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Semgrep vs SonarQube comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 5, 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

Semgrep
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
18th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Supply Chain Management Software (3rd), Software Composition Analysis (SCA) (11th), Static Code Analysis (7th)
SonarQube
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
134
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (1st), Software Development Analytics (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of Semgrep is 2.8%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SonarQube is 18.8%, down from 26.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Static Application Security Testing (SAST) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
SonarQube18.8%
Semgrep2.8%
Other78.4%
Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
 

Featured Reviews

Manjunath Maneppagol - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud & Application Security at Sixt SE
Context-aware code analysis has reduced noise and now improves developer experience with actionable security findings
I have consistently observed that their scan time is an issue for mono repos. Sometimes with their AI-based scanning, when you triage that scan, the scan never completes or finishes(, which makes it difficult. Another consistent issue is that whenever you have a new repo to onboard to the platform, the tool ideally should detect the master branch by default. However, sometimes the tool fails to identify it and will never scan it unless manually somebody looks into it and fixes the issue. Although their support team is really good, this issue was present six or eight months ago during the POC and is still present now. If it is affecting multiple customers, it should be prioritized and fixed. I would say that their integration aspects could have been improved. I see a lot of different security solutions that provide flexibility to the security teams based on Jira project, team divisions, Slack, and all those can be very much easily customized. Semgrep needs to work on the enhancement of their notification capabilities. Currently, they are working on identifying business logic vulnerabilities or privilege escalation vulnerabilities by looking at the code, and they should continue to focus on and improve this effort. Regarding stability, whenever you have a mono-repo which is a very large repository, the scan never finishes or the scan never kicks in. At that time, you have to reach out to the support team and ask them to expand the resources in the back end to fix it. This is an issue I keep seeing often on that platform.
KH
Sr Software Engineering Supervisor at Mozarc Medical
Gains control over rule customization and achieves reliable vulnerability assessment
The deployment process took me about 2 or 3 hours to deploy SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube), although I do not remember exactly since it was done about 2 years back. Currently, about 10 of my developers are using SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) in my company. I do not have plans to increase the usage of SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) in the future as there will not be any requirement to increase. I am a senior software engineer and supervisor at Mozark Medical. My corporate email address is karthik.k.a.r.t.h.i.k.h.a.r.p.a.n.h.a.l.l.i@mozarkmedical.com. Overall, I would rate SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) as a 9 out of 10.

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 ability to write our custom rules."
"Compared to other competitors in the market, the AI-backed capability is the biggest strength of Semgrep."
"Integrate it into the developers' workbench so that they can bench check their code against what will be done in the server-based audit version."
"The reports from SonarCloud are very good."
"I'm not implementing the solutions. However, I've talked to the people who deploy the tools, and they are happy with how easy setting up SonarCloud is."
"We have the software metrics that SonarQube gives us, which is something we did not have before. This helps us work towards aiming coding standards to empower us to move in the direction of better code quality. SonarQube provides targets and metrics for that."
"Can tweak rules and feed them into our build pipelines."
"The most valuable feature of SonarQube I have found to be the configuration that has allowed us to can make adjusts to the demands of the code review. It gives a specified classification regarding the skill, prioritization, and it is easy for me to review and make my code."
"Apart from the security point of view, I like that it makes it easy to detect code smells and other issues in terms of code quality and standards."
"Strong code evaluation for budget-minded clients."
 

Cons

"I have consistently observed that their scan time is an issue; sometimes with their AI-based scanning, when you triage that scan, the scan never completes or finishes, which makes it difficult."
"There should be more information on how to acquire the system, catering to beginners in application security, to make it more user-friendly."
"From a reporting perspective, we sometimes have problems interpreting the vulnerability scan reports. For example, if it finds a possible threat, our analysts have to manually check the provided reports, and sometimes we have issues getting all the data needed to properly verify if it's accurate or not."
"There are times that we have the database crash. However, this might be an issue with how we have configured it and not a software issue. Apart from this, I do not see any issues with the solution."
"One thing to improve would be the integration. There is a steep learning curve to get it integrated."
"Having performance regression would be a helpful add on or ability to be able to do during the scan."
"SonarQube needs to improve its ease of use, integration with third-party platforms, and scalability."
"The solution could improve by having better-consulting services."
"I would also like SonarQube to be able to write custom scanning rules. More documentation would be helpful as well because some of our guys were struggling with the customization script."
"SonarQube Cloud could improve its vulnerability detection compared to Veracode. Additionally, it has fewer capabilities, which prompted us to use Veracode."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The product’s price is lower than Veracode’s price."
"We're using an older version because it is the open-source flavor of it and we can continue using it at no cost. We're not paying any licensing at all, which was another factor in choosing this route so that we can learn and grow with it and not be committed to licenses and other similar things. If we choose to get something else, we have to relearn, but we don't have to relicense. Basically, we're paying no license costs."
"This solution is free."
"While not extremely cheap, it aligns well with market standards and offers good value."
"I use the full trial version of SonarQube."
"SonarQube is an open-source product that can be used free of charge."
"SonarQube is a cost-effective solution."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
5%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business41
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise79
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Semgrep?
I have consistently observed that their scan time is an issue for mono repos. Sometimes with their AI-based scanning, when you triage that scan, the scan never completes or finishes(, which makes i...
What is your primary use case for Semgrep?
I have been working with Semgrep for almost a year, approximately six to eight months on and off. In my current organization, I have a strong experience for SAST solution POCs, and I have conducted...
What advice do you have for others considering Semgrep?
You should primarily focus on what your use case is and why you are moving out. If you are moving out just from the perspective of cost, I do not think Semgrep is the best solution for you. However...
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...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Semgrep Code, Semgrep Supply Chain, Semgrep AppSec Platform
Sonar, SonarQube Cloud
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Policygenius, Tide, Lyft, Thinkific, FloQast, Vanta, and Fareportal
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Semgrep vs. SonarQube and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.