10 Best Static Application Security Testing Tools (SAST) In 2023

GitHub is a tool that provides significant code collaboration with the history of files in the code repository to be easily tracked. While GitHub still makes it possible to upload source code and share it with remote partners, it has evolved by adding robust security features. GitHub has recently strengthened its competencies in security by enabling developers to find and fix security problems in code as they write. 

In essence, GitHub’s application security allows teams to find and fix vulnerabilities before code is merged into the repositories. It facilitates the implementation of left-shift security by enabling the incorporation of security analysis into the development workflow. Thanks to CodeQL, GitHub implements real-time code scanning to provide feedback as you write while also integrating the result natively into the developer workflow. 

In addition to its enabled-code scanning for repositories, GitHub also allows DevSecOps to schedule code scanning to run each time there is a pull or push request as part of code review.

GitHub provides personal, organizational, and enterprise account tiers. GitHub allows individuals and organizations to own and use an unlimited number of private and public repositories. Individuals and organizations can use either GitHub Free or GitHub Pro accounts. Likewise, organizations can use GitHub Free but to gain more control and features, they must upgrade to GitHub Team or GitHub Enterprise Cloud.

Generally, GitHub bills for advanced security features by requiring you to purchase a license for an enterprise account; specifically, either GitHub Enterprise Cloud or GitHub Enterprise Server. However, these advanced security features remain free for public repositories hosted on GitHub.com. 

So, GitHub is free for individuals and organizations. GitHub Team is $44 per user/year for the first 12 months. 

GitHub Enterprise comes with a free trial but is billed at $231/user/year for the first 12 months. However, GitHub primarily uses per-user pricing models, so alternatively, you contact GitHub’s sales team for GitHub Enterprise pricing quotes.

Dynatrace is an application and infrastructure monitoring tool that aims to simplify cloud complexity. It leverages its AI-powered platform to automate DevOps and provide intelligent security to deliver software faster and more securely. 

Dynatrace offers a broad view of your computing environment along with a seamless digital experience. 

Dynatrace is an all-in-one platform but the pricing is based on the individual components of the ecosystem. Digital experience monitoring is priced at $11/month for 10K annual Digital experience monitoring units. Application security monitoring is priced at $15/month for 8GB per host. Infrastructure monitoring is priced at $22/month for 8GB per host. Open Ingestion is priced at $25/month for 100K annual Davis data units. Cloud automation is priced at $0.10/Cloud automation unit. Full-stack monitoring is priced at $74/month for 8GB per host.

DeepSource is a sophisticated static analysis platform that provides enterprise-grade shift left security tools. DeepSource emphasis is on making life easier for DevSecOps and QA teams, with its continuous code quality checks. In addition to judiciously tracking the key metrics of code health, 

With DeepSource, you can jump right in and start analyzing code without minimal configurations. If automatically formatting your code wasn’t enough, it goes a step further with its Autoflix feature that generates bug fixes so that vulnerabilities don’t end up in production. 

DeepSource can be integrated with tools like BitBucket, GitLab, and GitHub. Moreover, DeepSource is flexible and versatile. It can be used as infrastructure-as-code and covers all the major programming languages. 

DeepSource uses a per-user pricing plan. However, it is free for small teams and personal accounts.

StackHawk simplifies and automates application security testing for DevSecOps in CI/CD pipelines. It is a modern dynamic application security testing tool built for developers to uncover and fix vulnerabilities. 

StackHawk scans for security vulnerabilities, whether stemming from open-source components or bugs inadvertently introduced into source code. It empowers developers with alerts and sufficient context so they can triage and identify the root cause of the code or security flaw. 

With API security testing and integration capabilities, StackHawks works with CI/CD pipelines and DevOps tools such as Jenkins, Travis CI, GitLab, GitHub Actions, CircleCI, Azure Pipelines, BitBucket Pipelines, Atlassian Bamboo, and much more. 

StackHawks has a free version for a single application. Others have a 14-day free trial. Its Pro tier is priced at $35/developer/month. The Enterprise tier costs $49/developer/month.

SonarQube puts developers in the position to write safer and cleaner code by automating code inspection. It additionally boosts the process of releasing quality code with the capacity to define static code analysis rules. 

SonarQube is versatile and expansive, with support for multi-language applications, which currently stands at 24 programming languages. Some of the vital languages it provides critical security for include C#, C++, Java, PHP, Python, and so on. Moreover, it provides code review feedback by analyzing branches of repositories during pull requests for GitHub, BitBucket, GitLab, and so on. 

SonarQube provides developers with multiple points of integration into the software development ecosystem. It offers in-IDE integration with SonarLint while also providing integration into the development and CI/CD workflow. In terms of tools, SonarQube integrates with DevOps tools like Azure DevOps, GitHub, and Jenkins. 

