First Choice Tools: A Practical Comparison

Category SAST SCA DAST Container / IaC Scanning

Tool Name SonarQube Semgrep Dependabot (GitHub) Snyk OWASP Zed Attack
Proxy (ZAP) Burp Suite Enterprise Edition Trivy Checkov

License / Pricing Open source (LGPL v3) Free Community Edition for basic
security/quality checks Paid plans unlock advanced security rules and
additional languages Open source (GPL2.0+) - not recommended as a SAST
tool Free Semgrep Cloud tier: up to 10 contributors for private repos,
unlimited for public Paid plan for larger organizations (\$40 per
contributor/month) Free for GitHub repositories Free plan, limited to
200 tests per month Team plan up to 10 developers (\$25 per dev/month)
Enterprise plan custom pricing Open source (Apache 2.0). Completely free
with full functionality. Commercial (custom pricing) Open source (Apache
2.0). Free with no usage limits. Maintained by Aqua Security Open source
(Apache 2.0). Free with no usage limits.

Pros Comprehensive code quality and security checks. Built-in rules and
quality gates. Supports multiple languages. Central dashboard for code
health. Lightweight and fast. Highly customizable rule engine. Extensive
community rule library. Easy CI integration (GitHub, GitLab, etc.).
Native GitHub integration. Automated PRs keep dependencies updated.
Minimal configuration. Extensive vulnerability database. Simple CI/CD
integration. Covers multiple ecosystems (Docker, JS, Python, etc.).
Communitydriven (OWASP). Automated and manual pentesting modes.
Extension marketplace and good docs. Ideal for OWASP Top 10 testing.
Fully automated scanning with scheduled tests. Integration with CI/CD
pipelines. Scalable for large applications. Scans containers and IaC
(Terraform, Kubernetes, etc.). Fast, easy to run locally or in CI.
Strong community updates. Focused IaC security with an extensive policy
library. Integrates well with GitHub/GitLab. Covers Terraform,
CloudFormation, Kubernetes, etc.

Cons Requires selfhosting or Docker. Some advanced security features are
available only for paid editions. May produce false positives if rules
are broad. Writing custom rules requires learning Semgrep's syntax. Free
cloud tier limited to 10 unique contributors for private code. Limited
to GitHub only. Customization can be tricky. Free tier has monthly scan
limits for private repos. Advanced features (like license compliance)
require a paid plan. Pricing can increase with extensive usage. The
interface can be complex for newcomers. Requires Docker/CLI setup in CI.
Automated scans may miss logic flaws (manual testing recommended). High
cost compared to open-source alternatives. Advanced use cases may need
manual config. Requires Docker or a container environment for container
scanning. May require custom policies for unique setups.

Supported Languages Over 25 languages (Java, C#, JavaScript, TypeScript,
Python, etc.). Wide range: Python, Java, JavaScript, TypeScript, Go,
C/C++, Ruby, etc. Major package managers: Node.js, Python, Ruby, Java,
.NET, etc. Many (Java, .NET, Python, JavaScript, Ruby, Go, PHP, etc.).
Scans running web apps via HTTP/HTTPS. Languageagnostic (scans web
applications via HTTP/HTTPS). Focuses on container images, Terraform,
Kubernetes manifests, etc. Terraform, CloudFormation, Kubernetes, Azure
Resource Manager, etc.

Comments Good if you want combined code quality and security. Docs at
https://docs.sonarqube.org. Ideal for quick, targeted scans across
multiple languages. Semgrep open source has several significant
limitations and doesn't qualify as a SAST tool. Docs at
https://semgrep.dev/docs. Great for seamless dependency updates in
GitHub. Docs at https://docs.github.com/codesecurity/dependabot. Ideal
for user-friendly SaaS with a good free tier. Docs at
https://docs.snyk.io. Great free DAST solution with a strong community.
Docs at https://www.zaproxy.org/docs. Great for organizations needing
continuous web application security scanning at scale. Docs at
https://portswigger.net/burp/documentation Excellent all-in-one
vulnerability scanner for cloud-native apps. Docs at
https://trivy.dev/latest/docs/ Great for detecting misconfigurations in
IaC. Docs at https://www.checkov.io/1.Welcome/Quick%20Start.html