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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)
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
7.0
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

"Simple and easy to learn and master."
"It has evolved over the years and recently in the last year they have added, HUD (Heads Up Display)."
"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."
"The solution is good at reporting the vulnerabilities of the application."
"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."
"Technical support is excellent."
"Simple to use, good user interface."
"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."
"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."
"For what it is meant to do, it works pretty well."
"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."
"I would absolutely recommend this solution to another company."
"Issue Explanations: Documentation with detailed samples. Helps in growing technical knowledge and re-writing logic to conforming solutions."
"It automatically scans for code, detects vulnerabilities, and generates daily reports."
"SonarQube ensures that we release a good quality of code to our customers."
"SonarQube is useful for controlling all of our Azure task tracking and scanning."
 

Cons

"The computers perform somewhat slowly when loading a large number of queries into memory."
"For scalability, I would rate OWASP Zap between four to five out of ten."
"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."
"It needs more robust reporting tools that can be in an editable form."
"Reporting format has no output, is cluttered and very long."
"There isn't too much information about it online."
"It would be nice to have a solid SQL injection engine built into Zap."
"When comparing OWASP Zap and Burp Suite, the main difference besides pricing is that OWASP Zap has limitations with reporting levels and UI, which affects its reporting capabilities, whereas Burp Suite is already advancing with new AI features and scanning capabilities that OWASP Zap seems to be lacking."
"We could use some team support, but since we are using the community version, it's not available."
"If I configure a project in SonarQube, it generates a token. When we're compiling our code with SonarQube, we have to provide the token for security reasons."
"It is very expensive."
"Technical support could be better. If we request support, it's a little bit delayed, and it's not consistent on email."
"Technical support and the price could be better."
"There could be better integration with other products. It could have more functionality, and the updates could be faster."
"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."
"Improvements could be made in terms of security. I would like to see dynamic code analysis in the next version of the software."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"OWASP ZAP is a free tool provided by OWASP’s engineers and experts. There is an option to donate."
"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."
"The tool is open-source."
"The tool is open source."
"The solution’s pricing is high."
"It is highly recommended as it is an open source tool."
"It is open source, and we can scan freely."
"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."
"We use the solution 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."
"We're using their free Community Edition version."
"We are using the free, unlicensed version."
"It is very expensive. Its price should be improved."
"It's an open-source product."
"The free version of SonarQube does everything that we need it to."
"We are using the Community edition of SonarQube."
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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 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.
906,960 professionals have used our research since 2012.