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OWASP Zap vs PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 8, 2026

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)
14th
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)
7th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
65
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (10th), Fuzz Testing Tools (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of OWASP Zap is 2.9%, down from 5.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional is 3.0%, up from 2.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Static Application Security Testing (SAST) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional3.0%
OWASP Zap2.9%
Other94.1%
Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
 

Featured Reviews

Amit Beniwal - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
MH
Penetration Tester & Information Security Expert at a comms service provider with 11-50 employees
Dedicated browser and repeater have improved my proxy testing and manual vulnerability checks
I'm hoping perhaps for something to make it easier, such as to define things where if a message or a response is such and such, automatically make a request that is such and such. Perhaps something like this because otherwise, nowadays we have to do it manually. Perhaps they can automate it a bit more. Perhaps they could add some automation to things, to see what we do manually, which it has the tools to do manually, and perhaps enable with a click of a button to do things automatically. I'm not too sure which, but I'm sure they can from a product management point of view, do things that we need to do two, three, or four steps manually regarding specific testing. For instance, we want to check something specific if it's this or if it's that. Perhaps to define it once and have it more automatic, perhaps.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It has evolved over the years and recently in the last year they have added, HUD (Heads Up Display)."
"The solution is good at reporting the vulnerabilities of the application."
"Fuzzer and Java APIs help a lot with our custom needs."
"You can run it against multiple targets."
"​It has improved my organization with faster security tests.​"
"The vulnerabilities that it finds, because the primary goal is to secure applications and websites."
"It's great that we can use it with Portswigger Burp."
"OWASP Zap is straightforward to use. If someone doesn't have the budget for tools like Burp Suite, OWASP Zap is an excellent alternative."
"The product has a good learning hub."
"If you compare it to more expensive tools like WebInspect or IBM AppScan, you'll realize that, at a very low cost, Burp Suite can provide good results."
"The technical support from PortSwigger is excellent, managing response time and quality efficiently without any issues."
"I find the attack model quite amazing, where I can write my scripts and load my scripts as well, which helps quite a bit. All the active scanning that it can do is also quite a lot helpful. It speeds up our vulnerability assessment and penetration testing. Right now, I am enjoying its in-browser, which also helps quite a bit. I'm always confused about setting up some proxy, but it really is the big solution we all want."
"I am impressed with the tool's detailed analysis for penetration testing. AppScan can give only visibility, but it can't do the PT part. But the PortSwigger Burp Application can do both, and it gives much more visibility on the PT rating."
"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."
"You can download different plugins if you don't have them in the standard edition."
"Enables automation of different tasks such as authorization testing."
 

Cons

"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."
"We get too many false positives and that should definitely be improved."
"Too many false positives; test reports could be improved."
"For scalability, I would rate OWASP Zap between four to five out of ten."
"OWASP Zap could benefit from a noise cancellation feature like that of Burp Suite Professional, where AI helps reduce certain non-critical findings."
"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 ideal if I could try some pre-built deployment scenarios so that I don't have to worry about whether the configuration sector team is doing it right or wrong. That would be very helpful."
"Lacks resources where users can internally access a learning module from the tool."
"There is a certain amount of lead time for the tickets to get resolved."
"There are some memory issues, where the application runs out of memory and crashes."
"The reporting needs to be improved; it is very bad."
"The biggest drawback is reporting. It's not so good. I can download them, but they're not so informative."
"The price could be better. The rest is fine."
"One area that can be improved, when compared to alternative tools, is that they could provide different reporting options and in different formats like PDF or something like that."
"The pricing of the solution is quite high."
"There were a lot of false positives there, and we used to spend a lot of time, like, for security reasons, reproducing those bugs for the development team to fix it."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"The solution’s pricing is high."
"This app is completely free and open source. So there is no question about any pricing."
"The tool is open-source."
"This solution is open source and free."
"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."
"We have one license. The price is very nominal."
"Licensing costs are about $450/year for one use. For larger organizations, they're able to test against multiple applications while simultaneously others might have multiple versions of applications which needs to be tested which is why we have the enterprise edition."
"PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional is an expensive solution."
"There are different licenses available that include a free version."
"The price for the solution is expensive and could be cheaper. We pay an annual license and our team has several of them."
"PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional is expensive compared to other tools."
"PortSwigger is a bit expensive."
"It is a cheap solution, but it may not be cheaper than other solutions."
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Answers from the Community

reviewer1487928 - PeerSpot reviewer
Subdirector de Seguridad Informática e Infraestructura at a financial services firm with 201-500 employees
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
MCE at CGI
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
Lead Security Architect at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
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
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
University
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise22
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
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 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 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...
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?
I'm hoping perhaps for something to make it easier, such as to define things where if a message or a response is such and such, automatically make a request that is such and such. Perhaps something...
What is your primary use case for PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional?
I have used the Intruder tool in PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional at least once or twice. It is used to fuzz parameters or brute force login. I think I used it once. I don't remember if it gave ...
 

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: June 2026.
900,051 professionals have used our research since 2012.