OWASP Zap vs PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional comparison

OWASP Zap vs. PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional

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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)

15th

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)

7th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Security Tools (11th), Fuzz Testing Tools (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of OWASP Zap is 3.1%, down from 5.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional is 2.7%, 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
Product	Mindshare (%)
PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional	2.7%
OWASP Zap	3.1%
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

"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."

"The community support that ZAP provides me, as an open source, provides me flexibility and is convenient to use."

"Automatic scanning is a valuable feature and very easy to use."

"The interface is easy to use."

"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 pull request analysis is also very good."

"It updates repositories and libraries quickly."

More OWASP Zap pros

"The solution helped us discover vulnerabilities in our applications."

"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."

"This is a very nice tool and anybody can use it, from beginner to expert level."

"The most valuable feature of PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional is the dashboard, which is very informative and lets you receive all the information you need in one place, as it is clear, well-defined, and organized so that anybody without any cybersecurity experience can use it."

"The most valuable feature of PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional is the advanced features, user-friendly interface, and integration with other tools."

"The most valuable feature is the application security."

"The most valuable feature of PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional is the dashboard. It is very informative and you can receive all the information you need in one place. It's clear, well-defined, and organized. Anybody without any cybersecurity can use it."

"The free version is one of the best proxy tools for manual testing."

More PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional pros

Cons

"Reporting format has no output, is cluttered and very long."

"Sometimes, we get some false positives."

"The product reporting could be improved."

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

"We're currently moving away from OWASP to PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional; it's more user-friendly with a better interface."

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

"The work that it does in the limited scope is good, but the scope is very limited in terms of the scanning features. The number of things it tests or finds is limited. They need to make it a more of a mainstream tool that people can use, and they can even think about having it on a proprietary basis. They need to increase the coverage of the scan and the results that it finds. That has always been Zap's limitation. Zap is a very good tool for a beginner, but once you start moving up the ladder where you want further details and you want your scan to show more in-depth results, Zap falls short because its coverage falls short. It does not have the capacity to do more."

More OWASP Zap cons

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

"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."

"The solution isn't too stable; the fundamentals of it make it difficult to use."

"The scanner and crawler need to be improved."

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

"The biggest drawback is reporting. It's not so good."

"We've faced lots of challenges, including slowing down of the tool, and a lot of error messages, sometimes because of the interface."

"I would like to see the return of the spider mechanism instead of the crawling feature. Burp Suite's earlier version 1.7 had an excellent spider option, and it would be beneficial if Burp incorporated those features into the current version. The crawling techniques used in the current version are not as efficient as those used in earlier versions."

More PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"The tool is open-source."

"OWASP Zap is free to use."

"This solution is open source and free."

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

"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."

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

"The tool is open source."

More OWASP Zap pricing and cost advice

"There are multiple versions available of PortSwigger Burp Suite, such as enterprise, commercial, professional, and beginners."

"The pricing of the solution is cost-effective and is best suited for small and medium-sized businesses."

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

"At $400 or $500 per license paid annually, it is a very cheap tool."

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

"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."

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

"PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional is an expensive solution."

More PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Static Application Security Testing (SAST) solutions are best for your needs.

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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.

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See all 3 answers

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

11%

University

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

10%

Government

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?

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?

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?

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 ...

Checkmarx One vs OWASP Zap

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Compared 6% of the time

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Compared 6% of the time

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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

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Product Reports

OWASP Zap

Download OWASP Zap product report

PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional

Download PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional product report

PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional 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

PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional is a vital tool for cybersecurity experts, valued for features like Intruder and Repeater, and offering strong automation for effective vulnerability detection and web security.

PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional aids organizations in conducting comprehensive application security testing. With functions like scanning, proxy setup, and numerous plugins, it provides essential support for vulnerability assessments and penetration testing. Despite needing improvements in reporting, false positive reduction, and scanning speed, it remains adaptable for different security operations through its automation, extensive community support, and regular updates. Licensing and pricing flexibility are considerations, alongside API security enhancements and documentation improvements. Widely used for intercepting and scanning web applications pre-launch, it supports compliance testing while offering tools for request replaying, traffic manipulation, and brute forcing.

What are the key features of PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional?

Intruder: Automates attacks to test web application vulnerabilities.
Repeater: Lets users send modified requests to observe responses.
Extender: Supports additional functionalities through plugins.
API Support: Offers capabilities for automated workflows and integrations.
Vulnerability Scanner: Efficiently detects application security flaws.

What benefits should users consider?

Affordable Pricing: Offers value through cost-effective plans.
Community Support: Access a robust network for troubleshooting and advice.
Automation Capabilities: Streamlines security testing processes.
Regular Updates: Continuous improvements and feature developments.

In industries like finance and healthcare, PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional is implemented to enhance application security frameworks. It provides critical insights for regulatory compliance and risk management. The tool's adaptability supports organizations in routinely identifying and addressing vulnerabilities, ensuring robust protection against potential threats and facilitating secure application launches.

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

OWASP Zap vs. PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional