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Fortify Software Security Center vs SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 21, 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 Software Security C...
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
28th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
5.7
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SonarQube Server (formerly ...
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
117
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (1st), Software Development Analytics (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of Fortify Software Security Center is 0.5%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) is 19.7%, down from 27.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Static Application Security Testing (SAST) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube)19.7%
Fortify Software Security Center0.5%
Other79.8%
Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
 

Featured Reviews

Jonathan Steyn - PeerSpot reviewer
Comprehensive vulnerability analysis and customization features with decent pricing
Software Security Center is highly customizable and helps me test all vulnerability data against the latest conventions like OWASP Top Ten, CVE Top twenty-five, and several other legal compliances. WebInspect supports a number of APIs and web endpoints. I find its feature of macro recording allows for testing vulnerabilities during multi-factor authentication sessions very valuable. I appreciate the ability to further analyze data with tools like Audit Workbench.
Sthembiso Zondi - PeerSpot reviewer
Consistent improvements in code quality and security with effective integration and reliable technical support
The features of SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) that I find most useful are the suggestions received from reviewing the code. When they review the code, they provide suggestions on how to fix it, and we find those very useful from a development perspective. We use SonarQube Server's (formerly SonarQube) centralized management and visualization of code quality metrics on the dashboard because that's the executive dashboard that we send to the executives to show where we are in terms of quality, security, and where the company can improve. We use that for organizational improvement purposes. The ability to tailor metrics tracking in SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) has been beneficial to my team. There are team-specific dashboards which are related to specific repositories they utilize, and we have that aggregative dashboard that shows the whole organization's performance. We can drill down per specific repository, which makes it easier for the team to improve specific things.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Software Security Center is highly customizable and helps me test all vulnerability data against the latest conventions like OWASP Top Ten, CVE Top twenty-five, and several other legal compliances."
"You can easily download the tool's rule packs and update them."
"Fortify Analytics' AI function helps scan and provides more detailed explanations and recommendations about vulnerabilities."
"The reporting is very useful because you can always view an entire list of the issues that you have."
"This is a stable solution at the end of the day."
"The overall rating for this tool is ten out of ten."
"I like the explanation of issues provided by Fortify Software Security Center."
"SonarQube is a fantastic tool which saves us precious time."
"Any developer can easily identify issues using the process flow or steps provided by SonarQube. In terms of integration, SonarQube makes it quite easy, simplifying the steps for users."
"This has improved our organization because it has helped to find Security Vulnerabilities."
"It provides the security that is required from a solution for financial businesses."
"The most valuable features are the wide array of languages, multiple languages per project, the breakdown of bugs, and the description of vulnerabilities and code smells (best practices)."
"SonarQube is good for checking and maintaining code quality."
"The product itself has a friendly UI."
"This solution has helped with the integration and building of our CICD pipeline."
 

Cons

"Improvements needed for Software Security Center include better aggregation views of datasets."
"I am not satisfied with the percentage of false positives, which is around eighteen percent."
"Improvements needed for Software Security Center include better aggregation views of datasets."
"The product's overlap feature is restrictive and requires more customization efforts, which can be expensive."
"We are having issues with false positives that need to be resolved."
"This solution is difficult to implement, and it should be made more comfortable for the end-users."
"Fortify Software Security Center's setup is really painful."
"I see a problem with SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) because the vulnerability assessment is continuous; if I fix some vulnerabilities today, they reappear in the next scan, and there will be completely different issues that need to be fixed."
"SonarQube can improve by scanning the internal library which currently it does not do. We are looking for a solution for this."
"We also use Fortify, which is another tool to find security errors. Fortify is a better security tool. It is better than SonarQube in finding errors. Sometimes, SonarQube doesn't find some of the errors that Fortify is able to find. Fortify also has a community, which SonarQube doesn't have. Its installation is a little bit complex. We need to install a database, install the product, and specify the version of the database and the product. They can simplify the installation and make it easier. We use docker for the installation because it is easier to use. Its dashboard needs to be improved. It is not intuitive. It is hard to understand the interface, and it can be improved to provide a better user experience."
"The tool needs to be more compatible with C/C++ language"
"In terms of analysis and findings, other tools provide more in-depth insights and detailed steps to mitigate or handle issues."
"SonarQube's detail in the security could be improved. It may be helpful to have additional details, with regards to Oracle PL/SQL. For example, it's neither as built nor as thorough as Java. For now, this is the only additional feature I would like to see."
"The scanning part could be improved in SonarQube. We have used Coverity for scanning, and we have the critical issues reported by Coverity. When we used SonarQube for scanning and looked at the results, it seems that some of them have incorrect input. This part can be improved for C and C++ languages."
"We previously experienced issues with security but a segregated security violation has been implemented and the issues we experienced are being fixed."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is priced fair."
"This is a costly solution that could be cheaper."
"As a Fortify partner company providing technical support, I find the product expensive in our country, where local, inexpensive products are available."
"A low cost long-term solution for non-critical situations."
"On the pricing side, it's 3,000 Euros for 1 million lines of code."
"The price of the solution could be reduced."
"For the Community edition, there is no extra cost. It's totally free. The Enterprise edition, Data Center edition, and Developer edition are the paid versions."
"The solution has a free version and a license version. The license is priced reasonably, the cost of hiring one programmer is more expensive than the solution."
"As a user and a consumer of this solution, it can be pricey for my company to support and use, even though there are many benefits. For this reason, we use the free version. In the future, as our product cycles develop and evolve at a more steady pace, we hope to invest in the licensing for this tool."
"SonarQube enterprise, I am not sure of the price but from what I understand they are charging a fee. It's is not clear if it is an annual fee or a one-off."
"We are using the Community edition of SonarQube."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise75
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Micro Focus Software Security Center?
In the beginning, it was difficult for me to verify that our usage of Fortify Software Security Center corresponded to the license and criteria. Now, we have negotiated a number of details to respe...
What needs improvement with Micro Focus Software Security Center?
I would like the false positive issue to diminish. I have experienced a lot of false positives, but I think this is due to using an older version. I hope the new version will resolve my problem.
What is your primary use case for Micro Focus Software Security Center?
They use it to scan applications and fix bugs, which are my customers' main use cases for Fortify Software Security Center. As a reseller, I sell this product to provide application security becaus...
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 Software Security Center, Application Security Center, HPE Application Security Center, WebInspect
Sonar
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Neosecure, Acxiom, Skandinavisk Data Center A/S, Parkeon
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortify Software Security Center vs. SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
868,759 professionals have used our research since 2012.