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Checkmarx One vs OWASP Zap comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 8, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Checkmarx One
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
2nd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
81
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (2nd), Vulnerability Management (12th), Container Security (15th), Static Code Analysis (2nd), API Security (5th), Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) (2nd), DevSecOps (3rd), Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (9th), Application Security Posture Management (ASPM) (4th), AI Security (4th)
OWASP Zap
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
15th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
41
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of Checkmarx One is 8.3%, down from 10.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OWASP Zap is 2.6%, down from 4.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Static Application Security Testing (SAST) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Checkmarx One8.3%
OWASP Zap2.6%
Other89.1%
Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
 

Featured Reviews

Shahzad Shahzad - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Solution Architect | L3+ Systems & Cloud Engineer | SRE Specialist at Canada Cloud Solution
Enable secure development workflows while identifying opportunities for faster scans and improved AI guidance
Checkmarx One is a very strong platform, but there are several areas where it can improve to support modern DevSecOps workflows even better. For example, better real-time developer guidance is needed. The IDE plugin should offer richer AI-powered auto-fixes similar to SNYK Code or GitHub Copilot Security, as current guidance is good but not deeply contextual for large-scale enterprise codebases. This matters because it reduces developer friction and accelerates shift-left adoption. More transparency control over the correlation engines is another need. The correlation engine is powerful but not fully transparent. Users want to understand why vulnerabilities were correlated or de-prioritized, which helps AppSec teams trust the prioritization logic. Faster SAST scan and more language coverage is needed since SAST scan can still be slow for very large mono-repos and there is limited deep support for new language frameworks like Rust and Go, along with advanced coverage for serverless-specific frameworks. This matters because large organizations want sub-minute scans in CI/CD as cloud-native ecosystems evolve fast. A strong API security module is another area for enhancement. API security scanning could be improved with active testing, API discovery, full Swagger, OpenAPI, drift detection, and schema-based fuzzing. This is important as API attacks are one of the biggest AppSec risks in 2025. Checkmarx One is strong, but I see a few areas for improvement including faster SAST scanning for large mono-repos, deeper language framework support, more transparent correlation logic, and stronger API security that includes discovery and runtime context. The IDE plugin could offer more AI-assisted fixes, and the SBOM lifecycle tracking can evolve further. Enhancing integration with SIEM and SOAR would also make enterprise adoption smoother, and these improvements would help developers and AppSec teams move faster with more accuracy.
Amit Beniwal - PeerSpot reviewer
Project Manager at Al Hassan LLC
Simplifies vulnerability discovery and has high quality support
There are areas for improvement with OWASP Zap, particularly in the alignment of vulnerabilities concerning CVSS scores. Sometimes, a vulnerability initially categorized as high severity may be reduced to medium or low over time after security patches are applied. This alignment with the present severity score and CVSS score could be improved.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"We were using HPE Security Fortify to scan code for security vulnerabilities, but it can scan only after a successful compile, and if the code has dependencies or build errors the scan fails, while with Checkmarx pre-compile scanning is seamless and allows us to scan more code."
"If you really are worried about your business, i.e. about your development sites or development environments, Checkmarx is a great solution."
"Apart from software scanning, software composition scanning is valuable."
"It's been a very positive experience overall."
"Our static operation security has been able to identify more security issues since implementing this solution."
"The ability to track the vulnerabilities inside the code (origin and destination of weak variables or functions)."
"Checkmarx offers many valuable features, including Static Application Security Testing (SAST), Software Composition Analysis (SCA), Infrastructure as Code (IAC), Supply Chain Security, and API Security."
"Overall, the ability to find vulnerabilities in the code is better than the tool that we were using before."
"The solution has tightened our security and that of our clients who depend on it."
"The solution is scalable."
"The valuable features are that it's very simple to use and the user interface is very good, particularly for beginners so they can start the application easily."
"The OWASP's tool is free of cost, which gives it a great advantage, especially for smaller companies to make use of the tool and at the same time give a comprehensive report with great confidence to the client for helping them in their go-live decision."
"The best feature is the Zap HUD (Heads Up Display) because the customers can use the website normally. If we scan websites with automatic scanning, and the website has a web application firewall, it's very difficult."
"The stability of the solution is very good."
"This solution is providing us with value and as long as it continues to do so, we'll continue to use it."
"The ZAP scan and code crawler are valuable features."
 

