No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

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
7.1
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

"We use OWASP Zap for web application security scanning."
"This solution is providing us with value and as long as it continues to do so, we'll continue to use it."
"The reporting is quite intuitive, which gives you a clear indication of what kind of vulnerability you have that you can drill down on to gather more information."
"Simple and easy to learn and master."
"The vulnerabilities that it finds, because the primary goal is to secure applications and websites."
"​It has improved my organization with faster security tests.​"
"The product has improved our application security engagement, helps with our in-house review so we sometimes don't need an external third-party tester, and once we get it from OWASP Zap, we have an idea of the inherent vulnerabilities in the application, which is a plus to save cost and improve our application accuracy practice."
"Simple to use, good user interface."
"There's plenty of documentation available to users."
"SonarQube is good in terms of code review and to report on basic vulnerabilities in your applications."
"One of the most valuable features of SonarQube is its ability to detect code quality during development. There are rules that define various technologies—Java, C#, Python, everything—and these rules declare the coding standards and code quality. With SonarQube, everything is detectable during the time of development and continuous integration, which is an advantage. SonarQube also has a Quality Gate, where the code should reach 85%. Below that, the code cannot be promoted to a further environment, it should be in a development environment only. So the checks are there, and SonarQube will provide that increase. It also provides suggestions on how the code can be fixed and methods of going about this, without allowing hackers to exploit the code. Another valuable feature is that it is tightly integrated with third-party tools. For example, we can see the SonarQube metrics in Bitbucket, the code repository. Once I raise the full request, the developer, team lead, or even the delivery lead can see the code quality metrics of the deliverable so that they can make a decision. SonarQube will also cover all of the top OWASP vulnerabilities, however it doesn't have penetration testing or hacker testing. We use other tools, like Checkmarx, to do penetration testing from the outside."
"Any developer can easily identify issues using the process flow or steps provided by SonarQube. In terms of integration, SonarQube makes it quite easy, simplifying the steps for users."
"Integrate it into the developers' workbench so that they can bench check their code against what will be done in the server-based audit version."
"The most valuable features are that it is user-friendly, easy to access, and they provide good training files."
"SonarQube is a very good tool; it is lightweight and very cost effective as compared to IBM AppScan, and the dashboard is really neat and easy to operate, giving a lot of information that makes it very easy for the developers."
"The freemium version of SonarQube Server offers excellent value, especially compared to the high costs of Snyk."
 

Cons

"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."
"It would be ideal if I could try some pre-built deployment scenarios so that I don't have to worry about whether the configuration sector team is doing it right or wrong. That would be very helpful."
"It's possibly just a limitation of the product itself but sometimes it won't scan a particular website so you have to manually go in and make some configuration changes."
"Without any support, we are in a black hole sometimes."
"The disadvantage of Zap is that we're unable to customize reports as it only has a single standard format."
"The documentation needs to be improved because I had to learn everything from watching YouTube videos."
"OWASP Zap could benefit from a noise cancellation feature like that of Burp Suite Professional, where AI helps reduce certain non-critical findings."
"CI/CD pipeline is part of a whole chain of design, development, and production, and it's becoming increasingly crucial to optimize the various tools across different stages. However, it's still a silo approach because the full integration is missing. This isn't just an issue with SonarCloud. It's a general problem with tooling."
"The documentation needs improvement on optimizing build time for seamless CI/CD integration with our Android apps."
"The Python code scan has so few rules that it is meaningless."
"A better design of the interface and add some new rules."
"The product's pricing could be lower."
"The worst about this tool I think is the upgrade method, and it's really easy to wreck the database when upgrading."
"When we have a thousand products published over it, we expect it to be more efficient in terms of serving requests from the browser."
"I have found this solution creates more noise than competitors."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is highly recommended as it is an open source tool."
"It is open source, and we can scan freely."
"The solution’s pricing is high."
"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 a free tool provided by OWASP’s engineers and experts. There is an option to donate."
"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."
"This app is completely free and open source. So there is no question about any pricing."
"The tool is open-source."
"On the pricing side, it's 3,000 Euros for 1 million lines of code."
"The price of SonarCloud is not expensive, it goes by the lines of code. 1 million lines per code are approximately 4,000 USD per year. If you need 2 million lines of code you would double the annual cost."
"The licence is standard open source licensing"
"I was using the Community Edition, which is available free of charge."
"The tool's pricing is reasonable."
"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."
"My guess is that we have a yearly subscription. We use it quite extensively, so a monthly license wouldn't make sense. Yearly subscriptions are usually cheaper. In addition to the standard licensing fee, there is just the cost of running the hardware where it is hosted."
"The product’s price is lower than Veracode’s price."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Static Application Security Testing (SAST) solutions are best for your needs.
904,680 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

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.
904,680 professionals have used our research since 2012.