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OWASP Zap vs PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional comparison

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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)
15th
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)
8th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
65
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (9th), Fuzz Testing Tools (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of OWASP Zap is 2.6%, down from 4.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional is 3.0%, 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
ProductMindshare (%)
PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional3.0%
OWASP Zap2.6%
Other94.4%
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."
"Zap is an open-source and sophisticated product that not only saves us money but also provides us with a good amount of information."
"It scans while you navigate, then you can save the requests performed and work with them later."
"​It has improved my organization with faster security tests.​"
"The valuable features are that it's very simple to use and the user interface is very good, particularly for beginners so they can start the application easily."
"We use OWASP Zap for web application security scanning."
"Technical support is excellent."
"You can download different plugins if you don't have them in the standard edition."
"PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional is one of the best user-friendly solutions for getting the proxy set up."
"With the Extender Tab, if you know how to code then you can create a plugin and add it to Burp."
"The solution is reliable, it is very stable."
"I find all the features of PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional most useful, particularly the AI enhancement for results and follow-up for retests."
"I highly recommend it because everybody in Web Applications Security is using it."
"It helps in API testing, where manual intervention was previously necessary for each payload."
"We found PortSwigger to be the best match for our business."
 

Cons

"The computers perform somewhat slowly when loading a large number of queries into memory."
"OWASP Zap needs to extend to mobile application testing."
"Reporting format has no output, is cluttered and very long."
"We get too many false positives and that should definitely be improved."
"Too many false positives; test reports could be improved."
"The reporting feature could be more descriptive."
"Right now, I can't give it off to a team and expect them to give me a report that I'm happy with."
"Zap could improve by providing better reports for security and recommendations for the vulnerabilities."
"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."
"The biggest drawback is reporting. It's not so good. I can download them, but they're not so informative."
"BurpSuite has some issues regarding authentication with OAT tokens that need to be improved."
"One more thing they can improve is that despite having a good architecture, it needs a lot of specification."
"A lot of our interns find it difficult to get used to PortSwigger Burp's environment."
"We wish that the Spider feature would appear in the same shape that it does in previous versions."
"The reporting needs to be improved; it is very bad."
"The one feature that I would like to see in Burp is active scanning of REST based web services."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is open source, and we can scan freely."
"This solution is open source and free."
"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'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."
"The tool is open-source."
"OWASP Zap is free to use."
"This is an open-source solution and can be used free of charge."
"It is a cheap solution, but it may not be cheaper than other solutions."
"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."
"There is no setup cost and the cost of licensing is affordable."
"The pricing of the solution is reasonable. We only need to pay for the annual subscription. I rate the pricing five out of ten."
"Burp Suite is affordable."
"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 solution is reasonably priced."
"This is a value for money product."
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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%
University
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Outsourcing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
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: September 2026.
914,109 professionals have used our research since 2012.