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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
138
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

"OWASP is the best."
"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."
"It has evolved over the years and recently in the last year they have added, HUD (Heads Up Display)."
"The interface is easy to use."
"Simple to use, good user interface."
"The product discovers more vulnerabilities compared to other tools."
"The solution is scalable."
"It can be used effectively for internal auditing."
"The integration with Atlassian Jira is very useful and it works very well."
"If you want to see your reports, and how your development is performing, Sonar is the best tool, I think."
"I would recommend SonarQube to other users as it is a good solution and the security issues we experienced are being fixed."
"We have worked with the support from SonarQube and we have had good experiences."
"Engineers now feel much more proud of their solution as they gain confidence from these scans and their results."
"Some of the most valuable features have been the latest up-to-date of the OWASP, the monitoring, the reporting, and the ease of use with the IDE plugins, in terms of integration."
"The reporting and the results are quick. It gets integrated within the pipeline well."
"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."
 

Cons

"The technical support team must be proactive."
"Lacks resources where users can internally access a learning module from the tool."
"We get too many false positives and that should definitely be improved."
"Deployment is somewhat complicated."
"Sometimes, we get some false positives."
"Reporting format has no output, is cluttered and very long."
"The automatic scans need improvement. The automated vulnerability assessments that the application performs needs to be simplified as well as diversified."
"There are areas for improvement with OWASP Zap, particularly in the alignment of vulnerabilities concerning CVSS scores."
"Expression of common vulnerabilities and exposures is not always current."
"I see a problem with SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) because the vulnerability assessment is continuous; if I fix some vulnerabilities today, they reappear in the next scan, and there will be completely different issues that need to be fixed."
"I believe SonarQube is quite focused on quality, but it should improve its strength in code security by implementing some strict AppSec audit rules on the platform."
"However, time and time again, some issues become annoying, since they are actually not issues."
"The pricing could be reduced a bit. It's a little expensive."
"The worst about this tool I think is the upgrade method, and it's really easy to wreck the database when upgrading."
"Fortify is a better security tool; it is better than SonarQube in finding errors, and sometimes SonarQube doesn't find some of the errors that Fortify is able to find."
"However, it takes a fair amount of effort to figure out how to get everything up and running."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"We have used the freeware version. I believe Zap only has freeware."
"This is an open-source solution and can be used free of charge."
"As Zap is free and open-source, with tons of features similar to those of commercial solutions, I would definitely recommend trying it out."
"This solution is open source and free."
"The tool is open-source."
"The product’s price is lower than Veracode’s price."
"It's a bit expensive for us. The currency rate of the dollar is a problem but it may be fine for other countries."
"We use the tool's community edition."
"A low cost long-term solution for non-critical situations."
"Get the paid version which allows the customized dashboard and provides technical support."
"On the pricing side, it's 3,000 Euros for 1 million lines of code."
"There is both a free and licensed version. The free version has limitations on development languages and support."
"The solution is cheaper than other products."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
University
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
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 Business45
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.
916,197 professionals have used our research since 2012.