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OWASP Zap vs SonarQube Cloud (formerly SonarCloud) comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 9, 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)
8th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SonarQube Cloud (formerly S...
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
10th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of OWASP Zap is 4.7%, down from 5.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SonarQube Cloud (formerly SonarCloud) is 5.8%, down from 6.0% 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.
Archana Verma - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides valuable insights on code vulnerabilities and integrates seamlessly with CI/CD pipelines
I find SonarQube Cloud to be very user-friendly with an easy-to-use interface. It provides detailed code smell reports and insights on hotspots, which can later represent security vulnerabilities. It gives precise reports compared to Coverity and has a slightly lower number of false positives. It is integrated easily with the CI/CD pipeline, saving time and cost. It provides information on upcoming vulnerability details and loopholes that might turn into vulnerabilities.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"OWASP is quite matured in identifying the vulnerabilities."
"This solution has improved my organization because it has made us feel safer doing frequent deployments for web applications. If we have something really big, we might get some professional company in to help us but if we're releasing small products, we will check it ourselves with Zap. It makes it easier and safer."
"​It has improved my organization with faster security tests.​"
"The solution has tightened our security."
"The application scanning feature is the most valuable feature."
"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."
"They offer free access to some other tools."
"One valuable feature of OWASP Zap is that it is simple to use."
"SonarCloud is overall a good tool for identifying code smells, bugs, and code duplication, but we've found that using Android Lint is more effective for our needs."
"The most valuable features of SonarQube Cloud (formerly SonarCloud) include code inspection, addressing technical debt, and identifying security vulnerabilities."
"The most valuable features of SonarCloud are the ability to discover vulnerabilities, security weak points, security hotspots, and all the feedback that comes into the feature branch. You can deploy the code with the security, you can eliminate the problem at the developer level rather than identifying the problem in the productions."
"Recently, they introduced support for mono reports and microservices, which is a noteworthy development as it provides a more detailed view of each service."
"The solution provides continuous code analysis which has improved the quality of our code. It can raise alarms on vulnerabilities with immediate reports on the dashboard. Few things are false positives and we can customize the rules."
"I find SonarQube Cloud very easy to use and simple to integrate initially."
"I find SonarQube Cloud to be very user-friendly with an easy-to-use interface."
"I find SonarQube Cloud very easy to use and simple to integrate initially."
 

Cons

"Online documentation can be improved to utilize all features of ZAP and API methods to make use in automation."
"Deployment is somewhat complicated."
"The solution is unable to customize reports."
"The documentation needs to be improved because I had to learn everything from watching YouTube videos."
"The technical support team must be proactive."
"For scalability, I would rate OWASP Zap between four to five out of ten."
"It would be ideal if I could try some pre-built deployment scenarios so that I don't have to worry about whether the configuration sector team is doing it right or wrong. That would be very helpful."
"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."
"SonarCloud can improve the false positives. Sometimes the gates sometimes act a little weird. We then need to manually go and mark the false positive."
"The documentation needs improvement on optimizing build time for seamless CI/CD integration with our Android apps."
"Reporting features are missing in SonarCloud."
"The UI can be improved."
"I need a solution that can bring together three key areas: vulnerabilities, static scanning, and misarchitecture. Currently, to achieve our expectations, we have to use more than one product, as some products excel at scanning for vulnerabilities but are poor at checking code quality."
"I've been told by the developers that the solution is too limited. It's not testing enough within the containers."
"We had some issues with the scanner."
"There's room for improvement in the configuration process, particularly during the initial setup phase."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is open-source."
"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."
"This solution is open source and free."
"It is highly recommended as it is an open source tool."
"The solution’s pricing is high."
"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."
"The price of SonarCloud could be less expensive. We are using the community version and the price should be more reasonable."
"While not extremely cheap, it aligns well with market standards and offers good value."
"I rate the pricing a five out of ten."
"The current pricing is quite cheap."
"Previously, the pricing was 17,000 euros for five million lines analyzed. However, they now charge $15,000 per one million lines, significantly increasing the cost."
"I am using the free version of the solution."
"The price of SonarCloud is not expensive, it goes by the lines of code. 1 million lines per code are approximately 4,000 USD per year. If you need 2 million lines of code you would double the annual cost."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Insurance Company
6%
 

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 SonarCloud?
Recently, they introduced support for mono reports and microservices, which is a noteworthy development as it provides a more detailed view of each service.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SonarCloud?
From my experience, SonarQube Cloud (formerly SonarCloud) is very expensive for small companies. It would be a great improvement if the price for smaller companies were reduced, as I do not have th...
What needs improvement with SonarCloud?
I need a solution that can bring together three key areas: vulnerabilities, static scanning, and misarchitecture. Currently, to achieve our expectations, we have to use more than one product, as so...
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

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
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about OWASP Zap vs. SonarQube Cloud (formerly SonarCloud) and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,671 professionals have used our research since 2012.