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OWASP Zap vs SonarQube comparison

 

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)
16th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
41
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SonarQube
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
137
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (1st), Software Development Analytics (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of OWASP Zap is 2.8%, down from 5.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SonarQube is 14.2%, down from 23.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Static Application Security Testing (SAST) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SonarQube14.2%
OWASP Zap2.8%
Other83.0%
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.
Vitthal Gole - PeerSpot reviewer
Devops Engineer at AIQOD
Automated code checks have improved quality gates and prevent weak code from reaching production
SonarQube could improve by reducing false positives in its static code analysis; while its detection capabilities are strong, some findings require manual verification, increasing developers' workload. More accurate analysis would enhance productivity, and SonarQube would benefit from enhanced AI-powered recommendations for fixing issues. For instance, in our pipeline, if it fails during SonarQube stage, we could check the dashboard for identified issues involving code smells, bugs, or duplicacy. An AI feature should be integrated into SonarQube to resolve issues quickly; optimizing scanning performance for very large repositories and providing faster analysis times would enhance the developer experience, especially in large code bases with frequent commits. For anyone planning to implement SonarQube, I advise starting by defining coding standards first and integrating Quality Gates into the pipeline. You can customize quality profiles to match project requirements; rather than relying entirely on default rules, you can adjust settings for stronger detection and enforcement. Organizations with advanced security, branch analysis, and governance features might consider commercial editions based on their needs.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"They offer free access to some other tools."
"The product discovers more vulnerabilities compared to other tools."
"We use OWASP Zap for web application security scanning."
"Zap is an open-source and sophisticated product that not only saves us money but also provides us with a good amount of information."
"The OWASP's tool is free of cost, which gives it a great advantage, especially for smaller companies to make use of the tool and at the same time give a comprehensive report with great confidence to the client for helping them in their go-live decision."
"Simple to use, good user interface."
"It scans while you navigate, then you can save the requests performed and work with them later."
"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."
"This solution has evolved a lot in the last ten years and it comes with good DevOps implementation and security, which is a big problem today."
"The features of SonarQube that I find most valuable for identifying code smells are its comprehensive code analysis capabilities, which cover various aspects of code sustainability."
"We use this solution for qualitative coding. We make use of the SonarLint plugin as well as the dashboard."
"The overall quality of the indicator is good."
"Strong code evaluation for budget-minded clients."
"We can create a Quality Gate in order to fail Jenkins jobs where the code coverage is lower than the set percentage."
"SonarQube's unit test coverage and exhaustive information at the module, project, and overall code repo levels are quite good."
"It automatically scans for code, detects vulnerabilities, and generates daily reports."
 

Cons

"Reporting format has no output, is cluttered and very long."
"The solution is unable to customize reports."
"The forced browse has been incorporated into the program and it is resource-intensive."
"The disadvantage of Zap is that we're unable to customize reports as it only has a single standard format."
"The reporting feature could be more descriptive."
"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."
"Zap could improve by providing better reports for security and recommendations for the vulnerabilities."
"The product should allow users to customize the report based on their needs."
"After scanning our code and generating a report, it would be helpful if SonarQube could also generate a solution to fix vulnerabilities in the report."
"SonarQube can improve by scanning the internal library which currently it does not do. We are looking for a solution for this."
"Depending on the tool's configuration, sometimes you get false alarms that are unimportant to you."
"SonarQube could improve by reducing false positives in its static code analysis; while its detection capabilities are strong, some findings require manual verification, increasing developers' workload."
"It should be user-friendly."
"There could be better integration with other products. It could have more functionality, and the updates could be faster."
"SonarQube is not development-centric like Snyk."
"The UI can be improved. Additionally, in future updates, I would like to see SonarQube Cloud provide more detailed solutions for fixing code issues, especially solutions related to CVEs."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This is an open-source solution and can be used free of charge."
"OWASP Zap is free to use."
"As Zap is free and open-source, with tons of features similar to those of commercial solutions, I would definitely recommend trying it out."
"The solution’s pricing is high."
"This app is completely free and open source. So there is no question about any pricing."
"The tool is open source."
"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'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 developer edition is based on cost per lines of code."
"I requested this license for one million lines of code and they accepted this."
"I do not know about the pricing as I am using the community edition, which is free. But I compared the pricing with Sigma, and it is higher than SonarQube."
"The price point on SonarQube is good."
"We did not purchase a license (required for C++ support), but this option was considered."
"I think comparing the product to competitors it should be less expensive."
"The current pricing is quite cheap."
"The price of this solution is more expensive than competitors. However, it works better than competitors."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
University
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Computer Software Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

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 Business44
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise80
 

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...
Is SonarQube the best tool for static analysis?
I am not very familiar with SonarQube and their solutions, so I can not answer. But if you are asking me about which tools that are the best for for Static Code Analysis, I suggest you have a look...
Which gives you more for your money - SonarQube or Veracode?
SonarQube is easy to deploy and configure, and also integrates well with other tools to do quality code analysis. SonarQube has a great community edition, which is open-source and free. Easy to use...
How would you decide between Coverity and Sonarqube?
We researched Coverity, but in the end, we chose SonarQube. SonarQube is a tool for reviewing code quality and security. It helps to guide our development teams during code reviews by providing rem...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
Sonar, SonarQube Cloud
 

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
Snowflake, Booking.com, Deutsche Bank, AstraZeneca, and Ford Motor Company.
Find out what your peers are saying about OWASP Zap vs. SonarQube and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
907,664 professionals have used our research since 2012.