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Checkmarx One vs OWASP Zap comparison

 

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 (11th), Container Security (13th), Static Code Analysis (2nd), API Security (4th), Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) (2nd), DevSecOps (2nd), Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (10th), Application Security Posture Management (ASPM) (3rd), AI Security (3rd)
OWASP Zap
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
16th
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 August 2026, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of Checkmarx One is 8.8%, down from 10.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OWASP Zap is 2.7%, down from 5.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Static Application Security Testing (SAST) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Checkmarx One8.8%
OWASP Zap2.7%
Other88.5%
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

"Overall, the ability to find vulnerabilities in the code is better than the tool that we were using before."
"Overall, we are very satisfied with Checkmarx and it is a product that I recommend."
"The product's most valuable feature is static code and supply chain effect analysis. It provides a lot of visibility."
"The most valuable features of Checkmarx are the Best Fix Location and the Payments option because you can save a lot of time trying to mitigate the configuration. Using these tools can save you a lot of time."
"Security can be part of the SDLC and reduce the cost of vulnerability remediation."
"The ability to track the vulnerabilities inside the code (origin and destination of weak variables or functions)."
"Compared to the solutions we used previously, Checkmarx has reduced our workload by almost 75%."
"It moved our organization towards being agile vs. waterfall."
"Simple to use, good user interface."
"The solution is very easy to use, the initial setup is straightforward, it is free due to the fact that it is open-source, the stability is very good, and the product has a strong community surrounding it to help with issues and troubleshooting."
"The automatic scanning is a valuable feature and very easy, and the major advantage to this solution is the privacy it offers."
"One valuable feature of OWASP Zap is that it is simple to use."
"They offer free access to some other tools."
"Zap is an open-source and sophisticated product that not only saves us money but also provides us with a good amount of information."
"The most valuable feature is the spidering because, being a security person, it is very important for me to know each and every section of that application, so we cannot afford to miss any single web page or any single link on a particular website."
"The product helps users to scan and fix vulnerabilities in the pipeline."
 

Cons

"We had to lock the number of CPUs used to not crash the Checkmarx Audit."
"You can't use it in the continuous delivery pipeline because the scanning takes too much time."
"I really would like to integrate it as a service along with the SAP HANA Cloud Platform. It will then be easy to use it directly as a service."
"Checkmarx could be improved with more integration with third-party software."
"Updating and debugging of queries is not very convenient."
"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."
"It would be really helpful if the level of confidence was included, with respect to identified issues."
"There are some downtimes when Checkmarx One is being upgraded to the latest version or some improvement is there."
"I'd like to see a kind of feature where we can just track what our last vulnerability was and how it has improved or not. More reports that can have some kind of base-lining, I think that would be a good feature too. I'm not sure whether it can be achieved and implement but I think that would really help."
"It needs more robust reporting tools that can be in an editable form."
"The documentation is lacking and out-of-date, it really needs more love."
"It would be beneficial to enhance the algorithm to provide better summaries of automatic scanning results."
"It's possibly just a limitation of the product itself but sometimes it won't scan a particular website so you have to manually go in and make some configuration changes."
"We get too many false positives and that should definitely be improved."
"Online documentation can be improved to utilize all features of ZAP and API methods to make use in automation."
"The product reporting could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The number of users and coverage for languages will have an impact on the cost of the license."
"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)."
"Most of my customers opted for a perpetual license. They prefer to pay the highest amount up front for the perpetual license and then pay for additional support annually."
"Checkmarx is comparatively costlier than other products, which is why some of the customers feel reluctant to go for it, though performance-wise, Checkmarx can compete with other products."
"It is the right price for quality delivery."
"The solution is costly."
"If you want more, you have to pay more. You have to pay for additional modules or functionalities."
"The pricing is competitive and provides a lower TCO (total cost of ownership) for achieving application security."
"This solution is open source and free."
"We have used the freeware version. I believe Zap only has freeware."
"The tool is open source."
"OWASP Zap is free to use."
"OWASP ZAP is a free tool provided by OWASP’s engineers and experts. There is an option to donate."
"The tool is open-source."
"It is open source, and we can scan freely."
"It's free and open, currently under the Apache 2 license. If ZAP does what you need it to do, selling a free solution is a very easy."
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909,099 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
University
9%
Manufacturing Company
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: August 2026.
909,099 professionals have used our research since 2012.