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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

"Technical support is excellent."
"They offer free access to some other tools."
"It can be used effectively for internal auditing."
"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 automatic scanning is a valuable feature and very easy, and the major advantage to this solution is the privacy it offers."
"It scans while you navigate, then you can save the requests performed and work with them later."
"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 product discovers more vulnerabilities compared to other tools."
"SonarQube is easy for me; I am recruiting buggy code with this, and it is reporting, showing that this code should not be like this and the reason for it, such as advising when you should declare a static function or why you should or should not initialize a variable, which is an amazing feature."
"If you are looking for full coverage and quality improvement then it is the best product to use."
"Strong code evaluation for budget-minded clients."
"We have worked with the support from SonarQube and we have had good experiences."
"SonarQube is useful for controlling all of our Azure task tracking and scanning."
"We were trying to serve two purposes; work quality and code security, with one tool."
"I like that the solution can be installed locally."
"We previously used Codacy, but we switched to SonarCloud because of their good reputation and we compared reports from both of them and SonarCloud seems to be more accurate."
 

Cons

"ZAP's integration with cloud-based CICD pipelines could be better. The scan should run through the entire pipeline."
"I would recommend this product to people although I think it is very difficult to deploy and we also have issues with maintenance."
"Deployment is somewhat complicated."
"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."
"I'd like to see a kind of feature where we can just track what our last vulnerability was and how it has improved or not. More reports that can have some kind of base-lining, I think that would be a good feature too. I'm not sure whether it can be achieved and implement but I think that would really help."
"The port scanner is a little too slow.​"
"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."
"The documentation needs to be improved because I had to learn everything from watching YouTube videos."
"Their dashboarding is very limited. They can improve their dashboards for multiple areas, such as security review, maintainability, etc. They have all this information, so they should publish all this information on the dashboard so that the users can view the summary and then analyze it further. This is something that I would like to see in the next version."
"The documentation is not clear and it needs to be updated."
"There is room for improvement in the code security space which is not as extensive as it could be. There are other products on the market which are much better in terms of code security scanning."
"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."
"SonarQube needs some improvement in its ability to find security-related issues."
"However, it takes a fair amount of effort to figure out how to get everything up and running."
"We're in the process of figuring out how to automate the workflow for QA audit controls on it. I think that's perhaps an area that we could use some buffing. We're a Kubernetes shop, so there are some things that aren't direct fits, which we're struggling with on the component Docker side. But nothing major."
"It should be user-friendly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This app is completely free and open source. So there is no question about any pricing."
"The tool is open-source."
"This is an open-source solution and can be used free of charge."
"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."
"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 free to use."
"We have used the freeware version. I believe Zap only has freeware."
"This product is open source and very convenient."
"I rate the pricing a five out of ten."
"I use the full trial version of SonarQube."
"Can try developer version for 14 days on the free trial."
"SonarQube is a fairly affordable solution for a larger scale if you have a specific role or specific department for secure code."
"The price point on SonarQube is good."
"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."
"The current pricing is quite cheap."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
University
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
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: April 2026.
896,942 professionals have used our research since 2012.