Coverity vs Qualys Web Application Scanning comparison

Black Duck and Qualys are both solutions in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category. Black Duck is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.0, while Qualys is ranked #9 with an average rating of 8.4. Black Duck holds a 8.0% mindshare in SAST, compared to Qualys’s 2.2% mindshare. Additionally, 88% of Black Duck users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 87% of Qualys users who would recommend it.

Coverity

Read 42 Coverity reviews

11,969 Views
8,281 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

Qualys Web Application Scan...

Read 38 Qualys Web Application Scanning reviews

3,387 Views
2,583 Comparison Views

87% willing to recommend

Coverity

Qualys Web Application Scan...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 30, 2025

Qualys Web Application Scanning and Coverity compete in the cybersecurity software category. Based on feature comparison, Coverity appears to have the upper hand in in-depth code security analysis.

Features: Qualys Web Application Scanning integrates seamlessly with Selenium IDE for login automation, provides zero-day vulnerability protection, and offers comprehensive reporting features. It also highlights cloud-based deployment for ease of setup and minimal false positives. Coverity is strong in code analysis, particularly for C++ and C#, featuring interprocedural analysis and minimal false positives. It integrates well with CI/CD tools and focuses on enhancing code quality.

Room for Improvement: Qualys Web Application Scanning could improve asset organization, better manage false positives, and enhance customer support engagement, while users suggest more flexible APIs and better integration features. Coverity faces high false positive rates and a complex user interface, with users desiring better IDE integration and more intuitive reporting. It also hinders with a high cost and slow implementation, especially in event handling and memory leaks.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Qualys Web Application Scanning offers flexible deployment across public, private, and hybrid cloud models with generally positive 24/7 customer service. Suggestions include more proactive engagement. Coverity emphasizes traditional on-premises deployment with some hybrid options. While its technical support is considered adequate, improvements could make support interactions more efficient.

Pricing and ROI: Qualys Web Application Scanning is seen as expensive, offering valuable ROI through automation and reducing web application failure rates. Its asset-based pricing is flexible but high compared to competitors. Coverity has high costs often linked to user count, with users indicating difficulty justifying the expense despite its capabilities. Coverity’s pricing structure could better accommodate smaller or cost-conscious organizations.

To learn more, read our detailed Coverity vs. Qualys Web Application Scanning Report (Updated: March 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Coverity vs. Qualys Web Application Scanning

March 2025

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Helped 845,406 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

Coverity

Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

4th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Qualys Web Application Scan...

Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

9th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Security Tools (12th)

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of Coverity is 8.0%, up from 7.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Qualys Web Application Scanning is 2.2%, down from 2.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

Featured Reviews

Md. Shahriar Hussain

Information Security Analyst at Banglalink

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.

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SubhajitAich

Security Consultant at Cognizant

A stable solution that can be used for infrastructure vulnerability scanning and web application scanning

Qualys Web Application Scanning is very complex to use, and its graphical interface is not very user-friendly. Compared to other solutions like Tenable and Rapid7, you need to navigate a lot to get the actual results out of Qualys Web Application Scanning. If I have to search for one thing within the entire console, I have to look for it randomly. It's not very easy and very comfortable to find something. Overall, it's a very good solution, but it will be very good if the tool is more user-friendly.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's pretty stable. I rate the stability of Coverity nine out of ten."

"Provides software security, and helps to find potential security bugs or defects."

"The most valuable feature of Coverity is its interprocedural analysis, which is advantageous because it compares favorably with other tools in terms of security and code analysis."

"The solution has helped to increase staff productivity and improved our work significantly by approximately 20 percent."

"Coverity gives advisory and deviation features, which are some of the parts I liked."

"It help us identify the latest security vulnerabilities."

"Coverity is quite stable and we haven’t had any issues or any downtime."

"The security analysis features are the most valuable features of this solution."

More Coverity pros

"QualysGuard web-based scanner is very useful for performing external penetration and PCI scans from remote locations."

"Automated scanning has significantly improved our web application security management by reducing manual work."

