Statistically, 20% of code causes 80% of problems, which creates the effect of clustering bugs in one or more related modules of an application (defect clustering). We can test the code using static analysis tools to detect possible bugs that may occur during further dynamic testing.
As you probably know, static analysis tools allow you to check code without launching the program itself. Static analysis has been gaining popularity lately, and the static analysis market is becoming larger yearly. This is partly explained by the fact that the era of tools based only on regular expressions has gone. However, the code review is critical because it is designed to:
- Make sure there are no bugs in the code.
- Minimize the likelihood of problems.
- Confirm that the code is adhering to the set guidelines.
- Improve the effectiveness of the new code.
Code reviews subsequently lead to improved competence of team members. While the senior developer performs the code review, the junior developer can use the feedback to improve their programming skills.
Nowadays, static analysis tools amaze with their variety and possibilities. Even the AI and machine learning hype didn’t pass static analysis tools by, and the Swiss released a product trained on open repositories. However, it should be understood that AI will not replace the classical technologies used in static analysis tools in the foreseeable future but will supplement them. So, below you will find the top 11 static analysis tools that will ensure the quality of your code.
What Do Static Code Analyzer Tools Do?
Let’s understand static code analysis tool functionality first. Static code scanning tools help engineering teams analyze code during development to optimize the process. Static analysis tools detect flaws in the code to highlight possible vulnerabilities. One key static code analysis benefit is detecting problems at the exact location. Thanks to such source static detection, fixing takes much less time.
TOP 11 Static Analysis Tools
Here is a static code analysis tools comparison with top static code scanning tools to consider for your project.
Raxis
- Office: Atlanta (USA)
- Customers: INFOLOCK, RAPID1, SENTIBOX, SILEX DATA SOLUTIONS, TIER3MD
Raxis is one of the leading auditing IT companies in America. It offers its clients various options for code analysis like a full analysis of source code security (both manual and automated), periodic checks of the source code based on the results, and regular security checks integrated by Raxis specialists into the company’s SDLC (systems development life cycle) process. The main advantages of using Raxis services are reduced time for searching and eliminating vulnerabilities in software, cost reduction for development and compliance with regulatory requirements, and speed of software launch or time to market by preventing delays due to security issues.
Embold
- Offices: Tokyo (Japan), Pune (India), Frankfurt (Germany)
- Customers: Bosch, Deutsche Leasing, MAGNA, Digit, Skyroot Aerospace
Embold takes input source code and generates a well-designed AST model with semantic information. Based on the resulting model, advanced static analysis methodologies are applied: data-flow analysis, symbolic execution, method annotations, and pattern-based analysis. This static analysis tool currently operates with more than 105 diagnostic rules that allow you to detect various defects/errors in code: misprints, de-referencing a NULL pointer, unreachable code, array overflow, and so on.
SmartBear Collaborator
- Offices: Galway (Ireland), Docklands (Australia), Somerville (USA)
- Customers: Adobe, CISCO, Oracle, Salesforce, Citi
This tool allows you to make reports and analyze key metrics that characterize the code-review performance. It is very important not just to examine all metrics once but to be able to do so at any point in time and over any period with minimal time spent on the entire process. Therefore, SmartBear Collaborator is considered one of the best static analysis tools in the world.
CodeScene
- Office: Malmö (Sweden)
- Customers: PHILIPS, SoundCloud, Relativity, Persistent, Tencent
This tool prioritizes technical debt based on how developers work with code and visualizes organizational factors such as team bonding and system mastery. In addition, it provides the ability to collect metrics for feedback and report to management. CodeScene supports integrations with CI/CD pipelines, issue trackers, other code analysis tools, and Slack. You can rub it CodeScene on your servers or as a Cloud service. It is available for free and open source.
Veracode
- Offices: Burlington (USA), London (United Kingdom)
- Customers: Alfresco, Cox Automotive, CARFAX, Schneider Electric, Santander
Veracode provides metrics and analytics based on data collected from GitHub and GitLab. It analyzes changes made to each pull request and improves developers’ experience when reviewing code. It helps development teams maximize productivity by automatically analyzing each pull request against individual project rule sets and common best practices.
CodeSonar
- Offices: Bethesda (USA), Ithaca (USA)
- Customers: Micrel Medical Devices, Barclays, Aetna/CVS, T-Mobile, Crank Software, Sypris Electronics, NASA, FDA
CodeSonar from GrammaTech finds vulnerability bugs, security bugs, performance, and API issues. CodeSonar’s analysis speed allows you to analyze your code in real-time. This code analysis tool supports languages Java, C / C ++, JavaScript, C#, and Android. There is also support for native binaries in Intel, ARM, and PowerPC instruction set architectures.
DeepSource
- Offices: San Francisco (USA)
- Customers: Ethereum, Supplyframe, Heycar, Mastodon, Fly.io
DeepSource is a static code analysis tool, which positions it as the best tool among its competitors. To build an AST model filled with semantic information, DeepSource takes the source code as input. Then modern static analysis methodologies (data flow analysis, symbolic execution, pattern matching) are applied to the already-built model. They detect bugs, code smells, and vulnerabilities.
SonarQube
- Office: Geneva (Switzerland), Austin, TX (USA), Annecy (France), Bochum (Germany)
- Customers: SIEMENS, Amadeus EDS, Agirc & Arrco, Silverpeas, Kapsch, Ford Motor Company, JFrog
One of the modern static analyzers is SonarQube. With it, you can detect errors in the code of more than 20 programming languages, including C, C++, C#, and Java. The data-flow analysis allows you to calculate the potential values of variables at various points of the program. Data-flow analysis can find errors such as array overflow, memory leaks, de-referencing a NULL pointer, etc.
Codacy
- Office: Lisbon (Portugal)
- Customers: AutoDesk, PayPal, Toptal, Deliveroo, Delivery Hero
Codacy is a static code analysis tool that helps you automatically identify and fix security issues, duplication, style violations, and pull requests directly from your Git workflow. Today, an online service automatically adds reviews and performs static code analysis for most code repositories. Codacy helps identify bugs in the code and security issues with the constructs used and hints at how to fix them. You can link to Codacy analysis in code repositories and add review status and quality assessment.
DeepScan
- Office: Seoul (Korea)
- Customers: CureApp, Seneca, SAMSUNG SDS, Jooble, React Async
DeepScan can help you with Javascript code reviews. DeepScan is best to inspect JavaScript code because it provides advanced static analysis without noise. It works beyond conventions, uses semantic analysis for greater review results, and is adaptable & actionable. You can integrate this tool with SonarQube or CI/CD server and Visual Studio Code, Atom, Eclipse, and IntelliJ. To summarize, DeepScan provides many features that can help make the development process more efficient.
Reshift
- Office: Ottawa (Canada)
- Customers: Klipfolio, Sonrai Security, Ariglad, FI.SPAN, CYSIV
This service allows software developers to find and fix vulnerabilities before sending the final version of their code to production. Reshift has received a lot of positive feedback. In addition to finding problems, the service also helps comply with regulatory requirements related to software development.
Conclusion
The purity and quality of the code are important criteria for evaluating a programmer’s work. If the code works – it is already good, but you must not forget that it must be free of “garbage,” be logical, and understandable for other developers.
