Server components

Overview of the Java processes run by SonarQube Server, the SonarQube Server database, and the optional agentic feature components. This page is for SonarQube Server 2026.5.

SonarQube Server runs the following Java processes:

• Web: serves the SonarQube Server user interface.
• Elasticsearch (ES): manages an indexed copy of the database.
• Compute Engine (CE): is in charge of processing code analysis reports and saving them in the SonarQube Server database.

In addition, the Java process Sonar is used to manage the availability of these processes.

The SonarQube database is used to store the following:

• Metrics and issues for code quality and security generated during code scans.
• The SonarQube Server instance configuration.
• The report job queue that is populated by the Sonarscanner and processed by the Compute Engine.

Both the Web and the CE process ensure data consistency when writing to the ES and SonarQube databases. In case of a disaster recovery of the ES database, it’s the Web process’s responsibility to rebuild the ES indexes.

The following diagram shows these processes and the data they read and write. The optional agentic feature components are outlined in blue, and sandboxed containers have a dashed border.

Agentic feature components

The agentic features add a further set of components. Unlike the processes described here, they don't run inside SonarQube Server: they're containers that you deploy alongside it, and they have their own release cycle.

Component	Role
Agent Orchestrator	Coordinates every agentic job. Reads and writes job state in the SonarQube Server database
Agent runtime	Runs agentic jobs in sandboxed containers. Runtimes are long-lived and scale out with the job queue
Egress proxy	A container that all runtime traffic leaves through, restricting what a job can reach to an allow list. Deployed on both Docker Compose and Kubernetes, where network policies constrain the runtimes so they have no other route out
Sonar Vortex	Analyzes single files on demand for SonarQube Server, including verifying the Remediation Agent's fixes
Shared storage	Carries source code snapshots and job results between the Orchestrator and the runtimes. You provision it

These components are optional. SonarQube Server runs without them, they require the Enterprise or Data Center edition, and each agent requires a separate subscription.

The agentic feature components are available as containers only. You can still install SonarQube Server itself from the ZIP file, but the components have no ZIP equivalent, because the sandbox needs a container runtime.

Related pages

• Deploying AI agents

• Agentic features architecture

• Server host requirements