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OWASP Zap vs SonarQube 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
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 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 SonarQube is 12.7%, down from 22.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Static Application Security Testing (SAST) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SonarQube12.7%
OWASP Zap2.6%
Other84.7%
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

"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.​"
"This is a very mature tool; it is capable of facilitating the work of many security experts, and I highly recommend it for beginners and advanced users when some other tools fail to catch traffic."
"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."
"The scalability of this product is very good."
"It's great that we can use it with Portswigger Burp."
"This solution is providing us with value and as long as it continues to do so, we'll continue to use it."
"The interface is easy to use."
"It helps our developers work more efficiently as we can identify things in a code prior to it being pushed to where it needs to go."
"I like that it helps us maintain our work quality and code security."
"Code Convention: Using the tool to implement some sort of coding convention is really useful and ensures that the code is consistent no matter how many contributors."
"The Java SonarQube version, which is free to use, was extremely helpful and I suggested to my managers that we purchase a license."
"A specific outcome I can share is that after integrating SonarQube into our CI/CD pipeline, we reduced production bugs by 30 to 40 percent and improved code coverage from 65 to 85 percent by enforcing the Quality Gate, along with a 25 percent reduction in technical debt over the last six to seven months post-implementation."
"We've been able to improve the quality of the products that we produce by using SonarQube."
"The integrations SonarQube provides with our software delivery pipeline are very seamless."
"The most valuable features are code scanning and Quality Gates."
 

Cons

"Zap could improve by providing better reports for security and recommendations for the vulnerabilities."
"They stopped their support for a short period. They've recently started to come back again. In the early days, support was much better."
"We get too many false positives and that should definitely be improved."
"The automatic scans need improvement. The automated vulnerability assessments that the application performs needs to be simplified as well as diversified."
"Without any support, we are in a black hole sometimes."
"The documentation is lacking and out-of-date, it really needs more love."
"Sometimes, we get some false positives."
"Deployment is somewhat complicated."
"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."
"We could use some team support, but since we are using the community version, it's not available."
"Response to queries directly to SonarSource haven't always been particularly successful, but the community forum is pretty good."
"When we have a thousand products published over it, we expect it to be more efficient in terms of serving requests from the browser."
"The exporting capabilities could be improved. Currently, exporting is fully dependent on the SonarQube environment."
"Dynamic scanning is missing and there are some issues with security scanning."
"Expression of common vulnerabilities and exposures is not always current."
"The only thing I don't like is that they removed the design libraries and dependencies-checking features from v5.2."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"OWASP Zap is free to use."
"It is open source, and we can scan freely."
"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."
"This is an open-source solution and can be used free of charge."
"OWASP ZAP is a free tool provided by OWASP’s engineers and experts. There is an option to donate."
"It is highly recommended as it is an open source tool."
"SonarQube enterprise, I am not sure of the price but from what I understand they are charging a fee. It's is not clear if it is an annual fee or a one-off."
"We are using the Developer Edition and the cost is based on the amount of code that is being processed."
"While not extremely cheap, it aligns well with market standards and offers good value."
"I was using the Community Edition, which is available free of charge."
"This solution is free."
"My guess is that we have a yearly subscription. We use it quite extensively, so a monthly license wouldn't make sense. Yearly subscriptions are usually cheaper. In addition to the standard licensing fee, there is just the cost of running the hardware where it is hosted."
"There are many different packages with different pricing options available. We are able to try what we have and if we need extra features we can upgrade the license."
"I rate the pricing a five out of ten."
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912,788 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
10%
University
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Computer Software Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

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: September 2026.
912,788 professionals have used our research since 2012.