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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)
12th
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 November 2026, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of OWASP Zap is 2.5%, down from 4.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SonarQube is 12.3%, down from 21.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Static Application Security Testing (SAST) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SonarQube12.3%
OWASP Zap2.5%
Other85.2%
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 quite matured in identifying the vulnerabilities."
"If you're a company and you've got your own websites, internally and externally, it's great."
"Two features are valuable. The first one is that the scan gets completed really quickly, and the second one is that even though it searches in a limited scope, what it does in that limited scope is very good. When you use Zap for testing, you're only using it for specific aspects or you're only looking for certain things. It works very well in that limited scope."
"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 HUD, Heads Up Display, is a good feature; it provides on-site testing and saves a lot of time."
"The solution is good at reporting the vulnerabilities of the application."
"OWASP Zap is a good tool, one of my favorites for a long time, and I would recommend it."
"Automatic updates and pull request analysis."
"The product itself has a friendly UI, it's easy to use and we understand how to manage the admin control panel, it's really quick, and it's really easy to perform admin jobs using the control panel."
"It easily outperforms other static code tools — It's perfect as a static code analysis tool."
"SonarQube's unit test coverage and exhaustive information at the module, project, and overall code repo levels are quite good."
"The product itself has a friendly UI."
"I would absolutely recommend this solution to another company."
"We have a big organization with a lot of applications and all of our critical applications are on this platform."
"Provides local scanning for developers."
"The solution has a plug-in that supports both C and C++ languages."
 

Cons

"There are too many false positives."
"The ability to search the internet for other use cases and to use the solution to make applications more secure should be addressed."
"They stopped their support for a short period. They've recently started to come back again. In the early days, support was much better."
"Too many false positives; test reports could be improved."
"It needs more robust reporting tools that can be in an editable form."
"It would be a great improvement if they could include a marketplace to add extra features to the tool."
"There's very little documentation that comes with OWASP Zap."
"As security evolves, we would like DevOps built into it. As of now, Zap does not provide this."
"This solution finds issues that are similar to what is found by Checkmarx, and it would be nice if the overlap could be eliminated."
"SonarQube is missing specific SAST capabilities."
"I find it is light on the security side though."
"It requires advanced heuristics to recognize more complex constructs that could be disregarded as issues."
"Currently requires multiple tools, lacking one overall tool."
"There is room for improvement in the code security space which is not as extensive as it could be. There are other products on the market which are much better in terms of code security scanning."
"Ease of use/interface."
"If the product could assist us with fixing issues by giving us more pointers then it would help to resolve more of the warnings without such a commitment in terms of time."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 open source, and we can scan freely."
"It is highly recommended as it is an open source tool."
"The tool is open-source."
"OWASP ZAP is a free tool provided by OWASP’s engineers and experts. There is an option to donate."
"As Zap is free and open-source, with tons of features similar to those of commercial solutions, I would definitely recommend trying it out."
"OWASP Zap is free to use."
"The tool is open source."
"A low cost long-term solution for non-critical situations."
"We are using the free, unlicensed version."
"The free version of SonarQube does everything that we need it to."
"We are using the open-source version, which is available free of cost."
"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."
"SonarQube price is a little bit higher than Kiuwan's. Kiuwan also gives a little bit of flexibility in terms of pricing."
"The tool's pricing is reasonable."
"While not extremely cheap, it aligns well with market standards and offers good value."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
University
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
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: November 2026.
921,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.