Checkmarx One vs OWASP Zap comparison

Why PeerSpot?

Checkmarx and OWASP are both solutions in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category. Checkmarx is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.3, while OWASP is ranked #12 with an average rating of 8.0. Checkmarx holds a 7.8% mindshare in SAST, compared to OWASP’s 2.5% mindshare. Additionally, 88% of Checkmarx users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 88% of OWASP users who would recommend it.

Checkmarx One

Read 81 Checkmarx One reviews

31,996 Views
17,598 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

OWASP Zap

Read 41 OWASP Zap reviews

9,843 Views
9,252 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

Checkmarx One

OWASP Zap

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 8, 2024

Checkmarx One and OWASP Zap compete in the software security category. Checkmarx One has an upper hand in terms of customer service and ease of deployment, while OWASP Zap is preferred for its feature set and cost-effectiveness.

Features: Checkmarx One offers comprehensive scanning capabilities, robust pricing, and integration options. OWASP Zap provides an extensive feature set, open-source flexibility, and strong customization possibilities.

Room for Improvement: Checkmarx One needs enhanced response times, better report generation, and more efficient support channels. OWASP Zap requires improved documentation, a streamlined setup process, and more user-friendly updates.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Checkmarx One is recognized for straightforward deployment and commendable customer service. OWASP Zap, while having a steeper learning curve, benefits from strong community support.

Pricing and ROI: Checkmarx One's high setup costs are offset by strong ROI through effective vulnerability identification. OWASP Zap's free nature gives it a clear advantage in initial costs, though expertise hiring can impact perceived ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Checkmarx One vs. OWASP Zap Report (Updated: November 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Checkmarx One vs. OWASP Zap

November 2026

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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

Ranking in other categories

Application Security Tools (2nd), Vulnerability Management (13th), Container Security (15th), Static Code Analysis (2nd), API Security (6th), Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) (2nd), DevSecOps (3rd), Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (10th), Application Security Posture Management (ASPM) (4th), AI Security (4th)

OWASP Zap

Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

12th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of Checkmarx One is 7.8%, down from 10.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OWASP Zap is 2.5%, down from 4.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Static Application Security Testing (SAST) Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Checkmarx One	7.8%
OWASP Zap	2.5%
Other	89.7%

Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

Featured Reviews

Shahzad Shahzad

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.

Read full review

Amit Beniwal

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Helps us check vulnerabilities in our SAP Fiori application."

"The solution allows us to create custom rules for code checks."

"The solution overall is very good at detecting and pinpointing vulnerabilities in the code."

"It has all the features we need."

"The initial setup was very easy."

"Checkmarx One has positively impacted the organization by providing resolution strategies and indicating which vulnerabilities need to be fixed."

"The solution communicates where to fix the issue for the purpose of less iterations."

"It gives the proper code flow of vulnerabilities and the number of occurrences."

More Checkmarx One pros

"It's great that we can use it with Portswigger Burp."

"The reporting is quite intuitive, which gives you a clear indication of what kind of vulnerability you have that you can drill down on to gather more information."

"Technical support is excellent."

"Simple and easy to learn and master."

"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 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 solution is scalable."

"The most valuable feature is scanning the URL to drill down all the different sites."

More OWASP Zap pros

Cons

"It would be really helpful if the level of confidence was included, with respect to identified issues."

"Micro-services need to be included in the next release."

"If it is a very large code base then we have a problem where we cannot scan it (if more then ~ 30 mb zip file provided - scan is crashes or takes a lot of time)."

"The reports are good, but they still need to be improved considering what the UI offers."

"Its user interface could be improved and made more friendly."

"Some of the descriptions were found to be missing or were not as elaborate as compared to other descriptions. Although, they could be found across various standard sources but it would save a lot of time for developers, if this was fixed."

"They should make it more container-friendly and optimized for the CI pipeline. They should make it a little less heavy. Right now, it requires a SQL database, and the way the tool works is that it has an engine and then it has an analysis database in which it stores the information. So, it is pretty heavy from that perspective because you have to have a full SQL Server. They're working on something called Checkmarx Light, which is a slim-down version. They haven't released it yet, but that's what we need. There should be something a little more slimmed down that can just run the analysis and output the results in a format that's readable as opposed to having a full, really big, and thick deployment with a full database server."

"With Checkmarx, normally you need to use one tool for quality and you need to use another tool for security. I understand that Checkmarx is not in the parity space because it's totally different, but they could include some free features or recommendations too."

More Checkmarx One cons

"The documentation needs to be improved because I had to learn everything from watching YouTube videos."

"OWASP should work on reducing false positives by using AI and ML algorithms. They should expand their capabilities for broader coverage of business logic flaws and complex issues."

