Checkmarx One vs OWASP Zap vs Qualys Web Application Scanning comparison

Checkmarx and OWASP are both solutions in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category. Checkmarx is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.2, while OWASP is ranked #9 with an average rating of 8.2. Checkmarx holds a 10.4% mindshare in SAST, compared to OWASP’s 3.4% 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

18,784 Views
14,276 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

OWASP Zap

Read 41 OWASP Zap reviews

7,440 Views
6,845 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

Qualys Web Application Scan...

Read 40 Qualys Web Application Scanning reviews

4,234 Views
2,964 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

Checkmarx One

OWASP Zap

Qualys Web Application Scan...

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Checkmarx One, OWASP Zap, and Qualys Web Application Scanning based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about SonarSource Sàrl, Veracode, Checkmarx and others in Static Application Security Testing (SAST).

To learn more, read our detailed Static Application Security Testing (SAST) Report (Updated: March 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

March 2026

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Helped 885,789 peers since 2012

Review summaries and opinions

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

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of Checkmarx One is 10.4%, down from 11.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OWASP Zap is 3.4%, down from 4.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Qualys Web Application Scanning is 1.8%, down from 2.3% 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	10.4%
OWASP Zap	3.4%
Qualys Web Application Scanning	1.8%
Other	84.4%

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.

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Nithin-K

Technical Analyst at Hexaware Technologies Limited

Open source testing tool empowers manual activities and has room to improve integration and reporting features

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 Postman, so it needs improvement. There are limitations with authentication levels, particularly with form-based and cookie-based authentication. However, overall, we are satisfied with OWASP Zap as there are no major issues, and improving the scan engine could be beneficial. When comparing OWASP Zap and Burp Suite, the main difference besides pricing is that OWASP Zap has limitations with reporting levels and UI, which affects its reporting capabilities, whereas Burp Suite is already advancing with new AI features and scanning capabilities that OWASP Zap seems to be lacking.

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AnkitSharma13

Security Officer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

Web scanning needs improvement but offers good vulnerability detection

The downside of Qualys Web Application Scanning is that it cannot crawl automatically. If I provide an IP address and a login form, it does basic testing, but it doesn't go deep as IBM AppScan does. If Qualys Web Application Scanning could improve its crawling capability, it would be more user-friendly. Qualys Web Application Scanning does IP-level testing, requiring direct input of credentials, and can only scan a few pages to provide known generic vulnerabilities, which isn't as beneficial from my point of view. The Vulnerability Management also relies heavily on version numbers and will flag vulnerabilities based on the component version, but it doesn't check if a real fix exists, leading to flags on components that actually have workarounds available.

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

"The reports are very good because they include details on the code level, and make suggestions about how to fix the problems."

"They have some of the best features which make the product wonderful."

"The identification of verification-related security vulnerabilities is really important and one of the key things. It also identifies vulnerabilities for any kind of third-party tool coming into the system or any third-party tools that you are using, which is very useful for avoiding random hacking."

"We are using Checkmarx for analyzing threats."

"In my opinion, Checkmarx gives better results, and its protection is better than SonarQube."

"Checkmarx One has positively impacted my organization because in the past, when Checkmarx One scan was not implemented, we faced a lot of issues finding vulnerabilities inside the repository, but now, since we have integrated Checkmarx One into our repository, we can smoothly and very easily find vulnerabilities and manage those effectively."

"As an InfoSec consulting company, we come across major challenging projects, and Checkmarx has made life easy by reducing manual efforts in using test cases against any vulnerability found during source code reviews while intelligently finding the latest vulnerabilities beyond the OWASP Top Ten."

"The solution is always updating to continuously add items that create a level of safety from vulnerabilities, and they are always ahead of the game when it comes to finding any vulnerabilities within the database, so I am assured that when I am scanning my product those vulnerabilities are identified at very initial stages, giving my development team more time to react."

More Checkmarx One pros

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

"They offer free access to some other tools."

"Automatic scanning is a valuable feature and very easy to use."

"OWASP is quite matured in identifying the vulnerabilities."

"The HUD is a good feature that provides on-site testing and saves a lot of time."

"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."

"The application scanning feature is the most valuable feature."

"The product helps users to scan and fix vulnerabilities in the pipeline."

More OWASP Zap pros

"The most valuable features are scanning analysis and reporting."

"It works with many different products."

"With our vulnerabilities under control, it's putting our services in compliance and minimizing our risk for exposure."

"The most valuable feature is that we are able to scan the services and put credentials like a user ID password. We can verify the vulnerability level."

"Qualys Web Application Scanning is very stable and reliable."

"It scans web applications to identify vulnerabilities during deployment."

"The tool links vulnerabilities with DDIs and gives a complete overview of the application. The continuous monitoring capability is good."

