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OWASP Zap vs SonarQube comparison

Why PeerSpot?
 

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
6.9
Number of Reviews
139
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

"Zap is an open-source and sophisticated product that not only saves us money but also provides us with a good amount of information."
"This solution has improved my organization because it has made us feel safer doing frequent deployments for web applications. If we have something really big, we might get some professional company in to help us but if we're releasing small products, we will check it ourselves with Zap. It makes it easier and safer."
"The stability of the solution is very good."
"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."
"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."
"Automatic updates and pull request analysis."
"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 API is exceptional."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is that it is free."
"What I like about SonarQube is the integration of the pipelines."
"It automatically scans for code, detects vulnerabilities, and generates daily reports."
"We can create a Quality Gate in order to fail Jenkins jobs where the code coverage is lower than the set percentage."
"I like that it covers most programming languages for source code review."
"Its dashboard provides a unified view of various code quality metrics, including code duplication, unit test coverage, and security hotspots."
"We've configured it to run on each commit, providing feedback on our software quality. ]"
"I like that it's easy to navigate not just in terms of code findings but you can actually see them in the context of your source code because it gives you a copy of your code with the items that it found and highlights them. You can see it directly in your code, so you can easily go back and make the corrections in the code. It basically finds the problems for you and tells you where they are."
 

Cons

"The computers perform somewhat slowly when loading a large number of queries into memory."
"The documentation needs to be improved because I had to learn everything from watching YouTube videos."
"We have had stability issues a few times."
"As security evolves, we would like DevOps built into it. As of now, Zap does not provide this."
"The work that it does in the limited scope is good, but the scope is very limited in terms of the scanning features. The number of things it tests or finds is limited. They need to make it a more of a mainstream tool that people can use, and they can even think about having it on a proprietary basis. They need to increase the coverage of the scan and the results that it finds. That has always been Zap's limitation. Zap is a very good tool for a beginner, but once you start moving up the ladder where you want further details and you want your scan to show more in-depth results, Zap falls short because its coverage falls short. It does not have the capacity to do more."
"The documentation is lacking and out-of-date, it really needs more love."
"I prefer Burp Suite to SWASP Zap because of the extensive coverage it offers."
"OWASP should work on reducing false positives by using AI and ML algorithms. They should expand their capabilities for broader coverage of business logic flaws and complex issues."
"Since most of our projects are open source, there are multiple features which can be improved."
"There are times that we have the database crash."
"It would be better if SonarQube provided a good UI for external configuration."
"Our developers have complained about the Quality Gates and the number of false positives that this product reports."
"We did have some trouble with the LDAP integration for the console."
"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."
"I think the code security can be improved."
"I would like to see SonarQube implement a good amount of improvements to the product's security features. Another aspect of SonarQube that could be improved is the search functionality."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is open-source."
"This solution is open source and free."
"It is highly recommended as it is an open source tool."
"The solution’s pricing is high."
"OWASP ZAP is a free tool provided by OWASP’s engineers and experts. There is an option to donate."
"The tool is open source."
"OWASP Zap is free to use."
"It is open source, and we can scan freely."
"We're using the Community Edition, and we don't pay for anything."
"SonarQube price is a little bit higher than Kiuwan's. Kiuwan also gives a little bit of flexibility in terms of pricing."
"The beauty of this solution is the free open-source version is capable enough in doing pretty much what an enterprise-level version can do."
"It's an open-source solution, with no additional costs."
"Can try developer version for 14 days on the free trial."
"SonarQube is a cost-effective solution."
"We are using the free, unlicensed version."
"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."
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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Static Application Security Testing (SAST) solutions are best for your needs.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
University
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
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 Business45
Midsize Enterprise25
Large Enterprise81
 

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.
918,957 professionals have used our research since 2012.