"OWASP Zap needs to extend to mobile application testing."

"As security evolves, we would like DevOps built into it. As of now, Zap does not provide this."

"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."

"Online documentation can be improved to utilize all features of ZAP and API methods to make use in automation."

"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."

More OWASP Zap cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing was not very good. This is just a framework which shouldn’t cost so much."

"It is a good product but a little overpriced."

"I believe pricing is better compared to other commercial tools."

"The number of users and coverage for languages will have an impact on the cost of the license."

"The license has a vague language around P1 issues and the associated support. Make sure to review these in order to align them with your organizational policies."

"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."

"The pricing is competitive and provides a lower TCO (total cost of ownership) for achieving application security."

"The interface used to create custom rules comes at an additional cost."

More Checkmarx One pricing and cost advice

"This solution is open source and free."

"OWASP Zap is free to use."

"It is highly recommended as it is an open source tool."

"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."

"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."

"We have used the freeware version. I believe Zap only has freeware."

"This app is completely free and open source. So there is no question about any pricing."

"As Zap is free and open-source, with tons of features similar to those of commercial solutions, I would definitely recommend trying it out."

More OWASP Zap pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Static Application Security Testing (SAST) solutions are best for your needs.

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

14%

Manufacturing Company

Outsourcing Company

Computer Software Company

University

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	32
Midsize Enterprise	9
Large Enterprise	46

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	11
Midsize Enterprise	11
Large Enterprise	22

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.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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 ...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

Comparisons

SonarQube vs Checkmarx One

Compared 20% of the time

Veracode vs Checkmarx One

Compared 3% of the time

Checkmarx SAST vs Checkmarx One

Compared 2% of the time

Snyk vs Checkmarx One

Compared 2% of the time

HCL AppScan vs Checkmarx One

Compared 2% of the time

More Checkmarx One Competitors

PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional vs OWASP Zap

Compared 11% of the time

Invicti Web + API vs OWASP Zap

Compared 9% of the time

Veracode vs OWASP Zap

Compared 6% of the time

Qualys Web Application Scanning vs OWASP Zap

Compared 6% of the time

Rapid7 AppSpider vs OWASP Zap

Compared 4% of the time

More OWASP Zap Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Checkmarx One

November 2026

Download Checkmarx One product report

Buyer's Guide

OWASP Zap

October 2026

Download OWASP Zap product report

Overview

Checkmarx One delivers robust security through seamless integration with SCM and CI/CD tools, ensuring reliable SAST and SCA. Primarily used by organizations for vulnerability detection, it supports cloud and on-premises deployment to enhance secure coding practices.

Checkmarx One provides organizations with comprehensive tools for secure software development, integrating effectively with CI/CD pipelines to scan thousands of applications. Its capabilities extend to identifying vulnerabilities in both code bases and third-party software. Enhancing workflow by supporting SCM solutions, it assists in maintaining secure coding standards and compliance. While excelling in various areas, it requires improvements in scan speed, reduction of false positives, and broader platform integration, particularly for COBOL and Swift. Its pricing model is noted as high, and demand exists for better tutorials and documentation.

What are the key features of Checkmarx One?

Comprehensive Integration: Seamlessly connects with SCM, CI/CD tools to streamline security workflows.
Accurate SAST and SCA: Precisely identifies vulnerabilities down to the exact line of code.
Custom Rules Configuration: Allows tailored security measures to match specific needs.
Quick Scanning: Provides fast analysis to speed up the development process.
Automated Code Remediation: Helps in efficiently fixing code vulnerabilities.

What benefits should users expect in reviews?

Improved Security: Enhances code safety, reducing vulnerabilities efficiently.
Effective False Positivity Management: Optimizes time spent on genuine issues.
Enhanced Development Processes: Integrates smoothly to boost secure coding initiatives.
Comprehensive Language Support: Facilitates scanning in multiple programming languages, accommodating diverse needs.

Industries implement Checkmarx One for secure coding compliance and vulnerability management across varying environments, choosing between cloud and on-premises deployment based on requirements. Its extensive language support and integration with DevSecOps practices make it a popular choice for organizations aiming to enhance software security.

Checkmarx

OWASP Zap is a free and open-source web application security scanner.

The solution helps developers identify vulnerabilities in their web applications by actively scanning for common security issues.

With its user-friendly interface and powerful features, Zap is a popular choice among developers for ensuring the security of their web applications.

OWASP

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

Buyer's Guide

Checkmarx One vs. OWASP Zap

November 2026

Free Report: Checkmarx One vs. OWASP Zap

Find out what your peers are saying about Checkmarx One vs. OWASP Zap and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.

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