SonarQube’s Community edition is open source and free. It includes a 14-day free trial for its Developer, Enterprise, and editions. Pricing for these is also available upon request and appears to be largely contingent on prospective lines of code to be inspected. 

GuardRails empowers both developers and security teams to keep code secure through continuous protection and seamless experience. It does this by providing high visibility into security issues while keeping background noise low but with high-impact reporting. 

GuardRails is seamlessly integrated into the background of workflows. This affords developers little distraction as they can focus on writing the best code. Although it runs security scans quietly in the background, it nonetheless provides notifications in the form of real-time alerts when significant vulnerabilities emerge. 

GuardRails increases productivity while keeping code secure. GuardRails enhances version control system integration with platforms like GitHub due to the ease by which it can be installed or integrated into existing repositories.  

GuardRails has a free tier geared toward allowing individuals or small teams to kick-start their AppSec journey. Its Standard tier is an expanded suite with more enhanced security for single teams and is priced at $35 per seat/month. The Professional tier offers advanced tools for teams across portfolios and is priced at $55 per seat/month.

Codiga is a highly scalable static analysis (SAST) tool that enables developers to write faster code. It facilitates left-shift coding philosophy by enabling DevSecOps and QA teams to detect quality defects early in the software development cycle. Codiga allows you to automate your code reviews with code analysis supported by context-based suggestions.

It boosts productivity, especially for developers who work on multiple computers and platforms, by making all their code snippets easily available. Moreover, Codiga’s Coding Assistant allows developers to write, reuse, and share code snippets directly from their IDE with other team members instead of engaging in their manually arduous task of searching for it. 

Meanwhile, Codiga’s Automated Code Review immediately discovers and identifies vulnerabilities and coding problems during pull requests. In addition to capturing bad coding practices such as code duplicates and complex functions, it also reports outdated dependencies as reflected by CVE lists.

In addition to automated testing features, Codiga also provides source coding scanning, workflow management, quality assurance, application security, collaboration tools, and so on. Codiga is also a continuous integration tool for CI pipelines. 

Codiga has a free version which is ideal for open-source developers. However, Teams is its priced tier costing $14/month for software engineering teams. 

AppSonar specializes in finding hidden security bugs and automates static application testing. It provides flexible approaches to creating scalable quality software by finding bugs faster. AppSonar operates as a standalone application that can be run on either Windows or Linux systems. It can also either be used from the command line or GUI interface. 

One of the ways it does this is by empowering users to expand code testing coverage with custom extensions. In addition to providing a gateway to AppSonar functionality, AppSonar extensions are also easy to implement. Instead of creating custom extensions, you can simply download existing ones.  

AppSonar’s features include multi-language scanning, deployment management, dashboard interface, debugging, application security, vulnerability, and source code scanning. In addition to IDE integration, AppSonar also easily integrates at any point in the CI/CD pipeline. 

AppSonar supports three licensing models. One license follows an annual per-user price of $395. Another has a more limited time window with a license based on 45 days per user for $195. Contact AppSonar’s sales teams for a quote on Enterprise-Wide licensing. 

Mend SAST allows DevOps teams to perform extensive yet deep security analysis of application source code without sacrificing speed. It strives to remove the burden of application security as much as possible so developers can produce quality and secure code. 

Mend SAST was previously known as WhiteSource. It is ideal for enterprise applications as it has a strong reputation for meeting the security needs of complex and large-scale software projects. It also provides built-in data governance, with support for a range of infrastructural needs, whether on-premise, the cloud, or hybrid solutions. 

It also offers automated remediation which highlights the specific code changes required to fix the flaws in the code.

Mend SAST offers Teams and Enterprise editions. Teams charge a minimum of 20 developers per year at $12,000. On the other hand, Enterprise can only be used for a minimum of 40 developers per year at $32,000.

IDA Pro is ideal for security analysis when the source code of the software isn’t available. It enables cybersecurity experts to analyze system software like program utilities and pull apart the execution logic of harmful viruses and malware.

IDA Pro combines the function of a disassembler and debugger to provide deep insight and advanced stack tracking capabilities. The tool is highly beneficial in advanced techniques that use assembly language as it is typically difficult to read. As a binary code analysis tool, IDA Pro can create a map that depicts a software’s execution path, therefore highlighting the binary instructions used by the processor. 

The IDA assembler does a good job of working as closely to the source code as feasible. As a result, it serves as a powerful reverse engineering tool, allowing security experts to analyze and detect malicious code.  

To implement its interactivity IDA Pro uses an internal scripting language based on a Windows application/kernel debugger and a Linux application debugger. IDA Pro is ideal for anyone who wants to get under the hood of software applications and make machine-executable code more human-readable. 

Contact IDA Pro’s Sales and licensing department for a price quote.