Semgrep was the only static code analysis tool that ChatGPT and Gemini named in all six of the six buyer questions we tested on 2026-08-07, a clean 100% hit rate. No other tool came close to that consistency.
Two tools tied for second place: Snyk Code and SonarQube were each named in 4 of the 6 answers (67%). Behind them, Clang Static Analyzer and DeepSource each landed in 3 of 6 (50%), and Checkmarx, CodeQL and PMD each in 2 of 6 (33%).
Across the six answers, ChatGPT and Gemini named 24 distinct tools in total, but only 8 of those 24 were named in more than one answer. The other 16 tools each appeared exactly once (1 of 6, 17%). The agreement in this category is thin: one universal pick and a very long tail.
The shortlist splits into two different worlds
The category does not have one shortlist, it has two that barely touch. Snyk Code and SonarQube (4 of 6 each) and DeepSource (3 of 6) only ever showed up in the buyer-situation questions ('for small teams', 'what should I use', 'recommendations') and never once in the 'free' or 'affordable' answers. Clang Static Analyzer (3 of 6) did the exact opposite, appearing in the 'best', 'free' and 'affordable' answers and in none of the buyer-situation three. Semgrep (6 of 6) was the only tool that lived in both worlds.
The bare 'best static code analysis tools' question returned 7 tools: SonarQube, Clang Static Analyzer, CodeSonar, Semgrep, PMD, Snyk Code and Qodana. Two of those, CodeSonar and Qodana, appeared in this one question and nowhere else across the six.
The 'best free static code analysis tools' question returned a completely different set, again 7 tools: PMD, Clang Static Analyzer, Semgrep, Cppcheck, Pylint, PHPStan and OCLint. Four of them, Cppcheck, Pylint, PHPStan and OCLint, appeared only in the free question, and the paid platforms that led the 'best' answer (SonarQube and Snyk Code) dropped out of it entirely.
The 'most affordable static code analysis tools' question returned a third, mostly separate set of 6 tools: Semgrep, Clang Static Analyzer, Flawfinder, Bearer, fallow and Critik. Four of them, Flawfinder, Bearer, fallow and Critik, showed up only in the affordable question.
Here is the part marketers underestimate: 'free' and 'affordable' sound like the same request, but their answers overlapped on only 2 tools, Semgrep and Clang Static Analyzer. Ask for free and you get open-source linters (PMD, Cppcheck, Pylint, PHPStan, OCLint); ask for affordable and you get a different crowd (Flawfinder, Bearer, fallow, Critik). One word changed the list almost completely.
The 'for small teams' question returned 6 tools (Semgrep, SonarQube, DeepSource, Codacy, Snyk Code and CodeClimate), a SaaS-heavy answer with not one of the open-source-only linters that filled the free list, and Codacy and CodeClimate appeared here and nowhere else.
The other two buyer-situation questions were the widest: 'what should I use' and 'recommendations' each returned 8 tools. Cycode SAST and Rafter appeared only in 'what should I use', while Veracode and Fortify appeared only in 'recommendations'. Counting all six questions, 16 of the 24 tools were named in exactly one of them.
Where the answers came from
The single most-cited source across the six answers was github.com, which fed 4 of the 6 answers. That is where the open-source tools keep their code (Semgrep, PMD and Pylint all host there), so 'be on GitHub' is doing real work in this category.
The key insight is that a tool's own website kept feeding the very answer that named it. clang-analyzer.llvm.org fed 3 answers and Clang Static Analyzer was named 3 times; snyk.io fed 3 answers and Snyk Code was named 4 times; sonarsource.com fed the 'best' answer that named SonarQube. Owning the page the assistant reads is most of the game here, not a nice-to-have.
The clearest example is the 'best free' answer, which drew on 6 sources and every one of them was a tool's own home or repo: clang-analyzer.llvm.org, phpstan.org, pmd.github.io, cppcheck.sourceforge.io, oclint.org and github.com. Zero third-party roundups fed that answer, and the tools it named were exactly the tools whose pages were read.
Even a small vendor benefited from this. rafter.so fed 3 of the 6 answers, and Rafter itself was named once, in the 'what should I use' answer that its own domain also fed. A single well-placed vendor page carried a one-count product into the results.
The buyer-situation questions leaned on independent roundup and blog sites instead. gitautoreview.com fed 3 answers, and devtoollab.com, expertinsights.com, offensive360.com, safeguard.sh and sourcegraph.com each fed 2, all of them 'best tools' articles rather than vendor pages. owasp.org, a security nonprofit, fed 2 answers.
Two source types that marketers assume matter were completely absent. Not one of the 24 source domains was a review directory: no G2, no Capterra and no TrustRadius appeared in any of the 6 answers. And not one was a community forum: no Reddit thread and no Quora thread was cited either. In this category the assistants read project docs, vendor pages and roundup articles, and skipped the directories.
If you sell a static analysis tool, this is what moves the needle
The lesson from 24 tools and 24 source domains is blunt: the source list, not your market share, decides whether ChatGPT and Gemini name you. Semgrep did not reach 6 of 6 because it is the biggest brand, it reached it because its material sat in the pages the assistants pulled for every phrasing.
So the work is specific. Get your own domain into these answers the way clang-analyzer.llvm.org and snyk.io did, each feeding 3 of the 6 answers, and get onto the roundups that fed the buyer-situation questions, where gitautoreview.com fed 3 and five more sites fed 2 each. If a rival is named in 4 of 6 answers and you are named in 0, that gap is a list of exact pages you are missing from, not a vague branding problem.
Phrasing is also a targeting choice. Because 'free' and 'affordable' shared only 2 of their names, a free tier puts you in a different answer than a low price does. Pick which of the six buyer questions you want to win, then go be present in that question's specific sources.
The full list, counted
These are the 8 tools ChatGPT and Gemini named in more than one of the six answers. Share is out of 6.
| Product | Named in | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Semgrep | 6 of 6 | 100% |
| Snyk Code | 4 of 6 | 67% |
| SonarQube | 4 of 6 | 67% |
| Clang Static Analyzer | 3 of 6 | 50% |
| DeepSource | 3 of 6 | 50% |
| Checkmarx | 2 of 6 | 33% |
| CodeQL | 2 of 6 | 33% |
| PMD | 2 of 6 | 33% |
The remaining 16 tools were each named once (1 of 6, 17%): Bearer, Codacy, CodeClimate, CodeSonar, Cppcheck, Critik, Cycode SAST, fallow, Flawfinder, Fortify, OCLint, PHPStan, Pylint, Qodana, Rafter and Veracode. We kept every name exactly as the assistants said it, so close-sounding but separate products such as CodeQL, Codacy, CodeClimate and CodeSonar each get their own line instead of being folded into one number the data never showed.
Glotier does not sell this, on purpose
Glotier is not a static code analysis tool, so it is correctly absent from all 6 of these answers, and we would be suspicious if it appeared. We ran this check on someone else's category to show the method, not to rank ourselves.
This measurement is exactly what we do for the category you sell in: we put the real buyer questions to ChatGPT and Gemini, record every product named and every source behind each answer, and hand you the gap between where you are named and where you are not. The same six-question check is free, needs no account, and takes about a minute.