Alternatives of CPP Check for Static Code Analysis

Static Analysis is an area where most of the organizations will get confused as there are vast number of tools in the market whether it is commercial or Open-Source tools. When it comes to C/C++ code base the options of the tools are too wide. One more factor most of the organizations think are Open-Source tools can be the better option thinking that one or two missing issues will not cause much effect to their products. But it is not the same every time and there are scenarios where organizations have lost a huge amount with a single defect.

 Even though Open-Source tools have found some critical defects. But it is better approach to have multiple tools where if one tool is missing to find out one critical defect and the other finds out will help us make a better product for future.

Why not CPP Check?

CPP Check an open-source Static Analyzer which provides reports for C and C++. It is one of the best Open-Source Static Analyzer tool for C and C++ code base. CPP Check will find some of the issues related to styling, Buffer Overflow, Memory Leak, Null Pointer dereference and so on but not up to the complete depth. These issues may occur in multiple ways, but CPP Check will be finding out these issues at a basic level. CPP Check supports MISRA 2012 only which will be a major drawback. Also, one more important thing CPP Check will be working mainly on the pattern matching.

If anyone is looking for a compliance level CPP Check is not the best option, and the best thing will be to use CPP Check at a very base level. If anyone is looking for advanced level, CPP Check will not help, and we suggest going with other advanced tools.

Other tools in the market which need to be considered for Static Analysis

Even though there are other tools in the market, but the below three tools are considered the leading in the segment of Static Analysis.

Klocwork: Klocwork is one of the leading Static Code Analyzer for C and C++. It does support several other programming languages. With over 1500+ checks into C and C++ related to Security, Maintainability, Reliability and so on. Additionally, Klocwork has a good support for Industry Standards such as MISRA, CERT, OWASP, AUTOSAR and so on. Also, Klocwork has a good support for creating your internal guidelines with a good documentation. Klocwork is DevOps ready tool which can be integrated very well with any of your CI/CD pipeline. Klocwork  is capable of handling huge code bases with ease.

Coverity: Coverity is one more leading Static Code Analyzer which has almost all the functionalities which Klocwork possess. In some places Klocwork is leading and in some other places Coverity is leading. Even Coverity can handle the huge code base easily.

PolySpace: PolySpace is one more leading tool apart from Klocwork and Coverity. PolySpace is also having most of the features which both the tools have. But the only drawback it possesses is it takes little more time for analyzing and generating the reports also PolySpace sometimes will crash if code base is big.

As a best practice most of the organizations have started using multiple Static Code Analyzers so that they can find out as many issues as possible during the initial phase instead of getting the issues reported and facing huge losses.