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Semgrep vs SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 15, 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)
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)
SonarQube Server (formerly ...
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
116
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (1st), Software Development Analytics (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of Semgrep is 2.6%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) is 22.7%, down from 27.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
 

Featured Reviews

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…
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

"The most valuable feature is the ability to write our custom rules."
"My focus is mainly on the DevOps pipeline side of things, and from my perspective, the ease of use and configuration is valuable. It is pretty straightforward to take a deployment pipeline or CI/CD pipeline and integrate SonarQube into it."
"Engineers have also learned from the results and have improved themselves as engineers. This will help them with their careers."
"I like the by-default policies that are they, as they seem to cover most of what I need."
"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."
"The product is simple."
"Offers multi-programming language support"
"We are using the Community edition. So, we don't have to incur any licensing costs. This is the best part."
"If code coverage is a low number then that's of great value to me."
 

Cons

"There should be more information on how to acquire the system, catering to beginners in application security, to make it more user-friendly."
"A robust credential scanner would be a huge bonus as it would remove the need for yet another niche product."
"It would be a great add-on if SonarQube could update its database for vulnerabilities or plugging parts."
"We found a solution with dynamic testing, and are looking to find a solution that can be used for both types of testing."
"The pricing could be reduced a bit. It's a little expensive."
"An improvement is with false positives. Sometimes the tool can say there is an issue in your code but, really, you have to do things in a certain way due to external dependencies, and I think it's very hard to indicate this is the case."
"Lacks sufficient visibility and documentation."
"It does not provide deeper scanning of vulnerabilities in an application, on a live session. This is something we are not happy about. Maybe the reason for that is we are running the community edition currently, but other editions may improve on that aspect."
"There is need for support for the additional languages and ease of use in adding new rules for detecting issues."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"We use the solution free of cost."
"The tool's pricing is reasonable."
"We are using the Developer Edition and the cost is based on the amount of code that is being processed."
"Can try developer version for 14 days on the free trial."
"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."
"The development license cost is reasonable, and we've had no concerns about SonarQube when it comes to cost."
"The solution is cheaper than other products."
"My guess is that we have a yearly subscription. We use it quite extensively, so a monthly license wouldn't make sense. Yearly subscriptions are usually cheaper. In addition to the standard licensing fee, there is just the cost of running the hardware where it is hosted."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
5%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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 ...
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

Semgrep Code, Semgrep Supply Chain, Semgrep AppSec Platform
Sonar
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Policygenius, Tide, Lyft, Thinkific, FloQast, Vanta, and Fareportal
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Sonar, Veracode, Checkmarx and others in Static Application Security Testing (SAST). Updated: June 2025.
860,168 professionals have used our research since 2012.