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Coverity 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

Coverity
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
5th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
43
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
OWASP Zap
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
11th
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 2025, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of Coverity is 7.0%, up from 6.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OWASP Zap is 4.7%, up from 4.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
 

Featured Reviews

Jaile Sebes - PeerSpot reviewer
Resolving critical software issues demands faster implementation and better integration
We use Coverity primarily to find issues such as software bugs and memory leaks, especially in C++ and C# projects. It helps us identify deadlocks, synchronization issues, and product crashes Coverity has been instrumental in resolving product crashes by detecting various issues like deadlocks.…
Amit Beniwal - PeerSpot reviewer
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

"Coverity integrates with issue-tracking systems like Jira and provides email notifications, alerts, and other features."
"It help us identify the latest security vulnerabilities."
"The most valuable feature is the integration with Jenkins."
"The most valuable feature of Coverity is the wrapper. We use the wrapper to build the C++ component, then we use the other code analysis to analyze the code to the build object, and then send back the result to the SonarQube server. Additionally, it is a powerful capabilities solution."
"The most valuable feature is that there were not a whole lot of false positives, at least on the codebases that I looked at."
"In my opinion, the most effective Coverity feature for identifying critical vulnerabilities is the extra checks, which offers deep analysis."
"The tool as it is can be used for code quality improvement."
"The security analysis features are the most valuable features of this solution."
"Fuzzer and Java APIs help a lot with our custom needs."
"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 solution has tightened our security."
"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 HUD is a good feature that provides on-site testing and saves a lot of time."
"The product helps users to scan and fix vulnerabilities in the pipeline."
"It scans while you navigate, then you can save the requests performed and work with them later."
"One valuable feature of OWASP Zap is that it is simple to use."
 

Cons

"Some features are not performing well, like duplicate detection and switch case situations."
"The product could be enhanced by providing video troubleshooting guides, making issue resolution more accessible. Troubleshooting without visual guides can be time-consuming."
"Zero-day vulnerability identification can be an add-on feature that Coverity can provide."
"It would be great if we could customize the rules to focus on critical issues."
"Coverity is not stable."
"The quality of the code needs improvement."
"I had tried integrating the tool with Azure DevOps, but the report I got stated that my team faced many challenges."
"Coverity takes a lot of time to dereference null pointers."
"The solution is somewhat unreliable because after we get the finding, we have to manually verify each of its findings to see whether it's a false positive or a true finding, and it takes time."
"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."
"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."
"The reporting feature could be more descriptive."
"OWASP should work on reducing false positives by using AI and ML algorithms."
"The work that it does in the limited scope is good, but the scope is very limited in terms of the scanning features. The number of things it tests or finds is limited. They need to make it a more of a mainstream tool that people can use, and they can even think about having it on a proprietary basis. They need to increase the coverage of the scan and the results that it finds. That has always been Zap's limitation. Zap is a very good tool for a beginner, but once you start moving up the ladder where you want further details and you want your scan to show more in-depth results, Zap falls short because its coverage falls short. It does not have the capacity to do more."
"There are areas for improvement with OWASP Zap, particularly in the alignment of vulnerabilities concerning CVSS scores."
"The ability to search the internet for other use cases and to use the solution to make applications more secure should be addressed."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing fees are based on the number of lines of code."
"I would rate the pricing a six out of ten, where one is low, and ten is high price."
"I would rate the tool's pricing a one out of ten."
"I rate Coverity's price a ten on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive."
"Coverity is quite expensive."
"The solution's pricing is comparable to other products."
"The tool was fairly priced."
"The tool's price is somewhere in the middle. It's neither cheap nor expensive. I would rate the pricing a five out of ten."
"The tool is open source."
"This app is completely free and open source. So there is no question about any pricing."
"OWASP ZAP is a free tool provided by OWASP’s engineers and experts. There is an option to donate."
"It is open source, and we can scan freely."
"This is an open-source solution and can be used free of charge."
"The solution’s pricing is high."
"We have used the freeware version. I believe Zap only has freeware."
"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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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
33%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Government
4%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
University
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

How would you decide between Coverity and Sonarqube?
We researched Coverity, but in the end, we chose SonarQube. SonarQube is a tool for reviewing code quality and security. It helps to guide our development teams during code reviews by providing rem...
What do you like most about Coverity?
The solution has improved our code quality and security very well.
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 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 websites with automatic scanning, and the website has a web application firewall, i...
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.
 

Also Known As

Synopsys Static Analysis
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SAP, Mega International, Thales Alenia Space
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 Coverity vs. OWASP Zap and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
864,155 professionals have used our research since 2012.