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CodeQL vs Veracode

Feature checklists rarely decide anything. What decides it is the pricing metric, who has to write the tests, and which limitation you can live with.

Entry price

From $30 per active committer/month (GitHub Code Security)

Free tier

Quote on request

Quote only

What drives the bill

The metric that actually scales your invoice.

Free on public repos. For private repositories GitHub split Advanced Security into two products in April 2025: Code Security at $30 and Secret Protection at $19 per active committer/month, both now available on Team plans as well as Enterprise. CodeQL sits in Code Security. Billing counts active committers, not seats, which can surprise teams with many occasional contributors.

Enterprise annual subscriptions priced by application count and scan types.

Free tier

Free for public repositories on GitHub.

No free tier.

Open source

MIT (queries)

Self-hostable

No-code authoring

Languages

JavaScriptTypeScriptPythonJavaC#GoRubySwiftKotlin
JavaC#JavaScriptPythonGoPHPRubyKotlinSwift

Platforms

WebAPIDesktop
WebAPIiOSAndroidDesktop

Fits teams

StartupScale-up / mid-marketEnterprise
Enterprise

Adoption

Widely used

GitHub (Microsoft) · since 2019

Widely used

Veracode · since 2006

Strengths

  • Interprocedural dataflow analysis finds real vulnerabilities that regex- and pattern-based tools cannot see.
  • Free on public repositories, with results in the GitHub security tab.
  • Custom queries let you encode organisation-specific security rules.
  • Binary scanning works on third-party and supplier software where source is unavailable.
  • Policy engine and attestation reports satisfy regulated procurement directly.
  • Managed service model suits organisations without a security engineering team.

Limitations

  • Writing custom CodeQL queries is a specialist skill with a steep learning curve.
  • Analysis is slow — minutes to tens of minutes, so it fits nightly better than per-commit.
  • Private-repo licensing through Advanced Security is expensive at scale.
  • Slow feedback compared with developer-first tools — poor fit for per-commit scanning.
  • Expensive per application.
  • Developer experience lags Snyk and Semgrep considerably.

Best for

GitHub-hosted projects wanting deep static security analysis, free if the repo is public.

Regulated enterprises needing formal security attestation, including for supplier software.

All of these integrate with: Jenkins.

Pricing last reviewed August 2026 and is indicative only — confirm on each vendor’s own page.