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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 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

"The vulnerabilities that it finds, because the primary goal is to secure applications and websites."
"The community support that ZAP provides me, as an open source, provides me flexibility and is convenient to use."
"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."
"The application scanning feature is the most valuable feature."
"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."
"As Zap is free and open-source, with tons of features similar to those of commercial solutions, I would definitely recommend trying it out."
"Zap is an open-source and sophisticated product that not only saves us money but also provides us with a good amount of information."
"The best feature is the Zap HUD (Heads Up Display) because the customers can use the website normally. If we scan websites with automatic scanning, and the website has a web application firewall, it's very difficult."
"Issue Explanations: Documentation with detailed samples. Helps in growing technical knowledge and re-writing logic to conforming solutions."
"I have fallen in love with SonarQube when I could've easily built custom rules checks."
"I would absolutely recommend this solution to another company."
"It's a great product. If you are in a hurry and just want to focus on the functional requirements of any kind of project, SonarQube is highly helpful. It enables the developers to code securely. SonarQube has a Community edition, which is open source and free. There are also three proprietary or paid versions: Enterprise edition, Data Center edition, and Developer edition."
"The customizable dashboard and ability to include results and coverage from unit test and other static analysis code tools."
"Our primary use case is to provide more coverage and reduce the reliance on code reviews alone, and it also provides confidence and helps begin a path towards continuous improvement."
"The code coverage feature is very good."
"With SonarQube's web interface, it is easy to drill down to see the individual problems, but also to look at the project from above and get the big picture, with possible larger problem areas."
 

Cons

"The solution is somewhat unreliable because after we get the finding, we have to manually verify each of its findings to see whether it's a false positive or a true finding, and it takes time."
"We get too many false positives and that should definitely be improved."
"OWASP Zap could benefit from a noise cancellation feature like that of Burp Suite Professional, where AI helps reduce certain non-critical findings."
"It would be beneficial to enhance the algorithm to provide better summaries of automatic scanning results."
"Sometimes, we get some false positives."
"Too many false positives; test reports could be improved."
"They stopped their support for a short period. They've recently started to come back again. In the early days, support was much better."
"The ability to search the internet for other use cases and to use the solution to make applications more secure should be addressed."
"The implementation of the solution is straightforward. However, we did have some initial initialization issues at the of the projects. I don't think it was SonarQube's fault. It was the way it was implemented in our organization because it's mainly integrated with many software, such as Jira, Confluence, and Butler."
"When that one place has a low coverage for the most basic rules (OWASP top 10 for example) it starts to lose its value add."
"For improvement, this solution could be offered on Docker and the cloud and the support for this solution could be improved. Customizing rules could also be made simpler."
"The product needs to integrate other security tools for security scanning."
"The exporting capabilities could be improved. Currently, exporting is fully dependent on the SonarQube environment."
"SonarCloud can improve the false positives. Sometimes the gates sometimes act a little weird, and we then need to manually go and mark the false positive."
"There are sometimes security breaches in our code, which aren't be caught by SonarQube. In the security area, SonarCube has to improve. It needs to better compete with other products."
"An improvement is with false positives. Sometimes the tool can say there is an issue in your code but, really, you have to do things in a certain way due to external dependencies, and I think it's very hard to indicate this is the case."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 is open source, and we can scan freely."
"OWASP Zap is free to use."
"This is an open-source solution and can be used free of charge."
"The solution’s pricing is high."
"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."
"OWASP ZAP is a free tool provided by OWASP’s engineers and experts. There is an option to donate."
"On the pricing side, it's 3,000 Euros for 1 million lines of code."
"Can try developer version for 14 days on the free trial."
"Compared to similar solutions, SonarQube was more accessible to us and had more benefits, with regards to size of the code base and supported languages. Apart from the Enterprise licensing fee, there are no additional costs."
"It is very expensive. Its price should be improved."
"The price point on SonarQube is good."
"We are using the free, unlicensed version."
"Get the paid version which allows the customized dashboard and provides technical support."
"The solution is cheaper than other products."
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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Static Application Security Testing (SAST) solutions are best for your needs.
915,287 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
10%
University
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
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.
915,287 professionals have used our research since 2012.