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Coverity vs Fortify on Demand comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 20, 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

Coverity
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
4th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Fortify on Demand
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
13th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
60
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (15th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of Coverity is 7.5%, up from 6.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortify on Demand is 4.1%, down from 4.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
 

Featured Reviews

Md. Shahriar Hussain - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers impressive reporting features with user-friendliness and high scalability
The solution can be easily setup but requires heavy integration due to the multiple types of port and programming languages involved. Comparing the resource requirements of the solution I would say it can be installed effortlessly. I would rate the initial setup an eight out of ten. A professional needs some pre-acquired knowledge to manage Coverity's deployment process, but the local solution partners provide support well enough for trouble-free deployment. The overall deployment process of Coverity took around two and a half hours in our organization. The deployment duration depends upon the operating system and resources including high-end RAM and CPU processors.
Jonathan Steyn - PeerSpot reviewer
Source code analyzer, FPR file generation, reduction of false positives and generates compliance reports, for in-depth analysis
Not challenges with the product itself. The product is very reliable. It does have a steep learning curve. But, again, one thing that Fortify or OpenText does very well is training. There are a lot of free resources and training in the community forums, free training as well as commercial training where users can train on how to use the back-end systems and the scanning engines and how to use command-line arguments because some of the procedures or some of the tools do require a bit of a learning curve. That's the only challenge I've really seen for customers because you have to learn how to use the tool effectively. But Fortify has, in fact, improved its user interface and the way users engage the dashboards and the interfaces. It is intuitive. It's easy to understand. But in some regards, the cybersecurity specialist or AppSec would need a bit of training to engage the user interface and to understand how it functions. But from the point of the reliability index and how powerful the tool is, there's no challenge there. But it's just from a learning perspective; users might need a bit more skill to use the tool. The user interface isn't that tedious. It's not that difficult to understand. When I initially learned how to use the interfaces, I was able to master it within a week and was able to use it quite effectively. So training is required. All skills are needed to learn how to use the tool. I would like to see more enhancements in the dashboards. Dashboards are available. They do need some configuration and settings. But I would like to see more business intelligence capabilities within the tool. It's not particularly a cybersecurity function, but, for instance, business impact analysis or other features where you can actually use business intelligence capabilities within your security tool. That would be remarkable because not only do you have a cybersecurity tool, but you also have a tool that can give you business impact analysis and some other measurements. A bit more intelligence in terms of that from a cybersecurity perspective would be remarkable.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"What I find most effective about Coverity is its low rate of false positives. I've seen other platforms with many false positives, but with Coverity, most vulnerabilities it identifies are genuine. This allows me to focus on real issues."
"The product is easy to use."
"The reporting feature is up to the mark."
"In my opinion, the most effective Coverity feature for identifying critical vulnerabilities is the extra checks, which offers deep analysis."
"The most valuable feature is the integration with Jenkins."
"The tool as it is can be used for code quality improvement."
"It's pretty stable. I rate the stability of Coverity nine out of ten."
"We identified a lot of security vulnerability much earlier in the development and could fix this well before the product was rolled out to a huge number of clients."
"The feature that I find the most useful is being able to just see the vulnerabilities online while checking the code and then checking suggestions for fixing them."
"The solution is user-friendly."
"The installation was easy."
"The most valuable features are the detailed reporting and the ability to set up deep scanning of the software, both of which are in the same place."
"The solution is user-friendly. One feature I find very effective is the tool's automatic scanning capability. It scans replicas of the code developers write and automatically detects any vulnerabilities. The integration with CI/CD tools is also useful for plugins."
"The most valuable feature is that it connects with your development platforms, such as Microsoft Information Server and Jira."
"I do not remember any issues with stability."
 

Cons

"Some features are not performing well, like duplicate detection and switch case situations."
"Zero-day vulnerability identification can be an add-on feature that Coverity can provide."
"The solution could use more rules."
"Coverity is not stable."
"Coverity takes a lot of time to dereference null pointers."
"Coverity's implementation cycle is very slow when integrating changes, especially for problems related to event handling and memory leaks."
"The product should include more customization options. The analytics is not as deep as compared to SonarQube."
"I would like to see integration with popular IDEs, such as Eclipse."
"The solution has some issues with latency. Sometimes it takes a while to respond. This issue should be addressed."
"I would like the solution to add AI support."
"They have a release coming out, which is full of new features. Based on their roadmap, there's nothing that I would suggest for them to put in it that they haven't already suggested. However, I am a customer, so I always think the pricing is something that could be improved. I am working with them on that, and they're very flexible. They work with their customers and kind of tailor the product to the customer's needs. So far, I am very happy with what they're able to provide. Their subscriptions could use a little bit of a reworking, but that would be about it."
"It would be highly beneficial if Fortify on Demand incorporated runtime analysis, similar to how Contrast Security utilizes agents for proactive application security."
"The vulnerability analysis does not always provide guidelines for what the developer should do in order to correct the problem, which means that the code has to be manually inspected and understood."
"Micro Focus Fortify on Demand could improve the user interface by making it more user-friendly."
"There is room for improvement in the integration process."
"There were some regulated compliances, which were not there."
 

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 quite expensive."
"The licensing fees are based on the number of lines of code."
"The solution's pricing is comparable to other products."
"I would rate Coverity's pricing as a nine out of ten. It's already very expensive, and it's a problem for us to get more licenses due to the price. The pricing model has some good aspects - for example, a personal license gives access to all languages without code limitations, which is better than some competitors. However, it's still a lot of money for us to spend."
"The price is competitive with other solutions."
"Depending on the usage types, one has to opt for different types of licenses from Coverity, especially to be able to use areas like report viewing or report generation."
"The solution is affordable."
"It is quite expensive. Pricing and the licensing model could be improved."
"We used the one-time application, Security Scan Dynamic. I believe the original fee was $8,000."
"The pricing can be improved because it is complex when compared to the competition."
"Fortify on Demand is affordable, and its licensing comes with a year of support."
"The price is fair compared to that of other solutions."
"The product's cost depends on the type of license."
"It is not more expensive than other solutions, but the pricing is competitive."
"If I exceed one million lines of code, there might be an extra cost or a change in the pricing bracket."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
33%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Government
4%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Manufacturing Company
15%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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 Micro Focus Fortify on Demand?
It helps deploy and track changes easily as per time-to-time market upgrades.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Micro Focus Fortify on Demand?
In comparison with other tools, they're competitive. It is not more expensive than other solutions, but their pricing is competitive. The licenses for Fortify On Demand are generally bought in unit...
What needs improvement with Micro Focus Fortify on Demand?
There are frequent complaints about false positives from Fortify. One day it may pass a scan with no issues, and the next day, without any code changes, it will report vulnerabilities such as passw...
 

Also Known As

Synopsys Static Analysis
Micro Focus Fortify on Demand
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SAP, Mega International, Thales Alenia Space
SAP, Aaron's, British Gas, FICO, Cox Automative, Callcredit Information Group, Vital and more.
Find out what your peers are saying about Coverity vs. Fortify on Demand and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
851,604 professionals have used our research since 2012.