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OWASP Zap vs PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 27, 2025

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

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
PortSwigger Burp Suite Prof...
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
6th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
64
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (10th), Fuzz Testing Tools (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of OWASP Zap is 4.5%, up from 4.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional is 1.9%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Static Application Security Testing (SAST) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional1.9%
OWASP Zap4.5%
Other93.6%
Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Anton Krivonosov - PeerSpot reviewer
A special tool for penetration testers or security specialists to conduct security assessments
We use the solution for security assessments. It's a special tool for penetration testers or security specialists PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional is a standard tool in the security industry. It's a stable solution that has many features. You can download different plugins if you don't have…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"They offer free access to some other tools."
"The API is exceptional."
"The solution is scalable."
"The product helps users to scan and fix vulnerabilities in the pipeline."
"One valuable feature of OWASP Zap is that it is simple to use."
"The stability of the solution is very good."
"​It has improved my organization with faster security tests.​"
"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 tool provides complimentary services. It allows you to add a lot of extensions, and you can get extensions quite often. It is quite a flexible application."
"Once I capture the proxy, I'm able to transfer across. All the requested information is there. I can send across the request to what we call a repeater, where I get to ready the payload that I send to the application. Put in malicious content and then see if it's responding to it."
"Enables automation of different tasks such as authorization testing."
"The most valuable feature of Burp Suite Professional is its ability to schedule tasks for scanning websites, which helps in performing regular checks of IP addresses."
"I have found this solution has more plugins than other competitors which is a benefit. You are able to attach different plugins to the security scan to add features. For example, you can check to see if there are any payment systems that exist on a server, or username and password brute force analysis."
"The most valuable features are Burp Intruder and Burp Scanner."
"The solution has a limited range of functions, which is good for small companies. This is because, in small companies, websites are less complex. They also have single services which makes the solution good enough for them. However, the most advantageous aspect of the solution is its affordable price."
"For pentesting scenarios, this is the number one tool. It can capture the request, and there are so many functions that are very good for that. For example, a black box satellite host."
 

Cons

"As security evolves, we would like DevOps built into it. As of now, Zap does not provide this."
"It doesn't run on absolutely every operating system."
"For scalability, I would rate OWASP Zap between four to five out of ten."
"Sometimes, we get some false positives."
"It would be beneficial to enhance the algorithm to provide better summaries of automatic scanning results."
"Reporting format has no output, is cluttered and very long."
"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."
"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."
"There is a lot to this product, and it would be good if when you purchase the tool, they can provide us with a more extensive user manual."
"The use of system memory is an area that can be improved because it uses a lot."
"If your application uses multi-factor authentication, registration management cannot be automated."
"Mitigating the issues and low confluence issues needs some improvement. Implementing demand with the ChatGPT under the web solution is an additional feature I would like to see in the next release."
"There needs to be better documentation provided. Currently, we need to buy books, or we need to review online some use cases from other professionals who have been using the solution to find out their experience. It is not easy to find out how to properly do a security assessment."
"BurpSuite has some issues regarding authentication with OAT tokens that need to be improved."
"It would be beneficial to have privileged access management as a part of Burp Suite Professional."
"I would like to see a more optimized solution, as it currently uses a lot of CPU power and memory."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The tool is open-source."
"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."
"As Zap is free and open-source, with tons of features similar to those of commercial solutions, I would definitely recommend trying it out."
"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."
"The tool is open source."
"It is open source, and we can scan freely."
"This solution requires a license. It is expensive but you receive a lot of functionality for the price."
"The solution used to be expensive. However, they have reduced the price to approximately $400.00 which is reasonable."
"Our licensing cost is approximately $400 USD per year."
"The yearly cost is about $300."
"At $400 or $500 per license paid annually, it is a very cheap tool."
"We pay a yearly licensing fee for the solution, which is neither cheap nor expensive."
"The solution is reasonably priced."
"The price for the solution is expensive and could be cheaper. We pay an annual license and our team has several of them."
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Answers from the Community

reviewer1487928 - PeerSpot reviewer
Nov 17, 2021
Nov 17, 2021
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 quality security vulnerabilities. Both are very comparable in terms of intercepting features, fuzzing capabilities, and encoder and decoders. Both OWASP Zap and PortSwigger Burp Suite Pro have a spide...
2 out of 3 answers
AK
Mar 15, 2021
First things first both are having their own merits, however in my personal experience ZAP can replace your burpsuite for sure considering the License. Also as the latest ZAP versions are covering more advanced techniques and spidering patterns with lots of options in it, it is worth considering ZAP. However remember that burpsuite from latest versions with inbuilt chromium and it's emerging plugin support (Installable jars) you can use burp to the fullest and you can keep it as a swiss knife for your web and app pentesting. Couple of extensions in burp pro are interesting especially the race condition one. I always prefer using Burp and at instances I go with ZAP.
reviewer1526550 - PeerSpot reviewer
Mar 17, 2021
Yes OWASP ZAP is a good option as it's an open source so always preferred but Burp Suite Pro  will give you more options, its one of the best tool to have for pentesters so defo worth it.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
10%
University
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise21
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise14
Large Enterprise35
 

Questions from the Community

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.
What do you like most about PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional?
The solution helped us discover vulnerabilities in our applications.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional?
The cost of PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional is reasonable at approximately $500 per year per user.
What needs improvement with PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional?
The only potential improvement would be adding Postman integration specifically for APIs.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Burp
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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
Google, Amazon, NASA, FedEx, P&G, Salesforce
Find out what your peers are saying about OWASP Zap vs. PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
872,029 professionals have used our research since 2012.