SonarCloud is excellent if you want software quality assurance as a service while avoiding maintenance technicalities. However, Sonar might not provide you with the comprehensive security tools or the tailored controls you need to protect your software assets.
So, what’s the best alternative for SonarCloud users or teams seeking a higher-quality solution for managing code quality and security? Here are the five top SonarCloud alternatives to consider in 2024.
What SonarCloud Does
SonarCloud is one of SonarSource’s products for monitoring code quality. It’s a cloud-based alternative to the SonarQube platform, offering continuous code quality and security analysis as a service.
The platform offers these key features:
- Robust static code analyzer: SonarCloud identifies and resolves bugs, vulnerabilities, and code smells across over thirty languages, including Java, Python, Go, JavaScript, TypeScript, C, C++, and C#. SonarCloud's advantage over SonarQube is that it lets you analyze a specific branch.
- Smooth experience with multiple integrations: SonarCloud supports major repository services like GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket. It adopts the “clean as you code” methodology, offering a free IDE extension (SonarLint) that scans for issues as you code. SonarLint supports 25 languages and popular IDEs such as IntelliJ IDEA, JetBrains, WebStorm, and Visual Studio Code.
- AI-assisted Coding: The platform includes the AI CodeFix feature, which uses OpenAI's GPT-4 to suggest AI-generated fix suggestions for issues detected in your projects. Much like a spellchecker, it highlights problems in your code using error squiggles, provides quick fixes, and gives detailed information about issues in your code.
- CI/CD Analysis: Sonar offers scanner extensions and integrations for all the leading continuous integration (CI) systems used today, allowing you to perform analysis as part of your regular continuous integration (CI) process, aka build process. It supports GitHub Actions, Bitbucket Pipelines, Azure Pipelines, npm, Maven, TravisCI,
CircleCI and more.
SonarCloud gives users a big picture of their code quality status on the project overview and summary pages, which display the number and type of issues discovered, coverage, code duplication, and more. It analyzes your pull requests and “decorates” with additional information (issues, suggestions, etc.). Additionally, the platform provides a Web API to access its functionalities from applications.
When evaluating alternatives to SonarCloud, consider the following factors:
- Static vs. Dynamic Analysis: We recommend you go for a tool that offers both static application security testing (SAST) and dynamic application security testing (DAST) capabilities. SAST analyzes code at rest, while DAST tests live applications, so having both is crucial for comprehensive security.
- Number of integrations supported: Evaluate how well the tool integrates with your existing development and deployment processes. This includes CI/CD pipelines, source control platforms, IDEs, and container registries. Seamless integration can significantly enhance the security workflow.
- Ease of use: Assess the user interface and overall usability of the platform. A user-friendly interface can reduce developers' learning curve and increase adoption rates.
- Availability of AI-assisted coding tools: Check if the alternative includes AI-assisted coding features, as they significantly enhance developer productivity. AI tools can quickly spot vulnerabilities as code is written and suggest ways to resolve them.
What SonarCloud Misses
So why might you look beyond SonarCloud for code quality analysis? Here are some limitations and challenges associated with SonarCloud:
- Limited flexibility and customization options: If you need to make customizations and want full control over your data to meet specific security standards, SonarCloud might not be the best option because it ties you to the security measurement standard provided by default.
- Insufficient documentation: Some SonarCloud users have reported that the documentation is inaccurate (in some parts) and lacks essential information. Specifically, on the web API docs, one common complaint is that parameters for some endpoints are missing or marked as optional when they’re not, and required parameters are completely missing.
Now that you know SonarCloud's strengths and weaknesses, what alternatives should you explore? Let’s take a closer look.
Codacy
Codacy is a comprehensive alternative to SonarCloud and is suited to individuals and organizations of all sizes. It offers cutting-edge security tools that address code quality and security issues without complicating the development process, alongside integrations that further streamline the code security process.
Key features:
- All-in-one platform: While many other solutions focus on one area, such as security, Codacy takes a more holistic approach to application security by packaging quality, security, and analytics features in one solution. Codacy unifies various vulnerability detection tools in one platform, making it ideal for teams that want to handle code quality and security in one place.