"Qualys Web Application Scanning is accurate and provides minimal false positives."

More Qualys Web Application Scanning pros

Cons

"Checkmarx reports many false positives that we need to manually segregate and mark “Not exploitable”."

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

"Checkmarx One is often down when the cloud provider experiences issues. A more fail-tolerant solution needs to be created."

"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."

"I expect application security vendors to cover all aspects of application security, including SAST, DAST, and even mobile application security testing. And it would be much better if they provided an on-premises and cloud option for all these main application security features."

"Checkmarx could improve the REST APIs by including automation."

"If it is a very large code base then we have a problem where we cannot scan it."

More Checkmarx One cons

"The automated vulnerability assessments that the application performs needs to be simplified as well as diversified."

"The reporting feature could be more descriptive."

"There's very little documentation that comes with OWASP Zap."

"There isn't too much information about it online."

"They stopped their support for a short period. They've recently started to come back again. In the early days, support was much better."

"It would be beneficial to enhance the algorithm to provide better summaries of automatic scanning results."

"We get too many false positives and that should definitely be improved."

"The automatic scans need improvement. The automated vulnerability assessments that the application performs needs to be simplified as well as diversified."

More OWASP Zap cons

"The area of false positives could be improved. There are quite a number of false positives as compared to other solutions. They could probably fine tune the algorithm to be able to reduce the number of false positives being detected."

"We receive false positives sometimes when using a solution that could be improved. However, the technical team provides us with the exact explanation why it was giving us that kind of error."

"In certain cases, this product does have false positives, which the company should work on."

"They should try to include business logic vulnerabilities in the scanner testing."

"The authenticated scanning feature could be improved by adding support for real-time scanning tokens and authorization tokens."

"The GUI could be a little less complicated as it opens a lot of new windows for creating search lists, templates, reports, or for scanning purposes."

"Deployment can be complicated."

"Qualys Web Application Scanning is very complex to use, and its graphical interface is not very user-friendly."

More Qualys Web Application Scanning cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"The solution's price is high and you pay based on the number of users."

"The price of Checkmarx could be reduced to match their competitors, it is expensive."

"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."

"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)."

"It is not expensive, but sometimes, their pricing model or licensing model is not very clear. There are similar variables, such as projects or developers, and sometimes, it is a little bit confusing."

"It's relatively expensive."

More Checkmarx One pricing and cost advice

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

"The tool is open-source."

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

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

"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 is open source, and we can scan freely."

"OWASP ZAP is a free tool provided by OWASP’s engineers and experts. There is an option to donate."

"This is an open-source solution and can be used free of charge."

More OWASP Zap pricing and cost advice

"We normally purchase an annual license."

"Pricing was reasonable and competitive. It was not too far above the other products."

"I rate the software’s pricing a six out of ten."

"The product pricing is fair and reasonably priced."

"The cost is $30,000 USD for one year to cover WAS (Web Application Security) and the VM (Virtual Machine) security in a company with 200 employees."

"It is an expensive platform."

"Qualys has an IT-based licensing based on a yearly license, which is a good way of handling it. However, in some cases, when we do the PCI scanning, the host will not like the scanning and we lose the IT license. So, this could be improved."

"Try the free trial of the product to understand the basic working mechanisms."

More Qualys Web Application Scanning pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

17%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Government

Computer Software Company

11%

University

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Computer Software Company

Comms Service Provider

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	21

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	8
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	27

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 ...

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 additi...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Checkmarx?

One way Checkmarx One could be improved is if it could automatically run scans every month after implementation. If i...

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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...

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What do you like most about OWASP Zap?

The best feature is the Zap HUD (Heads Up Display) because the customers can use the website normally. If we scan web...

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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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Qualys Web Application Scanning?

Regarding pricing, I think for personal use, it is costly, but if organizations are ready to pay, then it is fine as ...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Qualys Web Application Scanning?

The downside of Qualys Web Application Scanning is that it cannot crawl automatically. If I provide an IP address and...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Qualys Web Application Scanning?

I use Qualys Web Application Scanning, and we are using Vulnerability Management. By Vulnerability Management, I mean...

