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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)
14th
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
135
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (1st), Software Development Analytics (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of OWASP Zap is 2.9%, down from 5.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SonarQube is 14.5%, down from 24.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Static Application Security Testing (SAST) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SonarQube14.5%
OWASP Zap2.9%
Other82.6%
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.
Sathyamurthi Natarajan - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Officer (Solution Architect) at World Bank
We maintain high code standards with effective static code analysis and integration
SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) could be improved on the reporting front. Instead of grouping, I would prefer to scan the code as part of development and then generate a report on a daily basis among different units or projects, which is currently complicated. We need to change it to more of a portfolio report, where configuring or setting up things on the portfolio requires tagging at the ADO level.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Automatic updates and pull request analysis."
"I consider OWASP Zap to be the most effective solution overall; being open source allows integration with other systems via OWASP Zap APIs."
"If you're a company and you've got your own websites, internally and externally, it's great."
"The vulnerabilities that it finds, because the primary goal is to secure applications and websites."
"It has evolved over the years and recently in the last year they have added, HUD (Heads Up Display)."
"Simple and easy to learn and master."
"ZAP is easy to use. The automated scan is a powerful feature. You can simulate attacks with various parameters. ZAP integrates well with SonarQube."
"The application scanning feature is the most valuable feature."
"The most valuable features are the wide array of languages, multiple languages per project, the breakdown of bugs, and the description of vulnerabilities and code smells (best practices)."
"This is a good solution if you are looking for good coverage, quality, and vulnerabilities to be highlighted."
"SonarQube is good in terms of code review and to report on basic vulnerabilities in your applications."
"The solution provides continuous code analysis which has improved the quality of our code. It can raise alarms on vulnerabilities with immediate reports on the dashboard. Few things are false positives and we can customize the rules."
"Apart from the security point of view, I like that it makes it easy to detect code smells and other issues in terms of code quality and standards."
"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."
"This solution has the capability to analyze source code in almost all the languages in the market."
"The most valuable features are the analysis and detection of issues within the application code."
 

Cons

"If there was an easier to understand exactly what has been checked and what has not been checked, it would make this solution better. We have to trust that it has checked all known vulnerabilities but it's a bit hard to see after the scanning."
"We have had stability issues a few times."
"There's very little documentation that comes with OWASP Zap."
"The forced browse has been incorporated into the program and it is resource-intensive."
"There isn't too much information about it online."
"The computers perform somewhat slowly when loading a large number of queries into memory."
"Too many false positives; test reports could be improved."
"I would like to see a version of “repeater” within OWASP ZAP, a tool capable of sending from one to 1000 of the same requests, but with preselected modified fields, changing from a predetermined word ​list, or manually created."
"Our developers have complained about the Quality Gates and the number of false positives that this product reports."
"Improvements could be made in terms of security. I would like to see dynamic code analysis in the next version of the software."
"I have found this solution creates more noise than competitors."
"Expression of common vulnerabilities and exposures is not always current."
"In discussions with the security team, there are many other products that are available that perform better."
"From a reporting perspective, we sometimes have problems interpreting the vulnerability scan reports. For example, if it finds a possible threat, our analysts have to manually check the provided reports, and sometimes we have issues getting all the data needed to properly verify if it's accurate or not."
"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."
"There are times that we have the database crash. However, this might be an issue with how we have configured it and not a software issue. Apart from this, I do not see any issues with the solution."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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 is an open-source solution and can be used free of charge."
"OWASP Zap is free to use."
"It is open source, and we can scan freely."
"The tool is open-source."
"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."
"I think comparing the product to competitors it should be less expensive."
"It is very expensive. Its price should be improved."
"We are using the open-source version, which is available free of cost."
"On the pricing side, it's 3,000 Euros for 1 million lines of code."
"The development license cost is reasonable, and we've had no concerns about SonarQube when it comes to cost."
"The licence is standard open source licensing"
"I am using the free version of the solution."
"We are using the Developer Edition and the cost is based on the amount of code that is being processed."
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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 Business43
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise79
 

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.
900,277 professionals have used our research since 2012.