20 Best Tools For Monitoring Code Quality
Ever wondered what is code quality and how it impacts your software projects?
Maintaining high standards is non-negotiable in a world where flawless code is the backbone of successful applications.
But how to measure code quality effectively and ensure your code meets those standards?
Whether you're navigating complex codebases or leading a development team, understanding and monitoring code quality is essential.
Our blog dives into the best tools available to keep your code in top shape, offering insights on how to measure code quality efficiently.
Ready to elevate your code? We've got the tools to help you do just that.
What Is Code Quality?
Before we dive into the tools you need to look out for, let’s first have a look at what is code quality in its essence.
Code quality refers to how well-written, efficient, and maintainable a piece of code is.
Given the open-ended nature of coding, there are often many ways to solve the same problem using the same programming language.
Code quality isn't just about being free from bugs or easily portable—it's also about how easily other developers can read, understand, modify, and reuse the code.
A high-quality codebase is one that not only functions correctly but is also user-friendly for those who work with it.
How To Measure Code Quality?
Understanding Code Quality: Quantitative vs. Qualitative Metrics
- Quantitative Metrics
These are measurable and specific.
For example, counting the number of errors detected in a software application after running it for 1,000 hours gives a clear, numerical measure of code quality.
- Qualitative Metrics
These are more subjective and descriptive.
For instance, an experienced developer reviewing a junior developer’s code and providing feedback is an example of qualitative assessment.
By combining both quantitative and qualitative metrics, a more comprehensive understanding of software quality can be achieved.
Other important factors in code quality include documentation, efficiency, user-friendliness, timeliness, and security.
Here’s a table example how to measure code quality efficiently.
Table 1 - A concise overview of key areas in how to measure code quality, with descriptions and assessment methods.
Top 20 Tools for Effectively Monitoring Code Quality
Here are our top picks for effectively monitoring code quality.
Infer is a static code analyzer developed by Facebook that supports Java, C, and Objective-C.
It is utilized by Facebook to ensure the reliability of the source code in its Android and iOS applications.
Why Infer Stands Out: Infer is notable for its compatibility with Java, C, and Objective-C—key languages for mobile app development on Android and iOS.
Being open-source, the tool benefits from continuous enhancements contributed by the developer community.
- Key Features and Integrations of Infer
Infer offers extensive coverage of common issues.
In testing, the tool effectively identified typical problems that can cause mobile apps to crash, such as null pointer exceptions and memory leaks.
Despite analyzing large codebases, Infer maintained solid performance throughout.
Infer integrates natively with compilers like Javac, Clang, and GCC, and it also supports systems such as Gradle, Maven, and Xcodebuild.
- Pricing
A free demo is available, with pricing information provided upon request.
Codacy is a cloud-based platform that automates code reviews, focusing on code quality and security analysis.
Why Codacy Stands Out: Codacy is notable for its broad support of 40 languages and frameworks, including Java, JavaScript, Python, Ruby, and PHP.
It offers real-time code analysis and AI-suggested fixes, making it a comprehensive tool for maintaining high code quality and security standards.
- Key Features and Integrations of Codacy
Codacy provides real-time analysis with continuous feedback and actionable insights, ensuring high code quality.
It also features a comprehensive reporting and grading system for full visibility into code quality.
Custom analysis rules can be set to match specific project standards, and team collaboration is supported through pull request workflow integration.
Additionally, Codacy integrates with popular CI/CD tools and Git repositories like GitHub, Bitbucket, and GitLab.
- Pricing
A free plan is available for open-source projects, while paid plans start at $15 per month.
SonarQube is an open-source platform designed to maintain high code quality and security.
Why SonarQube Stands Out: SonarQube excels in performing automatic code reviews to identify bugs, vulnerabilities, and code smells.
It aids in enforcing coding standards and best practices, making it a robust tool for managing code quality across various programming environments.
- Key Features and Integrations of SonarQube
SonarQube supports over 30 programming languages and frameworks, including Java, JavaScript, C#, Python, and PHP.