Cons

"It provides us with quite a handful of false positive issues. If Checkmarx could reduce this number, it would be a great tool to use."
"Checkmarx One can be improved by reducing noise and improving false positive filtering."
"Checkmarx needs to improve the false positives and provide more accuracy in identifying vulnerabilities. It misses important vulnerabilities."
"They could work to improve the user interface. Right now, it really is lacking."
"Checkmarx needs to be more scalable for large enterprise companies."
"The validation process needs to be sped up."
"The product's reporting feature could be better. The feature works well for developers, but reports generated to be shared with external parties are poor, it lacks the details one gets when viewing the results directly from the Checkmarx One platform."
"The reports are good, but they still need to be improved considering what the UI offers."
"It would be nice to have a solid SQL injection engine built into Zap."
"If there was an easier to understand exactly what has been checked and what has not been checked, it would make this solution better. We have to trust that it has checked all known vulnerabilities but it's a bit hard to see after the scanning."
"I'd also like to see an improvement in test reports because we get too many false positives."
"It would be a great improvement if they could include a marketplace to add extra features to the tool."
"OWASP Zap needs to extend to mobile application testing."
"It would be beneficial to enhance the algorithm to provide better summaries of automatic scanning results."
"The documentation is lacking and out-of-date, it really needs more love."
"I would recommend this product to people although I think it is very difficult to deploy and we also have issues with maintenance."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The number of users and coverage for languages will have an impact on the cost of the license."
"We have purchased an annual license to use this solution. The price is reasonable."
"Before implementing the product I would evaluate if it is really necessary to scan so many different languages and frameworks. If not, I think there must be a cheaper solution for scanning Java-only applications (which are 90% of our applications)."
"For around 250 users or committers, the cost is approximately $500,000."
"I would rate the solution’s pricing an eight out of ten. The tool’s pricing is higher than others and it is for the license alone."
"It is an expensive solution."
"​Checkmarx is not a cheap scanning tool, but none of the security tools are cheap. Checkmarx is a powerful scanning tool, and it’s essential to have one of these products."
"Its price is fair. It is in or around the right spot. Ultimately, if the price is wrong, customers won't commit, but they do tend to commit. It is neither too cheap nor too expensive."
"We have used the freeware version. I believe Zap only has freeware."
"This solution is open source and free."
"It is open source, and we can scan freely."
"The tool is open source."
"OWASP ZAP is a free tool provided by OWASP’s engineers and experts. There is an option to donate."
"As Zap is free and open-source, with tons of features similar to those of commercial solutions, I would definitely recommend trying it out."
"It's free. It's good for us because we don't know what the extent of our use will be yet. It's good to start with something free and easy to use."
"This is an open-source solution and can be used free of charge."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
7%
Computer Software Company
10%
University
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise46
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise22
 

Questions from the Community

What alternatives are there for Fortify WebInspect and Fortify SCA?
I would like to recommend Checkmarx. With Checkmarx, you are able to have an all in one solution for SAST and SCA as well. Veracode is only a cloud solution. Hope this helps.
What is the biggest difference between Veracode and Checkmarx?
According to my experience of using both the tools in different organizations Veracode is a Cloud-native, managed AppSec platform with strong focus on ease of use, it is SaaS delivery, and provide...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Checkmarx?
Checkmarx One is a premium solution, so budget accordingly. Make sure you understand how licensing scales with additional applications and users. I advise negotiating multi-year contracts or bundle...
Is OWASP Zap better than PortSwigger Burp Suite Pro?
OWASP Zap and PortSwigger Burp Suite Pro have many similar features. OWASP Zap has web application scanning available with basic security vulnerabilities while Burp Suite Pro has it available with ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for OWASP Zap?
OWASP might be cost-effective, however, people prefer to use the free edition available as open source.
What needs improvement with OWASP Zap?
The improvement that has to be done for APIs focuses on manual activities where the feature exists, but it is not at the same level as what Burp Suite does with intercepting and tools such as Postm...
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

YIT, Salesforce, Coca-Cola, SAP, U.S. Army, Liveperson, Playtech Case Study: Liveperson Implements Innovative Secure SDLC
1. Google 2. Microsoft 3. IBM 4. Amazon 5. Facebook 6. Twitter 7. LinkedIn 8. Netflix 9. Adobe 10. PayPal 11. Salesforce 12. Cisco 13. Oracle 14. Intel 15. HP 16. Dell 17. VMware 18. Symantec 19. McAfee 20. Citrix 21. Red Hat 22. Juniper Networks 23. SAP 24. Accenture 25. Deloitte 26. Ernst & Young 27. PwC 28. KPMG 29. Capgemini 30. Infosys 31. Wipro 32. TCS
Find out what your peers are saying about Checkmarx One vs. OWASP Zap and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
914,262 professionals have used our research since 2012.