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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

"​It has improved my organization with faster security tests.​"
"The interface is easy to use."
"This solution is providing us with value and as long as it continues to do so, we'll continue to use it."
"The API is exceptional."
"It's great that we can use it with Portswigger Burp."
"It can be used effectively for internal auditing."
"The most valuable feature is the spidering because, being a security person, it is very important for me to know each and every section of that application, so we cannot afford to miss any single web page or any single link on a particular website."
"OWASP is quite matured in identifying the vulnerabilities."
"When we push our code to the repo, while in continuous integration, it will run a few tests and based on the vulnerability data set it has, it can track the vulnerabilities, indicate the code line where the issue exists, and show how much code is covered by all the unit tests, integration tests, and those sorts of things."
"I find SonarQube Cloud to be very user-friendly with an easy-to-use interface."
"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 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."
"This product is leading its class in the open-source community."
"We have a big organization with a lot of applications and all of our critical applications are on this platform."
"For what it is meant to do, it works pretty well."
"SonarQube plays a key role in this endeavour and provides Senior Management oversight across multiple project teams and business deliveries."
 

Cons

"Too many false positives; test reports could be improved."
"Sometimes, we get some false positives."
"I'd also like to see an improvement in test reports because we get too many false positives."
"We get too many false positives and that should definitely be improved."
"The port scanner is a little too slow.​"
"The product reporting could be improved."
"It would be a great improvement if they could include a marketplace to add extra features to the tool."
"OWASP Zap could benefit from a noise cancellation feature like that of Burp Suite Professional, where AI helps reduce certain non-critical findings."
"It does not provide deeper scanning of vulnerabilities in an application, on a live session. This is something we are not happy about. Maybe the reason for that is we are running the community edition currently, but other editions may improve on that aspect."
"However, it takes a fair amount of effort to figure out how to get everything up and running."
"The documentation is not clear and it needs to be updated."
"SonarQube's detail in the security could be improved. It may be helpful to have additional details, with regards to Oracle PL/SQL. For example, it's neither as built nor as thorough as Java. For now, this is the only additional feature I would like to see."
"Ease of use/interface."
"I've been told by the developers that the solution is too limited. It's not testing enough within the containers."
"The security in SonarQube could be better."
"We had some issues where the Quality Gate check sometimes gets stuck and it is unclear."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"It is open source, and we can scan freely."
"OWASP Zap is free to use."
"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."
"It is highly recommended as it is an open source tool."
"The solution’s pricing is high."
"This is an open-source solution and can be used free of charge."
"For the Community edition, there is no extra cost. It's totally free. The Enterprise edition, Data Center edition, and Developer edition are the paid versions."
"I think comparing the product to competitors it should be less expensive."
"A low cost long-term solution for non-critical situations."
"The licence is standard open source licensing"
"We are using the community version of the solution and we plan on purchasing licenses for the upgraded version soon. There is a limitation on how many lines of code can be scanned and this is why we are going to purchase a license for an increased amount."
"This is open source."
"This product is open source and very convenient."
"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."
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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.
906,781 professionals have used our research since 2012.