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Coverity Static vs Fortify Application Defender 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) (6th)
Fortify Application Defender
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (24th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Coverity Static and Fortify Application Defender 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 4.2%, down 7.9% compared to last year.
Fortify Application Defender, on the other hand, focuses on Application Security Tools, holds 1.2% mindshare, up 0.6% since last year.
Static Application Security Testing (SAST) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Coverity Static4.2%
SonarQube18.2%
Checkmarx One10.3%
Other67.3%
Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
Application Security Tools Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Fortify Application Defender1.2%
SonarQube16.9%
Checkmarx One9.9%
Other72.0%
Application Security Tools
 

Featured Reviews

KT
Software Engineering Manager at Visteon Corporation
Using tools for compliance is beneficial but cost concerns persist
We have been using Coverity for quite a long period. It has been fine for our needs. I would rate Coverity between eight to nine, though the cost is high. I would rate their support from Coverity as six. That is the main complaint, but we still appreciate having it.
VS
CTO at Abcl
Useful for fast code review in devOps pipelines
I rate the tool's scalability a seven out of ten. However, I'm concerned about how it handles an increasing number of lines of code. As the complexity grows, so does the time it takes for the tool to review everything. I want more clarity on how Fortify Application Defender handles multiple threats. We have numerous endpoints, but the tool runs in our pipeline, meaning it operates in the cloud. All our code is configured there, and the tool runs integration testing, unit testing, user testing, and final production code tests. It's a day-to-day experience. It's utilized almost every day as part of our pipeline runs. Each team responsible for integration testing, human testing, user access testing, and preproduction testing runs it whenever they take a build.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution has helped to increase staff productivity and improved our work significantly by approximately 20 percent."
"It's pretty stable. I rate the stability of Coverity nine out of ten."
"Coverity is scalable."
"It's very stable."
"Considering the analysis part and the benchmarking process involving the product that my company carried out, the solution is good for finding bugs and violations"
"The most valuable feature is the integration with Jenkins."
"It has the lowest false positives."
"Coverity integrates with issue-tracking systems like Jira and provides email notifications, alerts, and other features."
"The solution helped us to improve the code quality of our organization."
"The tool's most valuable feature is software composition analysis. This feature works well with my .NET applications, providing a better understanding of library vulnerabilities."
"The most valuable features of Fortify Application Defender are the code packages that are default."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to automatically feed it rules what it's coupled with the WebInspect dynamic application scanning technology."
"Its ability to find security defects is valuable."
"The product saves us cost and time."
"The information from Fortify Application Defender on how to fix and solve issues is very good compared to other solutions."
"Fortify Application Defender's most valuable features are machine learning algorithms, real-time remediation, and automatic vulnerability notifications."
 

Cons

"The product lacks sufficient customization options."
"Coverity's implementation cycle is very slow when integrating changes, especially for problems related to event handling and memory leaks."
"The quality of the code needs improvement."
"The solution needs to improve its false positives."
"The tool needs to improve its reporting."
"I had tried integrating the tool with Azure DevOps, but the report I got stated that my team faced many challenges."
"Some features are not performing well, like duplicate detection and switch case situations."
"We'd like it to be faster."
"The solution could improve the time it takes to scan. When comparing it to SonarQube it does it in minutes while in Fortify Application Defender it can take hours."
"Fortify Application Defender gives a lot of false positives."
"Support for older compilers/IDEs is lacking."
"The product should integrate industry-standard code review tools internally with its system. This would streamline the coding process, as developers wouldn't need multiple tools for code review and security checks. Many independent and open-source tools are available, from Apache to various libraries. Using multiple DevOps pipeline tools can slow the turnaround time."
"The false positive rate should be lower."
"Fortify Application Defender could improve by supporting more code languages, such as GRAAS and Groovy."
"The solution is quite expensive."
"The biggest complaint that I have heard concerns additional platform support because right now, it only supports applications that are written in .NET and Java."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"Coverity is very expensive."
"The solution's pricing is comparable to other products."
"I would rate the tool's pricing a one out of ten."
"The pricing is very reasonable compared to other platforms. It is based on a three year license."
"Offers varying prices for different companies"
"Coverity’s price is on the higher side. It should be lower."
"Coverity is quite expensive."
"The price of this solution could be less expensive."
"The base licensing costs for the SaaS platform is about $900 USD per application, per year."
"The licensing is very complex, it's project based and can range from $10,000 to $200,000+ depending on the project type and size."
"I rate the solution's pricing a five out of ten. It comes as an annual cloud subscription. The tool's pricing is around 50 lakhs."
"Fortify Application Defender is very expensive."
"The product’s price is much higher than other tools."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
32%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Healthcare Company
4%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise31
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise8
 

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 do you like most about Coverity?
The solution has improved our code quality and security very well.
What do you like most about Fortify Application Defender?
I find the configuration of rules in Fortify Application Defender useful. Its integration is also easy.
What needs improvement with Fortify Application Defender?
The product should integrate industry-standard code review tools internally with its system. This would streamline the coding process, as developers wouldn't need multiple tools for code review and...
What is your primary use case for Fortify Application Defender?
We use the solution for fast code review. It is integrated into our DevOps pipeline.
 

Also Known As

Synopsys Static Analysis
HPE Fortify Application Defender, Micro Focus Fortify Application Defender
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SAP, Mega International, Thales Alenia Space
ServiceMaster, Saltworks, SAP
Find out what your peers are saying about Coverity Static vs. Fortify Application Defender and other solutions. Updated: September 2022.
881,733 professionals have used our research since 2012.