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 8.3, while OWASP is ranked #11 with an average rating of 8.0. Checkmarx holds a 10.0% mindshare in SAST, compared to OWASP’s 4.5% mindshare. Additionally, 87% of Checkmarx users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 88% of OWASP users who would recommend it.

Checkmarx One

Read 71 Checkmarx One reviews

18,550 Views
15,582 Comparison Views

87% willing to recommend

OWASP Zap

Read 41 OWASP Zap reviews

7,876 Views
7,167 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

Qualys Web Application Scan...

Read 40 Qualys Web Application Scanning reviews

3,874 Views
2,828 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 Sonar, Veracode, Checkmarx and others in Static Application Security Testing (SAST).

To learn more, read our detailed Static Application Security Testing (SAST) Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

September 2025

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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:

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of Checkmarx One is 10.0%, down from 12.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OWASP Zap is 4.5%, up from 4.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Qualys Web Application Scanning is 2.1%, up from 2.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Static Application Security Testing (SAST) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Checkmarx One	10.0%
Qualys Web Application Scanning	2.1%
OWASP Zap	4.5%
Other	83.4%

Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

Featured Reviews

Syed Hasan

Specialist Leader at Deloitte

Partner experiences excellent technical support and seamless initial setup

In my opinion, if we are able to extract or show the report, and because everything is going towards agent tech and GenAI, it would be beneficial if it could get integrated with our code base and do the fix automatically. It could suggest how the code base is written and automatically populate the source code with three different solution options to choose from. This would be really helpful.

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

AnkitSharma13

Security Officer at Cisco

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

"The tool's valuable features include integrating GPT and Copilot. Additionally, the UI web representation is very user-friendly, making navigation easy. GPT has made several improvements to my security code."

"The ability to track the vulnerabilities inside the code (origin and destination of weak variables or functions)."

"The user interface is modern and nice to use."

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

"Overall, the ability to find vulnerabilities in the code is better than the tool that we were using before."

"It can integrate very well with DAST solutions. So both of them are combined into an integrated solution for customers running application security."

"The main thing we find valuable about Checkmarx is the ease of use. It's easy to initiate scans and triage defects."

More Checkmarx One pros

"OWASP is quite matured in identifying the vulnerabilities."

"It has evolved over the years and recently in the last year they have added, HUD (Heads Up Display)."

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

"The stability of the solution is very good."

"The OWASP's tool is free of cost, which gives it a great advantage, especially for smaller companies to make use of the tool."

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

"You can run it against multiple targets."

"The scalability of this product is very good."

More OWASP Zap pros

"It is a cloud-based solution, so it is easy to scale."

"The product prevents possible vulnerabilities in our network."

"It is a very stable solution."

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

"You can integrate your Burp Suite results and create an integrated report. Also, the way it shows the results - threats and exploit details - makes remediation very easy."

"Qualys Web Application Scanning is user-friendly, easy to understand, easy to use, and easy to deploy."

"Licensing is the most valuable. Qualys provides the best licensing for companies. It is the best product for the development purposes of web applications. The product has a lot of integrations."

"By using QualysGuard, we are able to finish external scans with assured results in half the time."

More Qualys Web Application Scanning pros

Cons

"There is nothing particular that I don't like in this solution. It can have more integrations, but the integrations that we would like are in the roadmap anyway, and they just need to deliver the roadmap. What I like about the roadmap is that it is going where it needs to go. If I were to look at the roadmap, there is nothing that is jumping out there that says to me, "Yeah. I'd like something else on the roadmap." What they're looking to deliver is what I would expect and forecast them to deliver."

"Implementing a blackout time for any user or teams: Needs improvement."