- Developer-first design: Codacy is designed with simplicity in mind. The platform is compatible with GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, Jira, Slack, Trivy, and many other open-source tools. Codacy’s IDE extensions enable developers to scan for vulnerabilities as they write code; this is available for both Visual Studio Code and IntelliJ IDEA. There’s also a CLI tool for local scans, and the platform has an intuitive risk management dashboard.
- DevSecOps in a box: Codacy's wide array of tools enables teams to integrate security testing at every stage of the software development process. Its offerings include SAST, SCA, hard-coded secret detection, infrastructure-as-code configs (IaC), DAST, and penetration testing (available for Codacy Business tier customers). This gives product owners a 360-degree view of their application security status and risks.
- AI-assisted coding: Artificial intelligence (AI) has undoubtedly become an integral part of software engineering, and Codacy helps you leverage AI for a more seamless development experience. Its static analysis tools use AI to secure your AI-generated code by suggesting fixes (and improvements) in your IDE and Git workflow.
Beyond these, Codacy offers OSWAP Top 10 security, data-driven insights (Codacy Pulse), and code coverage across over 40 languages and frameworks (coverage shows engineering teams how much code is being tested and requires them to maintain minimum coverage levels automatically).
Codacy’s Security & Risk Management Dashboard presents a birds-eye view of the quality health of your repositories. It displays the coverage level across code repositories and gives a detailed report on issues found, such as issues concerning code style, best practices, and security.
Codacy automates code reviews by analyzing your codebase and pull requests against a set of customizable coding standards, best practices, and quality gates. It’s also designed to work out of the box, requiring minimal configuration.
The development team at Codacy is actively delighting its users with new features. For example, they’re working on introducing Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) tools to automate the detection and remediation of misconfigurations across cloud resources (e.g., Amazon EC2 instances).
Why Choose Codacy Over SonarCloud
While both tools excel at scrutinizing your code for bugs, code smells, and duplications, SonarCloud comes with performance limitations. Codacy offers more customization options, allowing teams to tailor security controls to the requirements of each specific project.
Codacy provides additional solutions like Pulse and code coverage, enabling AppSec teams to benchmark performance while monitoring, maintaining, and improving test coverage. It supports more languages, frameworks, open-source tools, and IaC platforms. So, if your team works with less common languages, Codacy will offer better support than SonarCloud.
Snyk
Snyk is another solid alternative to SonarCloud that might be a great fit for teams whose needs are centered around code security. While not as comprehensive as Codacy, the platform offers quality vulnerability detection features and integrates with many developer tools and workflows.
Key features:
- Comprehensive security coverage: To keep vulnerabilities away from your codebase, Snyk offers four key products: Snyk Code (secures your code as it’s written), Snyk Open Source (helps you avoid vulnerable dependencies), Snyk Container (helps keep your base images secure), and Snyk Infrastructure as Code (helps fix IaC misconfigurations in-code)
- Developer-friendly experience: While Snyk may not have the most user-friendly interface, it offers dozens of integrations (container registries, IDEs, Git, runtimes, CI/CD, etc.), a rich set of APIs, and many other developer-centric features. It also has a CLI tool that you can run locally to scan your projects for security issues, including security vulnerabilities and license issues.
- Dedicated vulnerability database: The Snyk Intel Vulnerability Database covers three times more vulnerabilities than the next largest public database. Maintained by a dedicated research team, it combines public sources, community contributions, proprietary research, and machine learning to adapt to evolving security threats.
- AI-assisted coding: DeepCode AI drives Snyk's one-click security fixes and extensive application coverage, enabling developers to build quickly while maintaining security. Developers can easily review suggested fixes directly within their IDE and adjust as needed.
Snyk can find and resolve vulnerabilities from IDEs, repositories, pipelines, and container registries. The platform offers complete application discovery, customized security controls, automated fix recommendations, APIs, a detailed documentation/resource center, and a centralized user dashboard area.
Snyk also offers an OSS advisor tool that helps you find the best package for your next project by searching and comparing over 1 million open-source packages.
