Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Fortify on Demand vs SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 9, 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

Fortify on Demand
Ranking in Application Security Tools
15th
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
13th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
60
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SonarQube Server (formerly ...
Ranking in Application Security Tools
1st
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
114
Ranking in other categories
Software Development Analytics (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Application Security Tools category, the mindshare of Fortify on Demand is 4.4%, down from 4.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) is 24.5%, down from 27.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Security Tools
 

Q&A Highlights

Miriam Tover - PeerSpot reviewer
Jan 11, 2019
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Chetan Jayatheertha - PeerSpot reviewer
Has a great quality gate feature and improves the code coverage in your core base
We would like to have more visibility and more documentation, starting with the installation. It needs to be more standardized and explain all the features. We'd also like to get an idea of the level of stability we can get for our larger-sized projects. The notifications from the channel queue can be improved including email notifications. We currently rely on getting those notifications passed onto us and that should not be the case. The customization of different languages would also be helpful. If all the above could be implemented, SonarQube would be the best vulnerability security scanning tool.

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 capacity to be able to check vulnerabilities during the development process. The development team can check whether the code they are using is vulnerable to some type of attack or there is some type of vulnerability so that they can mitigate it. It helps us in achieving a more secure approach towards internal applications. It is an intuitive solution. It gives all the information that a developer needs to remediate a vulnerability in the coding process. It also gives you some examples of how to remediate a vulnerability in different programming languages. This solution is pretty much what we were searching for."
"The most valuable features of Micro Focus Fortify on Demand have been SAT analysis and application security."
"Fortify on Demand's best feature is that there's no need to install and configure it locally since it's on the cloud."
"It improves future security scans."
"Being able to reduce risk overall is a very valuable feature for us."
"There is not only one specific feature that we find valuable. The idea is to integrate the solution in DevSecOps which we were able to do."
"Fortify on Demand is easy to use and the reporting is good."
"The SAST feature is the most valuable."
"It's a great product. If you are in a hurry and just want to focus on the functional requirements of any kind of project, SonarQube is highly helpful. It enables the developers to code securely. SonarQube has a Community edition, which is open source and free. There are also three proprietary or paid versions: Enterprise edition, Data Center edition, and Developer edition."
"We've configured it to run on each commit, providing feedback on our software quality. ]"
"The reporting and the results are quick. It gets integrated within the pipeline well."
"The good thing with SonarQube is it covers a lot of issues, it's a very robust framework."
"This solution has helped with the integration and building of our CICD pipeline."
"Using SonarQube benefits us because we are able to avoid the inclusion of malware in our applications."
"The features of SonarQube that I find most valuable for identifying code smells are its comprehensive code analysis capabilities, which cover various aspects of code sustainability."
"We use this solution for qualitative coding. We make use of the SonarLint plugin as well as the dashboard."
 

Cons

"There are many false positives identified by the solution."
"In terms of communication, they can integrate a few more third-party tools. It would be great if we can have more options for microservice communication. They can also improve the securability a bit more because security is one of the biggest aspects these days when you are using the cloud. Some more security features would be really helpful."
"Sometimes when we run a full scan, we have a bunch of issues in the code. We should not have any issues."
"We typically do our bulk uploads of our scans with some automation at the end of the development cycle but the scanning can take a lot of time. If you were doing all of it at regular intervals it would still consume a lot of time. This could procedure could improve."
"Fortify on Demand could be improved with support in Russia."
"They could provide features for artificial intelligence similar to other vendors."
"There are lots of limitations with code technology. It cannot scan .net properly either."
"There's a bit of a learning curve. Our development team is struggling with following the rules and following the new processes."
"Expression of common vulnerabilities and exposures is not always current."
"The pricing could be reduced a bit. It's a little expensive."
"Lacks sufficient visibility and documentation."
"The interface could be a little better and should be enhanced."
"If you don't have any experience with the configuration or how to configure the files, it can be complicated."
"The product's pricing could be lower."
"When we have a thousand products published over it, we expect it to be more efficient in terms of serving requests from the browser."
"It would be a great add-on if SonarQube could update its database for vulnerabilities or plugging parts."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We are still using the trial version at this point but I can already see from the trial version alone that it is a good product. For others, I would say that Fortify on Demand might look expensive at the beginning, but it is very powerful and so you shouldn't be put off by the price."
"We used the one-time application, Security Scan Dynamic. I believe the original fee was $8,000."
"There are different costs for Micro Focus Fortify on Demand depending on the assessments you want to use. There is only a standard license needed to use the solution."
"Fortify on Demand is moderately priced, but its pricing could be more flexible."
"We make an annual purchase of the licenses we need."
"Despite being on the higher end in terms of cost, the biggest value lies in its abilities, including robust features, seamless integration, and high-quality findings."
"The pricing model it's based on how many applications you wish to scan."
"The solution is a little expensive."
"On the pricing side, it's 3,000 Euros for 1 million lines of code."
"SonarQube is a fairly affordable solution for a larger scale if you have a specific role or specific department for secure code."
"We use the tool's community edition."
"We are using the Community edition of SonarQube."
"I think comparing the product to competitors it should be less expensive."
"The product’s price is lower than Veracode’s price."
"The licence is standard open source licensing"
"SonarQube price is a little bit higher than Kiuwan's. Kiuwan also gives a little bit of flexibility in terms of pricing."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Security Tools solutions are best for your needs.
851,604 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Manufacturing Company
15%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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...
Is SonarQube the best tool for static analysis?
I am not very familiar with SonarQube and their solutions, so I can not answer. But if you are asking me about which tools that are the best for for Static Code Analysis, I suggest you have a look...
Which gives you more for your money - SonarQube or Veracode?
SonarQube is easy to deploy and configure, and also integrates well with other tools to do quality code analysis. SonarQube has a great community edition, which is open-source and free. Easy to use...
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...
 

Also Known As

Micro Focus Fortify on Demand
Sonar
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SAP, Aaron's, British Gas, FICO, Cox Automative, Callcredit Information Group, Vital and more.
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortify on Demand vs. SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
851,604 professionals have used our research since 2012.