Black Duck Coverity vs Infer

Black Duck Coverity is a paid static analysis solution for finding security vulnerabilities and code quality defects in source code before software ships. It analyzes code without executing it, scanning across files and libraries in entire codebases. Black Duck lists support for 22 programming languages and more than 250 frameworks, along with standards including MISRA, AUTOSAR, ISO 26262, PCI DSS, CERT C/C++/Java, DISA STIG, OWASP Top 10, and CWE Top 25. Coverity is TÜV SÜD certified for IEC 61508-3 support-tool requirements and qualified for use up to ASIL D under ISO 26262 and Level A under DO-178C. The Code Sight IDE plug-in offers real-time results, issue summaries, and code fixes. IDE, SCM, and CI integrations can trigger scans on commits and pull requests; listed connections include GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, Azure DevOps, Jenkins, and others. Deployment can be fully air-gapped on premises, including Kubernetes clusters. Pricing is customized to team size and codebase and supplied by quote.

Infer is a static analysis tool that examines compiled Java, C, C++, Objective-C, and Erlang code and reports potential bugs before release. Its checks include null pointer problems, resource or memory leaks, coding conventions, unavailable APIs, and concurrency issues such as data races. Some analyses can follow an issue across multiple functions or methods and files. Pulse provides memory-safety analysis, while RacerD checks thread safety. Cost analysis estimates asymptotic function complexity for Java and C-family languages; Hack support is experimental, and Python, Rust, and Swift are not supported by that analysis. Infer captures compilation commands, analyzes the captured files, and writes reports that can be reviewed with `infer explore`; files that are not compiled are not analyzed. Integrations are documented for build tools including Buck, CMake, Gradle, Make, Maven, Xcodebuild, and xctool. It can be installed from binary releases, built from source, or run in Docker. The free plan costs nothing. Infer runs on Linux and macOS, with web and self-hosted options; Windows is not supported.