Why Choose Snyk Over SonarCloud
Snyk’s primary strength lies in its ability to scan and identify vulnerabilities within your code and dependencies. This emphasis on security is a great advantage for developers, particularly beginners, who want to protect their projects from potential risks.
However, SonarCloud offers much more than security. It thoroughly examines your code for bugs, code smells, and duplications, providing a complete picture of its overall health. Another benefit of SonarCloud is that it allows you to analyze individual branches in each repository.
Veracode
Veracode is a developer security solution designed to secure different application types. As a SoundCloud alternative, it follows the “secure-by-design” AppSec methodology and provides diverse security tools, including robust and accurate static application testing tools (SAST). These features make Veracode a good option if you want safety and reliability.
Key features:
- Comprehensive security coverage: Enterprises with complex security needs will benefit from Veracode’s extensive security coverage. The platform detects vulnerabilities and safeguards your application with SAST, DAST, SCA, PTaaS (Penetrative Testing), Container Security, and Longbow (automated root cause analysis).
- Smooth Developer Experience: Veracode has dozens of integrations available to users. Among these are the major IDEs, Git providers, CI/CD systems, and AI wrappers that many developers already use. It also provides an integrated SCA and SAST plugin for Visual Studio Code that scans your projects in real time for security vulnerabilities, supporting over 100 languages and frameworks.
- Cloud-native architecture: Veracode combines the full benefits of the cloud with automated application analysis in the pipeline and on-demand expertise. Its built-in autoscaling feature eliminates guesswork, allowing teams to easily scale as their business grows.
- AI-assisted flaw remediation: Veracode Fix rapidly secures your code with real-time fixes and suggestions. This feature is integrated into their IDE extensions, allowing developers to leverage AI for improved productivity and an overall smooth developer experience.
- High-accuracy scanning: Veracode boasts low false-positive and false-negative rates (less than 1.1 percent). This is thanks to its SAST engine, whose algorithm prioritizes actual flaws, eliminating the noise commonly seen in some other static code analyzers.
Veracode has intuitive user dashboards and a dedicated e-learning platform where customers can learn the basics for the OWASP Top 10 or delve into specific techniques for various languages and frameworks. The Veracode Analysis Center is your central control hub, offering a comprehensive view of application status across all standard testing types.
Veracode supports web, mobile, and microservices applications. It works with most major programming languages and frameworks, and new technologies are frequently added to its offerings.
Why Choose Veracode Over SonarCloud
While SonarQube is praised for enforcing coding standards, it only focuses on static code analysis (SAST). That's why, many do not regard it as a comprehensive developer security platform. In addition, users point to unreliability in some of its integrations (Jira) and an open-source community that is not as active as other more widely adopted tools
In contrast, Veracode provides a broader range of services, including SAST, DAST, IAST, penetration testing, and application security consulting. It is appealing as an all-in-one app security platform and is more widely adopted, especially among larger enterprises that seek to leverage its comprehensive services.
Veracode isn’t perfect, though. Some Veracode users have complained that its DAST features are less reliable than alternatives. Many users also find the interface unappealing, noting a steep learning curve that leads to a cumbersome navigation process, even for experienced users.
DeepSource
DeepSource is a robust alternative to SonarCloud and is particularly preferred for its powerful static code analyzer and auto-remediation technology. This platform addresses thousands of code security issues and is ideal for developers looking for a dependable SAST feature.
Key features:
- Comprehensive security tools: DeepSource provides a comprehensive suite of tools, including static analysis, infrastructure as code (IaC) analysis, SAST, secret scanning, and code coverage. Beyond scanning your source code, DeepSource analyzes your entire supply chain and configurations for potential security risks.
- Developer-friendly experience: The DeepSource platform integrates with six DevOps platforms, namely GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, Azure DevOps Services, and Google Source Repositories. Developers can install its Visual Studio Code plugin to catch over 3000 security issues early and resolve them without leaving their IDE window.
- Low false positive rate: DeepSource's false positive rate is less than 5%, lower than that of most competitors. It shares a similar algorithm to Veracode, which filters out and shows only the most relevant issues, leaving the noise behind.