It allows the creation of customized quality profiles and rules to align with specific coding standards.
The platform features quality gates that prevent pipeline deployment if code quality doesn’t meet defined criteria.
It provides real-time feedback through the SonarLint IDE extension, along with detailed reports and dashboards for tracking code quality.
Additionally, SonarQube integrates with CI/CD tools and DevOps platforms such as GitHub, GitLab, Azure, and Bitbucket.
- Pricing
SonarQube offers a free version for open-source projects.
For other uses, pricing begins at $160 per year.
DeepSource is an all-in-one platform designed to enhance code health by addressing issues related to code quality, security, and performance.
Why DeepSource Stands Out: DeepSource is distinguished by its automated code review and analysis capabilities, which effectively identify and resolve code quality issues.
It supports a wide range of programming languages, including Python, JavaScript, Go, Java, Ruby, PHP, and C++, making it a versatile tool for developers.
- Key Features and Integrations of DeepSource
DeepSource provides real-time code analysis with automated fixes and code formatting, ensuring consistent code quality.
The platform offers extensive code coverage by tracking lines not covered by tests and delivers detailed security reports with valuable insights and historical data.
Customizable features allow for tailored analysis, and team collaboration is facilitated through integration with major CI/CD tools and platforms such as GitHub Actions, GitLab, Bitbucket, Jenkins, Google Cloud, Azure DevOps, and AWS.
- Pricing
DeepSource offers a free plan for open-source projects, with paid plans starting at $8 per month.
Code Climate Quality helps teams write better code by providing static analysis for languages like PHP, Java, JavaScript, Python, and Ruby.
It’s a solid tool for maintaining code quality across your projects.
Why Code Climate Quality Stands Out: What makes Code Climate Quality particularly useful is its tight integration with GitHub.
You get immediate feedback as you code, and it flags issues directly in pull requests before merging.
The GitHub browser extension is also a nice touch, showing test coverage line-by-line right in the platform.
- Key Features and Integrations
One of the standout features is the 10-point technical debt assessment.
It grades your code’s maintainability and test coverage on a scale from A to F and even estimates how long it’ll take to resolve issues.
This makes it easy to focus on areas that need improvement.
Code Climate also integrates with GitHub, GitLab, and tools like Asana, Trello, and Slack, keeping everything in sync.
- Pricing
Free for open-source projects, with paid plans starting at $16.67 per month.
PMD is an open-source static analysis tool that supports programming languages like JavaScript, Apex, and XML.
It’s compatible with Windows, macOS, and Linux, making it a versatile option for developers across platforms.
Why PMD Stands Out: Unlike many code analysis tools that require paid licenses or offer limited features on free plans, PMD is completely open-source.
This makes it a cost-effective solution for developers looking to maintain code quality without added expenses.
- Key Features and Integrations
PMD comes equipped with built-in checks that allow developers to set up custom rules for different languages, helping to enforce coding standards.
It also features a Copy/Paste Detector (CPD) that identifies duplicate code within a codebase, improving overall efficiency.
PMD integrates with popular IDEs like Eclipse, JDeveloper, and Gradle through available plugins.
- Pricing
Free and open-source.
CodeScene is an advanced code analysis and visualization tool designed to uphold high code quality standards and boost team productivity.
It excels in behavioral analysis, making it ideal for development teams working with large and complex codebases.
Why CodeScene Stands Out: Supporting over 28 programming languages, including C/C++, Java, Python, JavaScript, Go, Ruby, and Kotlin, CodeScene provides extensive code health monitoring.
It relies on more than 25 metrics scanned directly from the source code to deliver insights on code quality.
It automates code reviews and pull requests with integrated quality gates to ensure only those meeting your criteria are accepted.
- Key Features and Integrations
Users benefit from detailed reports that highlight health risks, along with data-driven insights and refactoring recommendations.
The tool also allows customization of analysis parameters to fit specific project requirements.
CodeScene integrates uninterruptedly with popular CI/CD tools like Jenkins, Jira, GitHub, and GitLab.
