OWASP Zap vs PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional comparison

OWASP and PortSwigger are both solutions in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category. OWASP is ranked #9 with an average rating of 8.2, while PortSwigger is ranked #5 with an average rating of 9.0. OWASP holds a 3.4% mindshare in SAST, compared to PortSwigger’s 2.4% mindshare. Additionally, 88% of OWASP users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 98% of PortSwigger users who would recommend it.

OWASP Zap

Read 41 OWASP Zap reviews

7,440 Views
6,845 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

PortSwigger Burp Suite Prof...

Read 65 PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional reviews

5,991 Views
3,595 Comparison Views

98% willing to recommend

OWASP Zap

PortSwigger Burp Suite Prof...

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 8, 2026

PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional and OWASP Zap are prominent competitors in web application security testing tools. Burp Suite often has the upper hand due to its extensive features and more integrated approach, while Zap stands out for its cost-free accessibility, benefiting budget-conscious users.

Features: Burp Suite Professional offers a comprehensive suite including Proxy, Repeater, and Intruder, with robust auto-scanning and vulnerability detection. It supports customizable payloads and extensions through an active community. OWASP Zap provides features like automated scanning, a unique Heads Up Display, and manual testing capabilities, thriving as an open-source platform that benefits from extensive community-backed enhancements.

Room for Improvement: Burp Suite users seek better integration options, improved reporting functionalities, and reduced false positives, particularly in REST API testing. OWASP Zap can enhance reporting templates and provide regular feature updates, along with improved documentation and integration features to bridge the gap with Burp's functionality.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Both tools primarily deploy on-premises, with Burp Suite also available in private and hybrid clouds. Burp's direct technical support is praised for its responsiveness, while Zap's community forums serve as a primary resource due to its open-source nature.

Pricing and ROI: Burp Suite Professional is recognized for its high-value features, though its licenses might be costly for smaller businesses, yet offering substantial ROI through its reliability and comprehensive capabilities. OWASP Zap, being entirely free and open-source, is invaluable for budget-restricted organizations, despite lacking some premium features found in Burp Suite.

To learn more, read our detailed OWASP Zap vs. PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional Report (Updated: March 2026).

Buyer's Guide

OWASP Zap vs. PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional

March 2026

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Helped 884,328 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:

Categories and Ranking

OWASP Zap

Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

9th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

PortSwigger Burp Suite Prof...

Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

5th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Security Tools (8th), Fuzz Testing Tools (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of OWASP Zap is 3.4%, down from 4.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional is 2.4%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Static Application Security Testing (SAST) Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional	2.4%
OWASP Zap	3.4%
Other	94.2%

Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

Featured Reviews

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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Moti Huberman

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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"This solution has improved my organization because it has made us feel safer doing frequent deployments for web applications. If we have something really big, we might get some professional company in to help us but if we're releasing small products, we will check it ourselves with Zap. It makes it easier and safer."

"The interface is easy to use."

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

"Two features are valuable. The first one is that the scan gets completed really quickly, and the second one is that even though it searches in a limited scope, what it does in that limited scope is very good. When you use Zap for testing, you're only using it for specific aspects or you're only looking for certain things. It works very well in that limited scope."

"ZAP is easy to use. The automated scan is a powerful feature. You can simulate attacks with various parameters. ZAP integrates well with SonarQube."

"The solution is good at reporting the vulnerabilities of the application."

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

"Automatic updates and pull request analysis."

More OWASP Zap pros

"I find all the features of PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional most useful, particularly the AI enhancement for results and follow-up for retests."

"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."

"It's good testing software."

"This tool is more accurate than the other solutions that we use, and reports fewer false positives."

"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."

"The feature that we have found most valuable is that it comes with pre-set configurations. They have a set of predefined options where you can pick one and start scanning. We also have the option of creating our own configurations, like how often do the applications need to be scanned."

"The most valuable feature is Burp Collaborator."

More PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional pros

Cons

"The product should allow users to customize the report based on their needs."

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

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

"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."

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

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

"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."

"Online documentation can be improved to utilize all features of ZAP and API methods to make use in automation."

More OWASP Zap cons

"The price could be better. The rest is fine."

"The solution’s pricing could be improved."

"A lot of our interns find it difficult to get used to PortSwigger Burp's environment."

"The solution is not easy to set it up. You need a lot of knowledge."

"One thing that is not up to the mark in PortSwigger is web application testing. I found some issues with its performance and reporting. They should work on these and give us a better outcome."

"You can have many false positives in Burp Suite. It depends on the scale of the penetration testing."

"I would like to see a more optimized solution, as it currently uses a lot of CPU power and memory."

More PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

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

"The tool is open-source."

"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."

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

"This solution is open source and free."

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

More OWASP Zap pricing and cost advice

"They should reduce the license cost a little bit. It is $400 per user, and it would be better if they could reduce the licensing fee."

"There is no setup cost and the cost of licensing is affordable."

"We pay a yearly licensing fee for the solution, which is neither cheap nor expensive."

"PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional is expensive compared to other tools."

"PortSwigger is reasonably-priced. It's fair."

"Burp Suite is affordable."

"Our licensing cost is approximately $400 USD per year."

"For a country such as Sri Lanka, the pricing is not reasonable."

More PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional pricing and cost advice

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Answers from the Community

reviewer1487928

Subdirector de Seguridad Informática e Infraestructura at a financial services firm with 201-500 employees

Nov 17, 2021

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 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

Avinash-Kumar

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.

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reviewer1526550

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.

Read full answer

See all 3 answers

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

11%

University

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Government

11%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	11
Midsize Enterprise	11
Large Enterprise	21

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	17
Midsize Enterprise	14
Large Enterprise	35

Questions from the Community

Is OWASP Zap better than PortSwigger Burp Suite Pro?

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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 PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional?

The solution helped us discover vulnerabilities in our applications.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

What needs improvement with PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional?

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 13% of the time

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Compared 8% of the time

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Compared 8% of the time

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Compared 6% of the time

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Compared 12% of the time

Acunetix vs PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional

Compared 7% of the time

Software Risk Manager ASPM vs PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional

Compared 6% of the time

SonarQube vs PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional

Compared 5% of the time

HCL AppScan vs PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional

Compared 4% of the time

More PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

OWASP Zap

February 2026

Download OWASP Zap product report

Buyer's Guide

PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional

February 2026

PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional report

Download PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional product report

Also Known As

No data available

Burp

Overview

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

Burp Suite Professional, by PortSwigger, is the world’s leading toolkit for web security testing. Over 52,000 users worldwide, across all industries and organization sizes, trust Burp Suite Professional to find more vulnerabilities, faster. With expertly-engineered manual and automated tooling, you're able to test smarter - not harder.

PortSwigger is the web security company that is enabling the world to secure the web. Over 50,000 security engineers rely on our software and expertise to secure their world.

PortSwigger

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

Buyer's Guide

OWASP Zap vs. PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional

March 2026

Free Report: OWASP Zap vs. PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional

Find out what your peers are saying about OWASP Zap vs. PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.

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