- AI-assisted code fixes: While coding, users can generate code and check for issues thanks to DeepSource’s Autofix feature, powered by artificial intelligence. This feature is integrated into IDEs (via the IDE extensions), and you can apply suggestions directly as commits or new pull requests.
DeepSource offers continuous monitoring and customizable security rules, helping teams uphold high security and compliance standards throughout the software development lifecycle. Its centralized dashboard allows users to visualize key metrics, track code health trends, and pinpoint areas for improvement.
In addition, customers can integrate DeepSource Reports with their favorite data warehouse or business intelligence (BI) tools through DeppSource’s JSON-based APIs.
Why Choose DeepSource Over SonarCloud
SonarQube users often complain that the results are noisy and contain many false positives. On the other hand, DeepSource guarantees less than 5% false positives in the issues raised. It allows users to suppress false positives and report them to DeepSource support.
Furthermore, DeepSource is relatively easier to set up and use, doesn't require integration with CI runners, and seamlessly integrates with GitHub, GitLab, and BitBucket, among other providers.
SonarQube primarily treats static analysis as a reporting tool, focusing on periodic issue discovery rather than proactive management. In contrast, DeepSource offers a fast and user-friendly experience tailored for developers, featuring a clean and optimized web interface that enhances everyday workflows.
Checkmarx
Checkmarx One is an application security platform developed by Checkmarx. It offers both static and dynamic analysis capabilities, actionable insights, integrations with popular tools, and an excellent developer experience, enabling its users to integrate security testing at all stages of their development process.
Key features:
- Integrated security platform: Checkmarx One boasts an extensive set of security features for code security (SAST, API security, and DAST), supply chain security (SCA, SBOOM, and SSCS), and cloud security (Container and IaC). It’s a unified platform that integrates and automates multiple AppSec capabilities within your SDLC to simplify management and reduce TCO.
- Interactive Application Security Testing (IAST): Checkmarx’s IAST feature integrates runtime analysis with instrumentation techniques to identify security vulnerabilities that static analysis might overlook. This method offers a more holistic perspective on your application’s security by examining its behavior in real-time.
- Seamless developer experience: Checkmarx One allows developers to incorporate tools they’re familiar with into the code security processes. The platform integrates with renowned Git providers, CI/CD, and bug ticketing systems. In addition, Checkmarx offers IDE extensions for Visual Studio Code and IntelliJ IDEA, enabling developers to analyze their code for vulnerabilities as they write it.
- Malicious package protection: Checkmarx has automated scanning technologies and a massive proprietary database of malicious packages. Both help developers identify and remediate dangerous open-source code in their applications.
Beyond these, Checkmarx One supports AI-assisted coding tools, different programming languages, personalized training via codebashing, and various compliance standards like OWASP Top 10, PCI DSS, HIPAA, GDPR, and NIST. It has a comprehensive resource center and a visual dashboard that displays the overall security status of your projects.
Checkmarx also offers ASPM, which gives AppSec teams the insights they need to focus on fixing what’s most important while letting developers get back to business.
Why Choose Checkmarx Over SonarCloud
SonarCloud's features are relatively limited compared to Checkmarx. Small to medium-sized organizations may find SonarCloud adequate for their needs, but larger ones will likely benefit more from Checkmarx due to its extensive capabilities.
While SonarCloud's features are less than Checkmarx’s, its static code analyzer is quite good. We recommend SonarCloud if your application doesn’t require dynamic testing or complex features other than static code analysis.
Choose The Right Option For Your Team
Choosing the right quality assurance tool involves more than just evaluating features; it’s also essential to consider how intuitive the tool is. Codacy offers the best features, no doubt, but it’s also designed to be very easy to use, which is an important factor to consider if you intend to pick a tool you’ll stick with for the long run.
Of course, the choice is yours to make. Our goal with this article is to show you what each tool offers and the areas they’re deficient in. Ultimately, the best tool is the one that fits your team’s specific needs and enhances your development process. Ready to give Codacy a try? Start your free trial today and see how Codacy can transform your code quality and security practices.