- Pricing
Free for open-source projects, with plans starting from $19.50 per month.
Fortify is a comprehensive application security testing platform designed to help organizations identify, prioritize, and address vulnerabilities in their software.
Why Fortify Stands Out: Fortify is notable for its seamless integration into the software development lifecycle (SDLC) and DevOps pipelines, ensuring continuous security throughout the development and production stages.
- Key Features and Integrations of Fortify
Fortify’s static code analyzer can detect 1,657 vulnerabilities across over 33 programming languages.
It also includes WebInspect for dynamic application security testing (DAST), which identifies issues post-deployment.
The platform provides real-time code security analysis and automated reporting, highlighting issues for tracking progress. Fortify integrates with major tools such as Jenkins, GitHub, GitLab, Azure DevOps, Eclipse, and Microsoft Visual Studio.
- Pricing
Pricing information is available upon request.
CAST Highlight is a software intelligence platform that analyzes the source code of numerous applications, offering color-coded dashboards that deliver insightful overviews of application health.
Why CAST Highlight Stands Out: CAST Highlight is distinguished by its ability to assess software at scale, automatically scanning hundreds of applications to detect security risks.
The tool performs local code scans, ensuring that code is not uploaded to the cloud.
- Key Features and Integrations of CAST Highlight
CAST Highlight excels with its cloud readiness tools and migration roadmaps, which are valuable for companies planning to transition to the cloud.
It also provides priority recommendations to mitigate security risks and identifies cost optimization opportunities across the application portfolio.
CAST Highlight integrates natively with GitHub, Bitbucket, and Azure DevOps, and offers a public REST API for extracting and integrating key metrics into other systems.
- Pricing
A 30-day free trial is available, with pricing starting at $10,000 per year.
Synopsys Coverity is a static code analysis tool designed to help DevOps teams identify and address security risks early in the software development cycle, with options for both cloud and on-premise deployment.
Why Synopsys Coverity Stands Out: Synopsys Coverity is notable for its precision in detecting vulnerabilities such as buffer overflows, input validation errors, and memory leaks.
The tool’s Code Sight IDE plugin provides detailed insights into identified vulnerabilities and guidance on remediation.
- Key Features and Integrations of Synopsys Coverity
Synopsys Coverity features a Rapid Scan tool that can analyze infrastructure-as-code (IaC) configurations and offers comprehensive reporting with risk assessments for the entire application portfolio.
It integrates natively with DevOps tools such as GitHub, Eclipse, Jenkins, Azure Pipelines, and Jira, and provides REST APIs for integration with other applications.
- Pricing
Pricing information is available upon request.
Qodana is an advanced code quality monitoring and static analysis tool developed by JetBrains.
Why Qodana Stands Out: Qodana excels in providing comprehensive static code analysis, ensuring that code quality standards are maintained throughout the development lifecycle.
- Key Features and Integrations of Qodana
Qodana supports a wide range of programming languages, including Java, Kotlin, PHP, Python, JavaScript, C++, and more.
It offers over 2,500 code checks and inspection profiles to identify bugs and provides automatic quick fixes through pull requests, allowing for selective review and acceptance.
The tool integrates with popular IDEs and CI/CD platforms such as Jenkins, GitHub Actions, GitLab, and TeamCity.
- Pricing
Qodana offers a free plan, with paid options starting at $6.00 per user per month.
PVS-Studio is a code analysis tool designed to identify bugs and security vulnerabilities in source code written in C, C++, C#, and Java.
It supports multiple operating systems, including Windows, macOS, and Linux.
Why PVS-Studio Stands Out: PVS-Studio is particularly notable for its direct integrations with Unity and Unreal Engine, making it an excellent choice for game developers.
The tool’s ability to automatically perform code analysis during game development helps identify critical issues that could impact game performance and stability.
- Key Features and Integrations of PVS-Studio
PVS-Studio excels in detecting complex issues that affect code quality, such as null pointer dereferences, incorrect function calls, and synchronization problems.
It also ensures compliance with coding standards like MISRA C, which supports adherence to best practices.
