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Coverity vs Semgrep 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
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
5th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
43
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Semgrep
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
27th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Supply Chain Management Software (3rd), Software Composition Analysis (SCA) (13th), Static Code Analysis (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of Coverity is 7.2%, up from 6.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Semgrep is 2.6%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
 

Featured Reviews

Jaile Sebes - PeerSpot reviewer
Resolving critical software issues demands faster implementation and better integration
We use Coverity primarily to find issues such as software bugs and memory leaks, especially in C++ and C# projects. It helps us identify deadlocks, synchronization issues, and product crashes Coverity has been instrumental in resolving product crashes by detecting various issues like deadlocks.…
Henry Mwawai - PeerSpot reviewer
Automated code reviews and good scalability with custom rule adaptability
We use Semgrep to check custom user pipelines and test their claims for any vulnerabilities. We process the code by passing it through the testing process for any operability issues before sending feedback to the developers and providing the final product. This is part of the static testing…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"This solution is easy to use."
"Coverity is easy to set up and has a less lengthy process to find vulnerabilities."
"We were very comfortable with the initial setup."
"The solution has improved our code quality and security very well."
"It's pretty stable. I rate the stability of Coverity nine out of ten."
"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 most valuable feature is that there were not a whole lot of false positives, at least on the codebases that I looked at."
"Coverity is scalable."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to write our custom rules."
 

Cons

"The solution could use more rules."
"Sometimes, vulnerabilities remain unidentified even after setting up the rules."
"The product lacks sufficient customization options."
"The reporting tool integration process is sometimes slow."
"Zero-day vulnerability identification can be an add-on feature that Coverity can provide."
"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."
"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."
"We actually specified several checkers, but we found some checkers had a higher false positive rate. I think this is a problem. Because we have to waste some time is really the issue because the issue is not an issue. I mean, the tool pauses or an issue, but the same issue is the filter now.Some check checkers cannot find some issues, but sometimes they find issues that are not relevant, right, that are not really issues. Some customisation mechanism can be added in the next release so that we can define our Checker. The Modelling feature provided by Coverity helps in finding more information for potential issues but it is not mature enough, it should be mature. The fast testing feature for security testing campaign can be added as well. So if you correctly integrate it with the training team, maybe you can help us to find more potential issues."
"There should be more information on how to acquire the system, catering to beginners in application security, to make it more user-friendly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing fees are based on the number of lines of code."
"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."
"It is expensive."
"I rate Coverity's price a ten on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive."
"I would rate the tool's pricing a one out of ten."
"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."
"Coverity is quite expensive."
"The solution is affordable."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
32%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Government
4%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

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 needs improvement with Semgrep?
There should be more information on how to acquire the system, catering to beginners in application security, to make it more user-friendly.
What is your primary use case for Semgrep?
We use Semgrep to check custom user pipelines and test their claims for any vulnerabilities. We process the code by passing it through the testing process for any operability issues before sending ...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Synopsys Static Analysis
Semgrep Code, Semgrep Supply Chain, Semgrep AppSec Platform
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SAP, Mega International, Thales Alenia Space
Policygenius, Tide, Lyft, Thinkific, FloQast, Vanta, and Fareportal
Find out what your peers are saying about Sonar, Veracode, Checkmarx and others in Static Application Security Testing (SAST). Updated: July 2025.
861,524 professionals have used our research since 2012.