"It is a cloud-based solution, so it is easy to scale."

"Qualys Web Application Scanning is user-friendly, easy to understand, easy to use, and easy to deploy."

"We have experienced quick customer support. They have a complete list of our previous issues along with our history, which makes it faster for them to solve issues."

"It is a very stable solution."

"I have found the detection of vulnerabilities tool thorough with good results and the graphical display output to be wonderful and full of colors. It allows many types of outputs, such as bar and chart previews."

"Qualys Web Application Scanning has multiple features like threat protection and container security scanning in one box."

More Qualys Web Application Scanning pros

Cons

"Reporting engine needs to be more robust."

"When I put my code into Coverity for scanning, the code information of the product is in the system. The solution could be improved by providing a SBOM, a software bill of material."

"The product could be enhanced by providing video troubleshooting guides, making issue resolution more accessible. Troubleshooting without visual guides can be time-consuming."

"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."

"The product could be enhanced by providing video troubleshooting guides, making issue resolution more accessible. Troubleshooting without visual guides can be time-consuming."

"It would be great if we could customize the rules to focus on critical issues."

"The quality of the code needs improvement."

"We'd like it to be faster."

More Coverity cons

"The product should allow users to upload their payloads."

"One area for improvement is the user interface. The new UI, which was recently upgraded, feels more complex and less user-friendly than the old version."

"In certain cases, this product does have false positives, which the company should work on."

"There should be better visibility into the application."

"In terms of the Policy Compliance model which they currently have, not all the platforms are being covered. If they could improve on the Policy Compliance model, since there are policies which are benchmarked against it, this will be helpful for us."

"Sometimes the response time is low because the handshake fails, and then you have to re-login and start again."

"It is unclear how to build automation on Qualys. We do some automation, but not fully, because working is difficult."

"The support could be faster."

More Qualys Web Application Scanning cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution's pricing is comparable to other products."

"I would rate the pricing a six out of ten, where one is low, and ten is high price."

"The price is competitive with other solutions."

"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."

"The pricing is very reasonable compared to other platforms. It is based on a three year license."

"I rate Coverity's price a ten on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive."

"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."

"Offers varying prices for different companies"

More Coverity pricing and cost advice

"The product pricing is fair and reasonably priced."

"Qualys WAS' pricing is competitive."

"We are on an annual license for the solution and the pricing could be more affordable."

"The product is expensive, at least initially, in comparison to other products in this category."

"The product has a very good licensing model."

"Try the free trial of the product to understand the basic working mechanisms."

"Qualys has an IT-based licensing based on a yearly license, which is a good way of handling it. However, in some cases, when we do the PCI scanning, the host will not like the scanning and we lose the IT license. So, this could be improved."

"Licensing was based on the number of assets that you want to scan on your network. You can also do licensing on subscription. On subscription, it is easier and more flexible. You tell Qualys that you want to move from the 1000 to 2000 band or the 3000 or 5000 band, then they will give you the quotation for it. Once you pay for it, applying the licensing is quite easy and effective."

More Qualys Web Application Scanning pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

33%

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Computer Software Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

15%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

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...

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What do you like most about Coverity?

The solution has improved our code quality and security very well.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Coverity?

I do not know about the pricing.

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What do you like most about Qualys Web Application Scanning?

The vulnerability management feature is a strong one. And also the patch management feature.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Qualys Web Application Scanning?

I find it a bit expensive compared to other competitors.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Qualys Web Application Scanning?

I would like it to be cheaper because it is a bit expensive compared to competitors like Tenable Nessus ( /products/tenable-nessus-reviews ). After using the product for a year, I might have more s...