The tool integrates natively with over 30 platforms, including Visual Studio, Maven, Jenkins, Docker, and Azure DevOps.
- Pricing
PVS-Studio offers a 7-day free trial, with pricing details available upon request.
Veracode Static Analysis is a powerful tool designed to help companies scan their code for vulnerabilities.
It supports over 27 programming languages and more than 100 frameworks, offering wide coverage for businesses of all sizes.
Why Veracode Static Analysis Stands Out: What makes Veracode shine is its ability to give real-time feedback while you code in your favorite IDE, like Eclipse.
It’s especially useful because it integrates smoothly into CI/CD pipelines, ensuring vulnerability scans happen throughout the entire development cycle.
- Key Features and Integrations
Veracode is known for its fast scanning performance and low false-positive rate, less than 1.1%.
Plus, it gives you real-time remediation tips to help fix the biggest threats quickly.
It works harmoniously with over 40 platforms, including Azure DevOps, Bitbucket, Jenkins, and Visual Studio, and even offers custom APIs for more integration options.
- Pricing
A free demo is available, and pricing details can be requested.
Snyk Code is a developer-focused security platform that offers real-time code scanning.
It integrates with git repositories, allowing teams to identify and prioritize issues across multiple projects efficiently.
Why Snyk Code Stands Out: Snyk is particularly known for its security testing features.
The DeepCode AI tool provides quick fixes for any detected issues, which can be reviewed and implemented directly from the IDE.
Additionally, Snyk assigns a risk score to each issue, enabling developers to prioritize vulnerabilities and enhance overall code security.
- Key Features and Integrations
Some standout features include container scanning, which identifies vulnerabilities in container images, and live code tracking which validates code as it’s written.
Snyk integrates with CI/CD tools like Jenkins, Azure Pipelines, and Bitbucket Pipelines, as well as IDEs like Eclipse, PhpStorm, and Visual Studio.
- Pricing
A free plan is available, with paid plans starting at $57 per user, per month.
ReSharper is a Visual Studio extension developed by JetBrains to improve code quality and boost productivity for .NET developers.
It offers powerful features for code analysis, refactoring, and navigation.
Why ReSharper Stands Out: ReSharper supports various languages, including C#, VB.NET, ASP.NET, JavaScript, TypeScript, and HTML.
It provides detailed code quality analysis that highlights errors and offers hundreds of automatic quick fixes.
Automated refactoring tools assist in restructuring and organizing code safely, while tools for reformatting help maintain coding standards and remove unused code.
- Key Features and Integrations
An easy navigation and search feature allows developers to quickly locate any file, type, or symbol.
ReSharper also supports a wide range of plugins, enhancing its functionality within the development environment.
While it provides robust features, some users may experience slower performance in larger projects and it is designed specifically for the Visual Studio environment.
- Pricing
A free trial is available, with paid plans starting from $34.90 per user per month.
Semgrep is a SAST tool designed to assist developers in fixing bugs and security vulnerabilities with a fast, lightweight, and highly customizable code-scanning solution.
Its user-friendly rule syntax enables the creation of custom rules tailored to specific codebases and requirements.
Why Semgrep Stands Out: Semgrep supports over 30 languages, like Python, JavaScript, Java, Go, C, and C++.
It makes it easy for users to create custom rules with a simple syntax or pick from more than 900 predefined rules that tackle common security issues, code smells, and best practices.
The tool also features auto-fix capabilities to help reduce false positives.
- Key Features and Integrations
Semgrep integrates smoothly with CI/CD tools like GitHub Actions, GitLab, and Jenkins, making it easy to incorporate into existing workflows.
While it excels in security analysis, users may encounter some false positives and find that it offers fewer features compared to other code analysis solutions.
- Pricing
Free and open source for up to 10 contributors, with paid plans starting from $40 per contributor per month.
Parasoft is an automated software testing platform designed to ensure software quality at scale.
It provides a suite of tools for continuous quality testing, including static analysis, application performance testing, and service visualization.
