%, down from 26.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Security Tools Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
SonarQube	17.9%
Contrast Security Assess	1.1%
Other	81.0%

Application Security Tools

Featured Reviews

reviewer1605099

Director of Threat and Vulnerability Management at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees

We're gathering vulnerability data from multiple environments in real time, fundamentally changing how we identify issues in applications

The solution is very accurate in identifying vulnerabilities. In cases where we are performing application assessment using Contrast Assess, and also using legacy application security testing tools, Contrast successfully identifies the same vulnerabilities that the other tools have identified but it also identifies significantly more. In addition, it has visibility into application components that other testing methodologies are unaware of. Assess also provides the option of helping developers incorporate security elements while they're writing code. It depends on whether individual developers decide to utilize the information that's provided to them from the solution, but it definitely gives them visibility into more environments. It gives them an opportunity to remediate vulnerabilities well before production deployments.

Read full review

KarthikHarpanhalli

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The accuracy of the solution in identifying vulnerabilities is better than any other product we've used, far and away. In our internal comparisons among different tools, Contrast consistently finds more impactful vulnerabilities, and also identifies vulnerabilities that are nearly guaranteed to be there, meaning that the chance of false positives is very low."

"I am impressed with the product's identification of alerts and vulnerabilities."

"Assess has an excellent API interface to pull APIs."

"By far, the thing that was able to provide value was the immediate response while testing ahead of release, in real-time."

"No other tool does the runtime scanning like Contrast does. Other static analysis tools do static scanning, but Contrast is runtime analysis, when the routes are exercised. That's when the scan happens. This is a tool that has a very unique capability compared to other tools. That's what I like most about Contrast, that it's runtime."

"It is a stable solution...Contrast Security Assess is one of the first players in this market, so they have experience and customers, especially abroad. Overall, it's a good product."

"We use the Contrast OSS feature that allows us to look at third-party, open-source software libraries, because it has a cool interface where you can look at all the different libraries. It has some really cool additional features where it gives us how many instances in which something has been used... It tells us it has been used 10 times out of 20 workloads, for example. Then we know for sure that OSS is being used."

"When we access the application, it continuously monitors and detects vulnerabilities."

More Contrast Security Assess pros

"It is a good deal compared to all other tools on the market."

"Some of the static code analysis capabilities are the most beneficial."

"The integrations SonarQube provides with our software delivery pipeline are very seamless."

"Its dashboard provides a unified view of various code quality metrics, including code duplication, unit test coverage, and security hotspots."

"The most valuable feature of SonarQube I have found to be the configuration that has allowed us to can make adjusts to the demands of the code review. It gives a specified classification regarding the skill, prioritization, and it is easy for me to review and make my code."

"The SonarQube dashboard looks great."

"The depth features I have found most valuable. You receive a quick comprehensive comparison overview regarding the current release and the last release and what type of depths dependency or duplication should be used. This is going to help you to make a more readable code and have more flexibility for the engineers to understand how things should work when they do not know."

"We have worked with the support from SonarQube and we have had good experiences."

More SonarQube pros

Cons

"Contrast Security Assess covers a wide range of applications like .NET Framework, Java, PSP, Node.js, etc. But there are some like Ubuntu and the .NET Core which are not covered. They have it in their roadmap to have these agents. If they have that, we will have complete coverage."

"I think there was activity underway to support the centralized configuration control. There are ways to do it, but I think they were productizing more of that."

"I would like to see them come up with more scanning rules."

"Regarding the solution's OSS feature, the one drawback that we do have is that it does not have client-side support. We'll be missing identification of libraries like jQuery or JavaScript, and such, that are client-side."

"To instrument an agent, it has to be running on a type of application technology that the agent recognizes and understands. It's excellent when it works. If we're using an application that is using an unsupported technology, then we can't instrument it at all. We do use PHP and Contrast presently doesn't support that, although it's on their roadmap. My primary hurdle is that it doesn't support all of the technologies that we use."

"Personalization of the board and how to make it appealing to an organization is something that could be done on their end. The reports could be adaptable to the customer's preferences."

"The setup of the solution is different for each application. That's the one thing that has been a challenge for us. The deployment itself is simple, but it's tough to automate because each application is different, so each installation process for Contrast is different."

"The solution should provide more details in the section where it shows that third-party libraries have CVEs or some vulnerabilities."

More Contrast Security Assess cons

"The time it took for me to do the whole process was approximately two hours because I had to download, read the documentation, and do the configurations."

"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."

"There are sometimes security breaches in our code, which aren't be caught by SonarQube. In the security area, SonarCube has to improve. It needs to better compete with other products."

"We're in the process of figuring out how to automate the workflow for QA audit controls on it. I think that's perhaps an area that we could use some buffing. We're a Kubernetes shop, so there are some things that aren't direct fits, which we're struggling with on the component Docker side. But nothing major."

"The solution needs to improve its customization and flexibility."

"There is need for support for the additional languages and ease of use in adding new rules for detecting issues."

"After scanning our code and generating a report, it would be helpful if SonarQube could also generate a solution to fix vulnerabilities in the report."

"I find it is light on the security side."

More SonarQube cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The good news is that the agent itself comes in two different forms: the unlicensed form and the licensed form. Unlicensed gives use of that software composition analysis for free. Thereafter, if you apply a license to that same agent, that's when the instrumentation takes hold. So one of my suggestions is to do what we're doing: Deploy the agent to as many applications as possible, with just the SCA feature turned on with no license applied, and then you can be more choosy and pick which teams will get the license applied."

"The product's pricing is low. I would rate it a two out of ten."

"The solution is expensive."

"For what it offers, it's a very reasonable cost. The way that it is priced is extremely straightforward. It works on the number of applications that you use, and you license a server. It is something that is extremely fair, because it doesn't take into consideration the number of requests, etc. It is only priced based on the number of onboarded applications. It suits our model as well, because we have huge traffic. Our number of applications is not that large, so the pricing works great for us."

"You only get one license for an application. Ours are very big, monolithic applications with millions of lines of code. We were able to apply one license to one monolithic application, which is great. We are happy with the licensing. Pricing-wise, they are industry-standard, which is fine."

"I like the per-application licensing model... We just license the app and we look at different vulnerabilities on that app and we remediate within the app. It's simpler."

"It's a tiered licensing model. The more you buy, as you cross certain quantity thresholds, the pricing changes. If you have a smaller environment, your licensing costs are going to be different than a larger environment... The licensing is primarily per application. An application can be as many agents as you need. If you've got 10 development servers and 20 production servers and 50 QA servers, all of those agents can be reporting as a single application that utilizes one license."

"We're using the Community Edition, and we don't pay for anything."

"While not extremely cheap, it aligns well with market standards and offers good value."

"I use the full trial version of SonarQube."

"Can try developer version for 14 days on the free trial."

"We use the free version; there are no hidden costs or licensing required."

"We're using their free Community Edition version."

"I was using the Community Edition, which is available free of charge."

"We use the solution free of cost."

More SonarQube pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Security Tools solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

23%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Computer Software Company

10%

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

14%

Manufacturing Company

14%

Computer Software Company

13%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	2
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	6

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	41
Midsize Enterprise	24
Large Enterprise	79

Questions from the Community

Ask a question

Earn 20 points

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

Comparisons

OpenText Dynamic Application Security Testing vs Contrast Security Assess

Compared 8% of the time

Seeker Interactive vs Contrast Security Assess

Compared 5% of the time

Digital.ai Application Security vs Contrast Security Assess

Compared 4% of the time

PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional vs Contrast Security Assess

Compared 4% of the time

OpenText Core Application Security vs Contrast Security Assess

Compared 4% of the time

More Contrast Security Assess Competitors

Checkmarx One vs SonarQube

Compared 27% of the time

Snyk vs SonarQube

Compared 8% of the time

GitHub Advanced Security vs SonarQube

Compared 7% of the time

Coverity Static vs SonarQube

Compared 7% of the time

Semgrep vs SonarQube

Compared 4% of the time

More SonarQube Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Contrast Security Assess

January 2026

Download Contrast Security Assess product report

Buyer's Guide

SonarQube

January 2026

Download SonarQube product report

Also Known As

Contrast Assess

Sonar, SonarQube Cloud

Overview

Contrast Security is the world’s leading provider of security technology that enables software applications to protect themselves against cyberattacks, heralding the new era of self-protecting software. Contrast's patented deep security instrumentation is the breakthrough technology that enables highly accurate assessment and always-on protection of an entire application portfolio, without disruptive scanning or expensive security experts. Only Contrast has sensors that work actively inside applications to uncover vulnerabilities, prevent data breaches, and secure the entire enterprise from development, to operations, to production.

Contrast Security

SonarQube provides comprehensive support for multi-language development, custom coding rules, and quality gates, integrated seamlessly into CI/CD pipelines. It empowers teams with clear insights through intuitive dashboards, identifying vulnerabilities, code smells, and technical debt.

SonarQube is renowned for its extensive capabilities in static code analysis, making it an invaluable tool for maintaining code quality. By fully integrating into development processes, it allows organizations to manage vulnerabilities and ensure compliance with coding standards. Its extensive community and open-source roots contribute to its accessibility, while robust dashboards facilitate code quality monitoring. Despite its strengths, feedback suggests enhancing analysis speed, better integration with DevOps tools, and refining the user interface. Users also point to the need for handling false positives effectively and expanding on AI-based features for dynamic code analysis.

What are SonarQube's main features?

Multi-language Support: Broad compatibility with diverse programming languages
Custom Coding Rules: Flexible customization of coding standards
Quality Gates: Set thresholds for maintaining coding standards
Vulnerability Identification: Detects security and performance issues
Integration with CI/CD: Streamlines quality checks in development workflows
Open Source Access: Supported by an active developer community
Technical Debt Tracking: Identifies and manages coding inefficiencies

What benefits should users expect?

Enhanced Code Quality: Improve code reliability and maintainability
Security Assurance: Identify and mitigate potential vulnerabilities
Reduced Technical Debt: Streamline the process of managing poor coding practices
Development Efficiency: Facilitates continuous integration and delivery processes
Community Support: Leverages an active network for continual improvements

In industries like finance and healthcare, SonarQube aids in obtaining regulatory compliance through rigorous code quality assessments. It is implemented to enhance cybersecurity by identifying potential vulnerabilities, while ensuring code meets the stringent standards demanded in these fields. As part of a broader development ecosystem, its integration in CI/CD pipelines ensures smooth and efficient software delivery, catering to phases from code inception to deployment, effectively supporting large-scale and critical software applications.

SonarSource Sàrl

Sample Customers

Williams-Sonoma, Autodesk, HUAWEI, Chromeriver, RingCentral, Demandware.

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Contrast Security Assess vs. SonarQube

December 2025

Free Report: Contrast Security Assess vs. SonarQube

Find out what your peers are saying about Contrast Security Assess vs. SonarQube and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Contrast Security Assess vs. SonarQube report.

See our list of best Application Security Tools vendors and best Static Application Security Testing (SAST) vendors.

We monitor all Application Security Tools reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.