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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
6.9
Number of Reviews
139
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (1st), Software Development Analytics (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of OWASP Zap is 2.5%, down from 4.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SonarQube is 12.6%, down from 21.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Static Application Security Testing (SAST) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SonarQube12.6%
OWASP Zap2.5%
Other84.9%
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

"Simple and easy to learn and master."
"We use the solution for security testing."
"Fuzzer and Java APIs help a lot with our custom needs."
"The solution enables a person to add the certificate and check the queries, to see if there are any that are undefined, so a person can have a list of the types of queries and can trace them."
"It has evolved over the years and recently in the last year they have added, HUD (Heads Up Display)."
"​It has improved my organization with faster security tests.​"
"The vulnerabilities that it finds, because the primary goal is to secure applications and websites."
"The scalability of this product is very good."
"The depth features I have found most valuable, as you receive a quick comprehensive comparison overview regarding the current release and the last release and what type of depths dependency or duplication should be used, which is going to help you to make more readable code and have more flexibility for the engineers to understand how things should work when they do not know."
"This has improved our organization because it has helped to find Security Vulnerabilities."
"The most valuable features of SonarQube Cloud (formerly SonarCloud) include code inspection, addressing technical debt, and identifying security vulnerabilities."
"Higher code quality. Faster to market. Less errors."
"I would recommend SonarQube to other users as it is a good solution and the security issues we experienced are being fixed."
"We have a big organization with a lot of applications and all of our critical applications are on this platform."
"This is a good solution if you are looking for good coverage, quality, and vulnerabilities to be highlighted."
"We previously used Codacy, but we switched to SonarCloud because of their good reputation and we compared reports from both of them and SonarCloud seems to be more accurate."
 

Cons

"Lacks resources where users can internally access a learning module from the tool."
"The automatic scans need improvement. The automated vulnerability assessments that the application performs needs to be simplified as well as diversified."
"The port scanner is a little too slow.​"
"OWASP should work on reducing false positives by using AI and ML algorithms. They should expand their capabilities for broader coverage of business logic flaws and complex issues."
"There are too many false positives."
"They stopped their support for a short period. They've recently started to come back again. In the early days, support was much better."
"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."
"As security evolves, we would like DevOps built into it. As of now, Zap does not provide this."
"That being said, there are better solutions in the market when it comes to SAST scanning."
"A better design of the interface and add some new rules."
"Technical support could be better. If we request support, it's a little bit delayed, and it's not consistent on email."
"I think SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) should improve by integrating a new feature that includes AI. As soon as I see that they've got a new feature that integrates AI that is not as generative as other GenAI platforms that actually generate the code and help developers develop faster, I believe that capability is lacking."
"Although it has Sonar built into it, it is still lacking. Customization features of identifying a particular attack still need to be worked on. To give you an example: if we want to scan and do a false positive analysis, those types of features are missing. If we want to rescan something from a particular point that is a feature that is also missing. It’s in our queue. That will hopefully save a lot of time."
"You may need to purchase add-ons to get the useability you desire."
"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."
"Having performance regression would be a helpful add on or ability to be able to do during the scan."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is open source, and we can scan freely."
"As Zap is free and open-source, with tons of features similar to those of commercial solutions, I would definitely recommend trying it out."
"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 tool is open-source."
"We have used the freeware version. I believe Zap only has freeware."
"OWASP Zap is free to use."
"This app is completely free and open source. So there is no question about any pricing."
"We are using the Developer Edition and the cost is based on the amount of code that is being processed."
"We pay €10 per month for this solution, which is good. It provides a good value for money."
"I use the full trial version of SonarQube."
"The current pricing is quite cheap."
"The development license cost is reasonable, and we've had no concerns about SonarQube when it comes to cost."
"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."
"People can try the free licenses and later can seek buying plugins/support, etc. once they started liking it."
"The developer edition is based on cost per lines of code."
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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Static Application Security Testing (SAST) solutions are best for your needs.
919,809 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
University
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
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 Business45
Midsize Enterprise25
Large Enterprise81
 

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.
919,809 professionals have used our research since 2012.