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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

"The scalability of this product is very good."
"It's great that we can use it with Portswigger Burp."
"It updates repositories and libraries quickly."
"OWASP is quite matured in identifying the vulnerabilities."
"The ZAP scan and code crawler are valuable features."
"Automatic updates and pull request analysis."
"Fuzzer and Java APIs help a lot with our custom needs."
"Automatic scanning is a valuable feature and very easy to use."
"In my area of expertise, I feel like it has almost everything I could possibly require at this moment."
"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."
"It was easy to learn."
"The active scanner, which does an automated search of any web vulnerabilities."
"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 personally love its capability to automatically and accurately detect vulnerabilities. So, I would say it is the Burp scanner that is THE most powerful, valuable, and an awesome feature."
"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."
"There is no other tool like it. I like the intuitiveness and the plugins that are available."
 

Cons

"Reporting format has no output, is cluttered and very long."
"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."
"It doesn't run on absolutely every operating system."
"It would be nice to have a solid SQL injection engine built into Zap."
"The product reporting could be improved."
"The documentation is lacking and out-of-date, it really needs more love."
"The documentation needs to be improved because I had to learn everything from watching YouTube videos."
"OWASP Zap needs to extend to mobile application testing."
"There could be an improvement in the API security testing. There is another tool called Postman and if we had a built-in portal similar to Postman which captures the API, we would be able to generate the API traffic. Right now we need a Postman tool and the Burp Suite for performing API tests. It would be a huge benefit to be able to do it in a single UI."
"I am from Brazil. The currency exchange rate from a dollar to a Brazilian Real is quite steep. It is almost six to one. It would be good if it can be sold in the local currency, and its price is cheaper for us."
"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."
"Scanning APIs using PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional takes a lot of time."
"The technical support team's response time is mostly delayed and should be improved."
"It would be good if the solution could give us more details about what exactly is defective."
"A lot of our interns find it difficult to get used to PortSwigger Burp's environment."
"It should provide a better way to integrate with Jenkins so that DAST (dynamic application security testing) can be automated."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution’s pricing is high."
"It is highly recommended as it is an open source tool."
"We have used the freeware version. I believe Zap only has freeware."
"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."
"It is open source, and we can scan freely."
"This is an open-source solution and can be used free of charge."
"OWASP Zap is free to use."
"This solution is open source and free."
"We have one license. The price is very nominal."
"PortSwigger is reasonably-priced. It's fair."
"Our licensing cost is approximately $400 USD per year."
"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."
"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."
"The price for the solution is expensive and could be cheaper. We pay an annual license and our team has several of them."
"There are different licenses available that include a free version."
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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
14%
Financial Services Firm
10%
University
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
12%
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.
871,469 professionals have used our research since 2012.