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Comparisons

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Compared 5% of the time

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Compared 5% of the time

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Compared 12% of the time

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Compared 9% of the time

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Compared 7% of the time

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Compared 7% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Coverity

March 2025

Download Coverity product report

Buyer's Guide

Qualys Web Application Scanning

March 2025

Download Qualys Web Application Scanning product report

Also Known As

Synopsys Static Analysis

Qualys WAS

Overview

Coverity gives you the speed, ease of use, accuracy, industry standards compliance, and scalability that you need to develop high-quality, secure applications. Coverity identifies critical software quality defects and security vulnerabilities in code as it’s written, early in the development process, when it’s least costly and easiest to fix. With the Code Sight integrated development environment (IDE) plugin, developers get accurate analysis in seconds in their IDE as they code. Precise actionable remediation advice and context-specific eLearning help your developers understand how to fix their prioritized issues quickly, without having to become security experts.

Coverity seamlessly integrates automated security testing into your CI/CD pipelines and supports your existing development tools and workflows. Choose where and how to do your development: on-premises or in the cloud with the Polaris Software Integrity Platform (SaaS), a highly scalable, cloud-based application security platform. Coverity supports more than 20 languages and 200 frameworks and templates.

Black Duck

Qualys Web Application Scanning (WAS) is a fully cloud-based web application security scanner. The scanner will automatically crawl periodically and test web applications to discover potential vulnerabilities, including cross-site scripting (XSS) and SQL injection. The consistent testing equips the automated service to generate consistent results, lessen false positives, and offer the ability to scale to protect thousands of websites effortlessly.

Qualys Web Application Scanning is bundled with different scanning technology to carefully scan websites for malware infections and will send notifications to website owners to assist in preventing blacklisting and brand reputation damage. As digital transformation takes place in various organizations, Qualys WAS gives organizations the ability to track and document their web app security status through its interactive reporting capabilities.

Qualys WAS empowers organizations to remediate any web application vulnerabilities quickly. Some of the key tools offered are:

Deep Scanning: All apps and APIs on your internal network and public cloud are covered by Qualys WAS deep scanning to show you any visible vulnerabilities.
DevSec Ops Tool: Detect security issues in your code while still in app development stages and generate comprehensive reports.
Comprehensive Discovery: Discover and catalog new and unknown web apps in your network.
Malware Detection: Scan a website, identify vulnerabilities, and receive alerts to any infections.

Benefits of Qualys Web Application Scanning

Qualys Web Application Scanning offers many benefits, including:

Quick Deployment: Requires no infrastructure or software to upkeep.
Effortless Scalability: Effortlessly launch a deep scan and protect thousands of websites.
Centralized Management: Manage and mend all web app vulnerabilities through a single interface.
Excellent Integration Capabilities: Integrates with Qualys Web App Firewall (WAF) for a single-click virtual patching of found vulnerabilities.
Respond to Threats Immediately: Qualys Continuous Monitoring offers the user a hands-free service by automatically launching scanning and sending notifications of a potential threat.
Cost-effective Solution: Data is analyzed in real time as Qualys WAS is an end-to-end solution; this helps avoid costs associated with managing multiple security vendors.

Reviews from Real Users

Qualys Web Application Scanning stands out among its competitors for a variety of reasons. Two of those reasons are its progressive scan and quick detection of vulnerabilities.

P.K., a senior software developer at a tech vendor, writes, "The feature that I have found most valuable is the progressive scan. It is good. It's done in 24 hours."

Nagaraj S., lead cybersecurity engineer at a tech service company, notes, "I have found the detection of vulnerabilities tool thorough with good results and the graphical display output to be wonderful and full of colors. It allows many types of outputs, such as bar and chart previews."

Qualys

Sample Customers

SAP, Mega International, Thales Alenia Space

BskyB, Cartagena, ClearPoint Learning Systems, Connect Group, du, Fortrex Technologies, HBOR, HDI, Highlights for Children, The Lithuanian State Enterprise Centre of Registers, City of Miami Beach, Microsoft, MidlandHR, MSCI Inc., Northern Arizona University, Ofgem, Olympus Europa, PhoneFactor, RTL Nederland, ThousandEyes, VGZ Organisatie B.V.

Buyer's Guide

Coverity vs. Qualys Web Application Scanning

March 2025

Free Report: Coverity vs. Qualys Web Application Scanning

Find out what your peers are saying about Coverity vs. Qualys Web Application Scanning and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.

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