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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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

"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten. I think it's stable enough. I don't see any crashes within the application, so its stability is high."

"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 stability of the solution is very good."

"One valuable feature of OWASP Zap is that it is simple to use."

"The most valuable feature is scanning the URL to drill down all the different sites."

"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."

"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."

More OWASP Zap pros

"The solution has a pretty simple setup."

"BurpSuite helps us to identify and fix silly mistakes that are sometimes introduced by our developers in their coding."

"The initial setup is simple."

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

"I rate PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional ten points out of ten."

"The suite testing models are very good. It's very secure."

"This solution has helped a lot in finding bugs and vulnerabilities, and the scanner is good enough for simple web apps."

"PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional has an intercept tab that helps us to scan our APIs, set the response, and request errors."

More PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional pros

Cons

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

"OWASP Zap needs to extend to mobile application testing."

"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 ability to search the internet for other use cases and to use the solution to make applications more secure should be addressed."

"Sometimes, we get some false positives."

"Deployment is somewhat complicated."

"I would like to see a version of “repeater” within OWASP ZAP, a tool capable of sending from one to 1000 of the same requests, but with preselected modified fields, changing from a predetermined word list, or manually created."

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

More OWASP Zap cons

"The reporting needs to be improved; it is very bad."

"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."

"The initial setup is a bit complex."

"Currently, the scanning is only available in the full version of Burp, and not in the Community version."

"One area for improvement is the integrated browser, Chromium. Single Sign-On (SSO) methods like Microsoft authentication login sometimes fail and show errors. As a workaround, I have to use a different browser, such as Firefox, to log in and make Burp work."

"We wish that the Spider feature would appear in the same shape that it does in previous versions."

"PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional could improve the static code review."

"The one feature that I would like to see in Burp is active scanning of REST based web services. A lot of organizations are providing APIs to access their services to support different business models like SaaS. Scanning these APIs is still a challenge for many security product companies."

More PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This app is completely free and open source. So there is no question about any pricing."

"As Zap is free and open-source, with tons of features similar to those of commercial solutions, I would definitely recommend trying it out."

"It is highly recommended as it is an open source tool."

"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."

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

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

"This solution is open source and free."

More OWASP Zap pricing and cost advice

"Burp Suite is affordable."

"It is expensive for us in Brazil because the currency exchange rate from a dollar to a Brazilian Real is quite steep."

"It has a yearly license. I am satisfied with its price."

"Pricing is not very high. It was around $200."

"This solution requires a license. It is expensive but you receive a lot of functionality for the price."

"It's a lower priced tool that we can rely on with good standard mechanisms."

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

"This is a value for money product."

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

12%

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

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Compared 7% of the time

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SonarQube vs PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional

Compared 5% of the time

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Compared 4% of the time

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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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