Black Duck vs FOSSA: What are the differences?

Key Differences between Black Duck and FOSSA

1. Licensing Support:

Black Duck offers comprehensive licensing support, allowing users to identify and manage open source components and their licenses in applications. It provides deep insight into licenses, their restrictions, and compliance requirements. On the other hand, FOSSA goes beyond identification and enforcing license compliance by automating manual processes and ensuring compliance at scale. It offers tools to track license obligations, manage license-related risks, and automate the process of license compliance.

2. Code Scanning and Vulnerability Management:

Black Duck offers powerful code scanning capabilities that detect and report any vulnerabilities within open source components used in applications. It provides detailed vulnerability reports and integration with popular issue tracking systems. Meanwhile, FOSSA also offers code scanning features for vulnerabilities, but takes it a step further by providing detailed remediation guidance, including code fixes and patches. It further integrates with various tools for comprehensive vulnerability management.

3. Component Management and Inventory:

Black Duck provides comprehensive component management features by automatically analyzing software codebases, identifying open source components, and creating an inventory of all components used in an application. It offers a centralized repository for managing component versions, dependencies, and updates. In contrast, FOSSA specifically focuses on component management and inventory, offering advanced functionalities such as automated component tracking, real-time dependency analysis, and change impact analysis for efficient open source governance.

4. Compliance Automation and Policy Enforcement:

Black Duck enables organizations to define and enforce policies by automatically scanning codebases, identifying open source components, and flagging any non-compliant licenses or vulnerabilities. It provides integrations with build systems and CI/CD pipelines for enforcing compliance throughout the software development lifecycle. FOSSA, on the other hand, not only automates compliance checks but also offers policy enforcement through its code scanning capabilities, ensuring that only authorized and compliant open source components are used in applications.

5. Integration and Compatibility:

Black Duck offers a wide range of integrations with popular development tools and platforms, allowing seamless integration into existing development workflows. It supports various programming languages and provides plugins for IDEs and code editors. FOSSA also provides integrations with essential tools and platforms, but it is specifically designed to work with modern development workflows and is highly compatible with cloud-native environments, containerized applications, and microservices architectures.

6. Support and Community:

Black Duck has an extensive support ecosystem, including comprehensive documentation, a knowledge base, and a community forum where users can seek assistance and share best practices. It offers different levels of support contracts tailored to the needs of organizations. FOSSA, on the other hand, is known for its strong community support, active developer community, and open collaboration. It provides detailed documentation, a knowledge base, and an active Slack community where users can find help, contribute to the platform, and participate in discussions.

In summary, Black Duck and FOSSA serve as comprehensive solutions for managing open source components and ensuring compliance in software development. Black Duck offers robust licensing support, code scanning capabilities, and comprehensive component management. FOSSA goes beyond by providing automation at scale, detailed remediation guidance, advanced component tracking, and compatibility with modern development workflows.