Why Parasoft Stands Out: The platform offers powerful static code analysis to identify vulnerabilities, security issues, and compliance concerns early in the development process.
It supports various programming languages, including C/C++, Java, and .NET/C#.
- Key Features and Integrations
Parasoft automates unit, integration, load, performance, web UI, and API security testing.
Its AI/ML-powered analysis helps intelligently find and prioritize issues while detecting code duplication.
Users benefit from comprehensive reporting and analytics, featuring test results, metrics, and coverage displayed on a customizable dashboard.
The platform integrates with popular IDEs, tools, and frameworks like GitHub, Jira, Azure DevOps, Jenkins, JUnit, and TestNG.
- Pricing
Pricing information is available upon request.
Crucible, developed by Atlassian, is a commercial code review tool designed for teams already using the Atlassian ecosystem.
It integrates smoothly with Jira and other Atlassian products, providing a user-friendly platform for reviewing code changes, leaving comments, and tracking progress.
Why Crucible Stands Out: Crucible simplifies communication between developers by allowing reviewers to leave inline comments, highlight specific lines of code, and discuss changes directly with the author.
It maintains an audit trail of all code reviews, ensuring that feedback is clear and easy to follow.
- Key Features and Integrations
The tool offers inline commenting, code diff highlighting, and workflows for merge approvals.
Crucible effortlessly connects with the Atlassian ecosystem, including Jira, Bitbucket Server, and Bamboo.
Additionally, Jira automatically updates based on review activity, allowing teams to easily turn review comments into issues with a single click.
If you need a custom integration, Crucible's REST API allows for extensive customization to fit your unique workflows.
- Pricing
Available as a commercial tool.
Review Board is a free, open-source code review tool that offers great flexibility and supports a wide range of version control systems and programming languages.
It's designed for teams needing an adaptable platform for reviewing not only code but also documents, images, and designs relevant to their projects.
Why Review Board Stands Out: The Review Board allows teams to conduct both pre-commit and post-commit reviews, offering options that fit your workflow.
It enables threaded discussions, provides code review checklists, and sends email notifications to streamline the review process.
- Key Features and Integrations
The platform supports various version control systems and programming languages, along with inline commenting and code diff highlighting.
Review Board integrates without a hitch with popular tools like Asana, GitHub, Bitbucket, Jenkins, and more.
Additionally, the platform is highly customizable, with numerous extensions available, allowing teams to further tailor it to their specific needs.
- Pricing
Free and open-source.
Gerrit Code Review is a scalable, open-source code review tool designed for teams managing large, complex projects.
It integrates deeply with Git, providing a structured workflow for code reviews and branching management.
Why Gerrit Stands Out: Gerrit offers a highly secure platform with granular access controls, making it ideal for teams requiring strict permission settings.
It supports code commenting and inline discussions, ensuring feedback is well-organized and traceable.
Gerrit's popularity in the open-source community, including projects like the Linux kernel, is a testament to its robustness.
- Key Features and Integrations
Gerrit provides deep Git integration, access control, and permissions management, a structured code review process, and advanced search capabilities.
It’s designed to handle the needs of scalable projects, and its attend sets feature simplifies reviewing multiple code changes.
- Pricing
Free and open-source.
FAQs
- Why code quality is important?
Wondering why code quality is important?
High-quality code is essential because it reduces the likelihood of errors and bugs, ensuring that software adheres to coding standards and best practices.
By maintaining high code quality, developers can avoid introducing logical flaws, syntax errors, and other issues.
This focus on code quality ultimately helps minimize time spent on troubleshooting and debugging, leading to more efficient development processes and more reliable software.
- How to improve code quality?
So how to improve code quality?
- To enhance code quality, start by adopting a consistent coding standard to ensure uniformity across the project.
- Implement automated testing to catch issues early and use version control to manage changes effectively.
- Regularly refactor your code to keep it clean and efficient. Incorporate code reviews to gain feedback and identify improvements.
- Utilize a linter to enforce coding standards and spot potential problems.
- Finally, collaborate with other developers to share knowledge and refine practices.
