Hi everyone! I'm Linda, and I'm pretty new here (and to the whole application security world, honestly!). I've been tasked with researching SAST tools for our SaaS company, and Semgrep keeps coming up. We're a small but growing team, and we mostly work with JavaScript and Python. We're looking for something that can integrate smoothly into our CI/CD pipeline (we use GitHub Actions) without slowing down our developers too much.
I've been reading a lot of official documentation and feature lists, but I'd love some real-world, honest perspectives from people who have actually used these tools day-to-day. From what I understand, Semgrep is known for being fast and having a pretty gentle learning curve, which sounds perfect for us. We tried looking at some of the more traditional, heavyweight SAST tools, and they felt... overwhelming, to be honest. The setup seemed complex and the scans took forever in the trials we ran.
So my main question is: how does Semgrep *really* compare to other tools you've used, like SonarQube, Snyk Code, or Checkmarx? I'm particularly curious about:
* How easy is it to write custom rules for our own patterns? Our use case isn't super complex, but we do have some internal libraries we'd like to check.
* How do you find the balance between finding real issues and getting flooded with false positives? That's a big concern for our team's morale.
* Is the free version (Semgrep OSS) robust enough for a small company to start with, or is the Pro version pretty much essential for team workflows?
I'd be so grateful for any stories or lessons learned you're willing to share. We're really trying to build a security culture without drowning in alerts or process, so finding the right tool feels crucial right now. Thanks!