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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 pull request analysis is also very good."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten. I think it's stable enough. I don't see any crashes within the application, so its stability is high."
"Fuzzer and Java APIs help a lot with our custom needs."
"The automatic scanning is a valuable feature and very easy, and the major advantage to this solution is the privacy it offers."
"The API is exceptional."
"The valuable features are that it's very simple to use and the user interface is very good, particularly for beginners so they can start the application easily."
"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 solution is good at reporting the vulnerabilities of the application."
"The static code analysis of the solution is the most important aspect for us. When it comes to security breaches within the code, we can leverage some rules to allow us to identify the repetition in our code and the possible targets that we may have. It makes it very easy to review our code for security purposes."
"The code coverage feature is very good."
"The features of SonarQube that I find most valuable for identifying code smells are its comprehensive code analysis capabilities, which cover various aspects of code sustainability."
"SonarQube is good for checking and maintaining code quality."
"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."
"The solution's user interface is very user-friendly."
"We've been able to improve the quality of the products that we produce by using SonarQube."
"With this, we have delivered a quality product to our stakeholders."
 

Cons

"There are too many 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."
"We're currently moving away from OWASP to PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional; it's more user-friendly with a better interface."
"We have had stability issues a few times."
"It doesn't run on absolutely every operating system."
"ZAP's integration with cloud-based CICD pipelines could be better. The scan should run through the entire pipeline."
"It would be beneficial to enhance the algorithm to provide better summaries of automatic scanning results."
"It is very expensive."
"I would like to see improvements in defining the quality sets of rules and the quality to ensure code with low-performance does not end up in production."
"In terms of analysis and findings, other tools provide more in-depth insights and detailed steps to mitigate or handle issues."
"We could use some team support, but since we are using the community version, it's not available."
"The solution could improve by providing more advanced technologies."
"The product must improve security analysis."
"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."
"The solution could improve the management reports by making them easier to understand for the technical team that needs to review them."
 

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."
"As Zap is free and open-source, with tons of features similar to those of commercial solutions, I would definitely recommend trying it out."
"The tool is open-source."
"OWASP Zap is free to use."
"We have used the freeware version. I believe Zap only has freeware."
"The tool is open source."
"This is an open-source solution and can be used free of charge."
"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."
"Some of the plugins that were previously free are not free now."
"On the pricing side, it's 3,000 Euros for 1 million lines of code."
"We have a license with 125,000 lines of code. We did not purchase a lot of lines but it is specific to our code environment."
"We're using an older version because it is the open-source flavor of it and we can continue using it at no cost. We're not paying any licensing at all, which was another factor in choosing this route so that we can learn and grow with it and not be committed to licenses and other similar things. If we choose to get something else, we have to relearn, but we don't have to relicense. Basically, we're paying no license costs."
"There is both a free and licensed version. The free version has limitations on development languages and support."
"The price of the solution could be reduced."
"Previously, the pricing was 17,000 euros for five million lines analyzed. However, they now charge $15,000 per one million lines, significantly increasing the cost."
"SonarQube is a fairly affordable solution for a larger scale if you have a specific role or specific department for secure code."
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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.
915,325 professionals have used our research since 2012.