"We are trying to find out if there is a way to identify the run-time null values. I am analyzing different tools to check if there is any tool that supports run-time null value identification, but I don't think any of the tools in the market currently supports this feature. It would be helpful if Checkmarx can identify and throw an exception for a null value at the run time. It would make things a lot easier if there is a way for Checkmarx to identify nullable fields or hard-coded values in the code. The accessibility for customized Checkmarx rules is currently limited and should be improved. In addition, it would be great if Checkmarx can do static code and dynamic code validation. It does a lot of security-related scanning, and it should also do static code and dynamic code validation. Currently, for security-related validation, we are using Checkmarx, and for static code and dynamic code validation, we are using some other tools. We are spending money on different tools. We can pay a little extra money and use Checkmarx for everything."

"We have received some feedback from our customers who are receiving a large number of false positives."

"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."

"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 can't create a business case with multiple-factor authentication."

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

More Checkmarx One cons

"OWASP should work on reducing false positives by using AI and ML algorithms."

"The documentation is lacking and out-of-date, it really needs more love."

"The reporting feature could be more descriptive."

"For scalability, I would rate OWASP Zap between four to five out of ten."

"Zap could improve by providing better reports for security and recommendations for the vulnerabilities."

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

"It needs more robust reporting tools."

"ZAP's integration with cloud-based CICD pipelines could be better. The scan should run through the entire pipeline."

More OWASP Zap cons

"The pricing does not seem to be competitive."

"There could be better management and faster scanning."

"One area for improvement is the user interface. The new UI, which was recently upgraded, feels more complex and less user-friendly than the old version."

"I would like it to be cheaper because it is a bit expensive compared to competitors like Tenable Nessus."

"The product should allow users to upload their payloads."

"There should be better visibility into the application."

"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."

"The reporting contains too many false positives."

More Qualys Web Application Scanning cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"We have purchased an annual license to use this solution. The price is reasonable."

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

"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."

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

"It is the right price for quality delivery."

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

More Checkmarx One pricing and cost advice

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

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

"The tool is open source."

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

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

"This solution is open source and free."

More OWASP Zap pricing and cost advice

"We normally purchase an annual license."

"It is best to be an institutional buyer and directly contact the sales team, as they can provide over-the-top discounts for bulk orders."

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

"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."

"The product has a very good licensing model."

"Qualys WAS' pricing is competitive."

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

"There are different options available with respect to licensing."

More Qualys Web Application Scanning pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

19%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

10%

University

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	30
Midsize Enterprise	9
Large Enterprise	38

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	10
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 ...

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What do you like most about Checkmarx?

Compared to the solutions we used previously, Checkmarx has reduced our workload by almost 75%.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Checkmarx?

The pricing is relatively expensive due to the product's quality and performance, but it is worth it.

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...

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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 do you like most about Qualys Web Application Scanning?

The vulnerability management feature is a strong one. And also the patch management feature.

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 ...

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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

Comparisons

SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) vs Checkmarx One

Compared 44% of the time

Veracode vs Checkmarx One

Compared 7% of the time

Checkmarx SAST vs Checkmarx One

Compared 7% of the time

OpenText Core Application Security vs Checkmarx One

Compared 4% of the time

More Checkmarx One Competitors

SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) vs OWASP Zap

Compared 18% of the time

Acunetix vs OWASP Zap

Compared 15% of the time

Veracode vs OWASP Zap

Compared 9% of the time

PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional vs OWASP Zap

Compared 5% of the time

HCL AppScan vs OWASP Zap

Compared 5% of the time

More OWASP Zap Competitors

SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) vs Qualys Web Application Scanning

Compared 9% of the time

Veracode vs Qualys Web Application Scanning

Compared 9% of the time

Acunetix vs Qualys Web Application Scanning

Compared 7% of the time

HCL AppScan vs Qualys Web Application Scanning

Compared 5% of the time

Tenable.io Web Application Scanning vs Qualys Web Application Scanning

Compared 4% of the time

More Qualys Web Application Scanning Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Checkmarx One

October 2025

Download Checkmarx One product report

Buyer's Guide

OWASP Zap

September 2025

Download OWASP Zap product report

Buyer's Guide

Qualys Web Application Scanning

September 2025

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)

September 2025

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