See all answers

Comparisons

SonarQube vs Checkmarx One

Compared 41% of the time

Veracode vs Checkmarx One

Compared 4% of the time

Checkmarx SAST vs Checkmarx One

Compared 3% of the time

OpenText Core Application Security vs Checkmarx One

Compared 2% of the time

Snyk vs Checkmarx One

Compared 2% of the time

More Checkmarx One Competitors

Acunetix vs OWASP Zap

Compared 12% of the time

SonarQube vs OWASP Zap

Compared 12% of the time

PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional vs OWASP Zap

Compared 8% of the time

Veracode vs OWASP Zap

Compared 8% of the time

HCL AppScan vs OWASP Zap

Compared 4% of the time

More OWASP Zap Competitors

Checkmarx SAST vs Qualys Web Application Scanning

Compared 7% of the time

SonarQube vs Qualys Web Application Scanning

Compared 6% of the time

PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional vs Qualys Web Application Scanning

Compared 5% of the time

Veracode vs Qualys Web Application Scanning

Compared 5% of the time

GitHub vs Qualys Web Application Scanning

Compared 4% of the time

More Qualys Web Application Scanning Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Checkmarx One

April 2026

Download Checkmarx One product report

Buyer's Guide

OWASP Zap

March 2026

Download OWASP Zap product report

Buyer's Guide

Qualys Web Application Scanning

March 2026

Download Qualys Web Application Scanning product report

Also Known As

No data available

Qualys WAS

Overview

Checkmarx One is an enterprise cloud-native application security platform focused on providing cross-tool, correlated results to help AppSec and developer teams prioritize where to focus time and resources.

Checkmarx One offers comprehensive application scanning across the SDLC:

Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
Software Composition Analysis (SCA)
API security
Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST)
Container security
IaC security
Correlation, prioritization, and risk management
Codebashing secure code training
AI security
Tech partnerships extending AppSec into runtime analysis
Developer tool integrations including: CI/CD tools, development frameworks, feedback tools, IDEs, programming languages and SCMs

Checkmarx One provides everything you need to secure application development from the first line of code through deployment and runtime in the cloud. With an ever-evolving set of AppSec engines, correlation and prioritization features, and AI capabilities, Checkmarx One helps consolidate expanding lists of AppSec tools and make better sense of results. Its capabilities are designed to provide an improved developer experience to build trust with development teams and ensure the success of your AppSec program investment.

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

Qualys Web Application Scanning (WAS) is a fully cloud-based web application security scanner. The scanner will automatically crawl periodically and test web applications to discover potential vulnerabilities, including cross-site scripting (XSS) and SQL injection. The consistent testing equips the automated service to generate consistent results, lessen false positives, and offer the ability to scale to protect thousands of websites effortlessly.

Qualys Web Application Scanning is bundled with different scanning technology to carefully scan websites for malware infections and will send notifications to website owners to assist in preventing blacklisting and brand reputation damage. As digital transformation takes place in various organizations, Qualys WAS gives organizations the ability to track and document their web app security status through its interactive reporting capabilities.

Qualys WAS empowers organizations to remediate any web application vulnerabilities quickly. Some of the key tools offered are:

Deep Scanning: All apps and APIs on your internal network and public cloud are covered by Qualys WAS deep scanning to show you any visible vulnerabilities.
DevSec Ops Tool: Detect security issues in your code while still in app development stages and generate comprehensive reports.
Comprehensive Discovery: Discover and catalog new and unknown web apps in your network.
Malware Detection: Scan a website, identify vulnerabilities, and receive alerts to any infections.

Benefits of Qualys Web Application Scanning

Qualys Web Application Scanning offers many benefits, including:

Quick Deployment: Requires no infrastructure or software to upkeep.
Effortless Scalability: Effortlessly launch a deep scan and protect thousands of websites.
Centralized Management: Manage and mend all web app vulnerabilities through a single interface.
Excellent Integration Capabilities: Integrates with Qualys Web App Firewall (WAF) for a single-click virtual patching of found vulnerabilities.
Respond to Threats Immediately: Qualys Continuous Monitoring offers the user a hands-free service by automatically launching scanning and sending notifications of a potential threat.
Cost-effective Solution: Data is analyzed in real time as Qualys WAS is an end-to-end solution; this helps avoid costs associated with managing multiple security vendors.

Reviews from Real Users

Qualys Web Application Scanning stands out among its competitors for a variety of reasons. Two of those reasons are its progressive scan and quick detection of vulnerabilities.

P.K., a senior software developer at a tech vendor, writes, "The feature that I have found most valuable is the progressive scan. It is good. It's done in 24 hours."

Nagaraj S., lead cybersecurity engineer at a tech service company, notes, "I have found the detection of vulnerabilities tool thorough with good results and the graphical display output to be wonderful and full of colors. It allows many types of outputs, such as bar and chart previews."

Qualys

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

BskyB, Cartagena, ClearPoint Learning Systems, Connect Group, du, Fortrex Technologies, HBOR, HDI, Highlights for Children, The Lithuanian State Enterprise Centre of Registers, City of Miami Beach, Microsoft, MidlandHR, MSCI Inc., Northern Arizona University, Ofgem, Olympus Europa, PhoneFactor, RTL Nederland, ThousandEyes, VGZ Organisatie B.V.

Buyer's Guide

Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

March 2026

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