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OWASP Zap vs PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 20, 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
40
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
7.9
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (8th), Fuzz Testing Tools (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of OWASP Zap is 5.1%, down from 5.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional is 2.0%, down from 2.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
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.
Anuradha.Kapoor Kapoor - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers efficient scanning of entire websites but presence of false positive bugs, leading to time-consuming efforts in distinguishing real bugs from false alarms
We have found that so many times, false positive bugs are there, and then we spend a lot of time basically separating them from real bugs. So that's the reason we are looking for some other tool. So we were in discussion with Acunetix. Therefore, the false positive rate is, like, something that we would like to improve. What we are looking for is if this false positive rate goes down because we were OWASP Zap tool users, which was free anyway. But there were a lot of false positives there, and we used to spend a lot of time, like, for security reasons, reproducing those bugs for the development team to fix it. So then we thought, okay, why not we go with the tool? Even if it is not very expensive. But still, every year, we have to renew the license. And we got this tool. Again, we found that in this tool also, even if it is less, there are still a lot of false positive bugs out there. So we again have to spend so much time. So we hired a security tester, who was basically using Acunetix in his previous company for almost three years, and then you said that in that scanning is very slow. The scanning is also slow. Like, sometimes the site scan takes eight hours, six to eight hours. Yeah. And whereas in Acunetix, it took three to four hours. And plus, there are no false positives. I'm not saying none but there's very little. But here, the rate sometimes is very high. These are the two features I think we would like to improve further.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Automatic scanning is a valuable feature and very easy to use."
"The product discovers more vulnerabilities compared to other tools."
"The solution is good at reporting the vulnerabilities of the application."
"It's great that we can use it with Portswigger Burp."
"We use the solution for security testing."
"ZAP is easy to use. The automated scan is a powerful feature. You can simulate attacks with various parameters. ZAP integrates well with SonarQube."
"​It has improved my organization with faster security tests.​"
"The community edition updates services regularly. They add new vulnerabilities into the scanning list."
"I have found the best features to be the performance and there are a lot of additional plugins available."
"You can scan any number of applications and it updates its database."
"For pentesting scenarios, this is the number one tool. It can capture the request, and there are so many functions that are very good for that. For example, a black box satellite host."
"The most valuable features are Burp Intruder and Burp Scanner."
"The solution helped us discover vulnerabilities in our applications."
"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."
"Some of the extensions, available using Burp Extender, are also very good and we have found issues by using them."
"The initial setup is simple."
 

Cons

"Deployment is somewhat complicated."
"There's very little documentation that comes with OWASP Zap."
"OWASP Zap needs to extend to mobile application testing."
"The reporting feature could be more descriptive."
"Zap could improve by providing better reports for security and recommendations for the vulnerabilities."
"Sometimes, we get some false positives."
"I prefer Burp Suite to SWASP Zap because of the extensive coverage it offers."
"The product reporting could be improved."
"A lot of our interns find it difficult to get used to PortSwigger Burp's environment."
"We'd like to have more integration potential across all versions of the product."
"We wish that the Spider feature would appear in the same shape that it does in previous versions."
"Scanning APIs using PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional takes a lot of time."
"There were a lot of false positives there, and we used to spend a lot of time, like, for security reasons, reproducing those bugs for the development team to fix it."
"Mitigating the issues and low confluence issues needs some improvement. Implementing demand with the ChatGPT under the web solution is an additional feature I would like to see in the next release."
"Sometimes the solution can run a little slow."
"The tool is very expensive."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"OWASP ZAP is a free tool provided by OWASP’s engineers and experts. There is an option to donate."
"As Zap is free and open-source, with tons of features similar to those of commercial solutions, I would definitely recommend trying it out."
"This app is completely free and open source. So there is no question about any pricing."
"We have used the freeware version. I believe Zap only has freeware."
"The tool is open source."
"The solution is reasonably priced."
"The cost is approximately $500 for a single license, and there are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fees."
"The yearly cost is about $300."
"We are using the community version, which is free."
"The platform's pricing is reasonable."
"It is expensive for us in Brazil because the currency exchange rate from a dollar to a Brazilian Real is quite steep."
"We pay a yearly licensing fee for the solution, which is neither cheap nor expensive."
"Burp Suite is affordable."
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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
18%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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?
I find the price of PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional to be very cost-efficient.
What needs improvement with PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional?
The dashboard of PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional could be made more user-friendly.
 

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: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.