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Coverity Static vs Polyspace Code Prover 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

Coverity Static
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
43
Ranking in other categories
Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (8th)
Polyspace Code Prover
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
2.3
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (27th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Coverity Static and Polyspace Code Prover aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Coverity Static is designed for Static Application Security Testing (SAST) and holds a mindshare of 2.8%, down 8.0% compared to last year.
Polyspace Code Prover, on the other hand, focuses on Application Security Tools, holds 1.3% mindshare, up 1.2% since last year.
Static Application Security Testing (SAST) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Coverity Static2.8%
SonarQube14.5%
Checkmarx One9.2%
Other73.5%
Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
Application Security Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Polyspace Code Prover1.3%
SonarQube12.7%
Checkmarx One8.3%
Other77.7%
Application Security Tools
 

Featured Reviews

BL
Software Quality Expert at Endress+Hauser AG
Useful for extra checks but not recommended for C++
We're currently facing a primary challenge with automation using Coverity. Each developer has a license and can perform manual checks, and we also have a nightly build that analyzes the entire software. The main issue is that the tool can't look behind submodules in our code base, so it doesn't see changes stored there. This limitation means it can't detect changes accurately, forcing us to analyze all files instead of just the modified ones. It struggles with repositories organized with different submodules. Although documentation suggests it's possible to configure Coverity to handle this, it requires effort. The solution's analysis tools are high-quality, but the web design could improve. For example, the data is organized into pages when there are many findings, such as ten thousand lines of information. Each page shows about a hundred items, and navigating through these pages (from items 100 to 200, 200 to 300, and so on) can be cumbersome. I've heard from a colleague about another Synopsys tool with a very good GUI. It might be a solution for us to include with Coverity. We invested in Coverity, but compared to SonarQube, it lacks a good interface. SonarQube has a responsive, intuitive GUI, but its analysis quality isn't as good as Coverity's. Coverity's interface isn't great, but its analysis is much better. We hope Synopsys will improve Coverity because it doesn't make a good impression when you first use it. We started with the command line and saw the results were very good. We moved from another tool with a slightly better GUI, but it crashed often, so Coverity was an improvement. When I used the solution earlier, I noticed some issues. It supports C++, which we use, but there's room for improvement. Coverity has two plug-ins. The newer one works well for languages like C# or Java and is very responsive. When we evaluated it with Synopsys, they presented it as easy to configure and install. However, C++ slows down significantly because it's analyzing in the background. It's not very responsive when typing, likely due to the many included files in C++ that need analysis. It's not as quick as with C# or other languages, where you get immediate feedback from Coverity. The classic plug-in is still supported but old-fashioned. It has a manual option, but I haven't checked it. The main problem for C++ users who prefer the old plug-in is responsiveness.
reviewer2760282 - PeerSpot reviewer
General Manager at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Has struggled with performance and integration but supports critical safety verification
Execution speed of the tests and generally the integration into AWS-driven CI work chains or workflows represent how it can be improved in my opinion. Performance issues plus license costs are two main driving factors. The CI environments that we use employ up to around 40,000 virtual CPUs per day in peak, running at the same time. We always have problems distributing licenses accordingly with other products. I can talk to the experts doing the integration, but as far as I know, I was involved with Polyspace Code Prover and we had a lot of difficulties integrating it into our Bazel-driven CI toolchain, plus integrating it on the AWS environments in Linux that we use. It was much more straightforward using Code Sonar there. The reason is the execution speed, integration with Azure and stuff, and pricing. The CI integration and maybe a better-suited license model for CI-driven execution are other areas I recommend improving. That's something we discussed with all of the software companies whose products we use, such as compilers. We have a lot of parallel builds, and each call to a license server is actually problematic in the long run.

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 feature is the ability to find vulnerabilities in our code."
"The solution was very simple to set up."
"Coverity provides excellent compliance and other features, which is a very good part."
"The security analysis features are the most valuable features of this solution."
"Coverity is quite stable and we haven’t had any issues or any downtime."
"The product has deeper scanning capabilities."
"One of the most valuable features is Contributing Events. That particular feature helps the developer understand the root cause of a defect. So you can locate the starting point of the defect and figure out exactly how it is being exploited."
"Provides software security, and helps to find potential security bugs or defects."
"Polyspace Code Prover is a very user-friendly tool."
"Polyspace Code Prover has made me realize it differs from other static code analysis tools because it runs the code. So it's quite distinct in that aspect."
"The product detects memory corruptions."
"The outputs are very reliable."
"When we work on safety modules, it is mandatory to fulfill ISO 26262 compliance. Using Prover helps fulfill the standard on top of many other quality checks, like division by zero, data type casts, and null pointer dereferences."
"Efficiency and speed are the advantages I see in Code Sonar over Polyspace Code Prover."
 

Cons

"My personal opinion is that the webpage of the last version of Coverity is not very easy to use."
"SCM integration is very poor in Coverity."
"Coverity could improve the ease of use. Sometimes things become difficult and you need to follow the guides from the website but the guides could be better."
"The setup takes very long."
"The solution could use more rules."
"Right now, the Coverity executable is around 1.2GB to download. If they can reduce it to approximately 600 or 700MB, that would be great. If they decrease the executable, it will be much easier to work in an environment like Docker."
"Coverity's implementation cycle is very slow when integrating changes, especially for problems related to event handling and memory leaks."
"The solution needs to improve its false positives."
"One of the main disadvantages is the time it takes to initiate the first run."
"Using Code Prover on large applications crashes sometimes."
"Because we had difficulties in efficiently integrating Polyspace Code Prover into our CI toolchain, these tests are mostly run manually and only occasionally."
"Automation could be a challenge."
"The tool has some stability issues."
"I'd like the data to be taken from any format."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I would rate the tool's pricing a one out of ten."
"The tool's price is somewhere in the middle. It's neither cheap nor expensive. I would rate the pricing a five out of ten."
"Offers varying prices for different companies"
"This is a pretty expensive solution. The overall value of the solution could be improved if the price was reduced. Licensing is done on an annual basis."
"The licensing fees are based on the number of lines of code."
"The tool was fairly priced."
"I rate Coverity's price a ten on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive."
"Coverity is quite expensive."
"We use the paid version."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
29%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Comms Service Provider
5%
Manufacturing Company
38%
Aerospace/Defense Firm
6%
Computer Software Company
6%
Healthcare Company
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise31
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise6
 

Questions from the Community

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...
What needs improvement with Coverity?
The price is a concern, and there are a lot of false positives coming through. Support with Coverity is adequate, but they take a longer time to respond. The core support is not straightforward, an...
What needs improvement with Polyspace Code Prover?
Execution speed of the tests and generally the integration into AWS-driven CI work chains or workflows represent how it can be improved in my opinion. Performance issues plus license costs are two ...
What is your primary use case for Polyspace Code Prover?
It is validation for Functional Safety applications in automotive.
What advice do you have for others considering Polyspace Code Prover?
We are actually trying to consolidate everything into one solution. To reduce, that might also be a new solution, but we're not currently actively looking for that. It's just that we'd prefer to fi...
 

Also Known As

Synopsys Static Analysis
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SAP, Mega International, Thales Alenia Space
Alenia Aermacchi, CSEE Transport, Delphi Diesel Systems, EADS, Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety, Korean Air, KOSTAL, Miracor, NASA Ames Research Center
Find out what your peers are saying about SonarSource Sàrl, Checkmarx, Veracode and others in Static Application Security Testing (SAST). Updated: May 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.