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OWASP Zap vs SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 15, 2025

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)
11th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
41
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SonarQube Server (formerly ...
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
117
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (1st), Software Development Analytics (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of OWASP Zap is 4.6%, up from 4.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) is 20.3%, down from 27.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Static Application Security Testing (SAST) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube)20.3%
OWASP Zap4.6%
Other75.1%
Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
 

Featured Reviews

Amit Beniwal - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Sthembiso Zondi - PeerSpot reviewer
Consistent improvements in code quality and security with effective integration and reliable technical support
The features of SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) that I find most useful are the suggestions received from reviewing the code. When they review the code, they provide suggestions on how to fix it, and we find those very useful from a development perspective. We use SonarQube Server's (formerly SonarQube) centralized management and visualization of code quality metrics on the dashboard because that's the executive dashboard that we send to the executives to show where we are in terms of quality, security, and where the company can improve. We use that for organizational improvement purposes. The ability to tailor metrics tracking in SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) has been beneficial to my team. There are team-specific dashboards which are related to specific repositories they utilize, and we have that aggregative dashboard that shows the whole organization's performance. We can drill down per specific repository, which makes it easier for the team to improve specific things.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It scans while you navigate, then you can save the requests performed and work with them later."
"It updates repositories and libraries quickly."
"The product discovers more vulnerabilities compared to other tools."
"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."
"​It has improved my organization with faster security tests.​"
"The solution has tightened our security."
"Automatic scanning is a valuable feature and very easy to use."
"ZAP is easy to use. The automated scan is a powerful feature. You can simulate attacks with various parameters. ZAP integrates well with SonarQube."
"Code Convention: Using the tool to implement some sort of coding convention is really useful and ensures that the code is consistent no matter how many contributors."
"The solution can verify vulnerabilities, code smells, and hotspots. It makes the software more secure and it helps make a junior or novice developer sharper."
"The most valuable features are the segregation containment and the suspension of product services."
"It assists during the development with SonarLint and helps the developer to change his approach or rather improve his coding pattern or style. That's one advantage I've seen. Another advantage is that we can customize the rules."
"We have the software metrics that SonarQube gives us, which is something we did not have before. This helps us work towards aiming coding standards to empower us to move in the direction of better code quality. SonarQube provides targets and metrics for that."
"It is a good deal compared to all other tools on the market."
"We've configured it to run on each commit, providing feedback on our software quality. ]"
"SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) is very stable."
 

Cons

"It doesn't run on absolutely every operating system."
"Online documentation can be improved to utilize all features of ZAP and API methods to make use in automation."
"The documentation is lacking and out-of-date, it really needs more love."
"There isn't too much information about it online."
"The product should allow users to customize the report based on their needs."
"The documentation needs to be improved because I had to learn everything from watching YouTube videos."
"Lacks resources where users can internally access a learning module from the tool."
"It would be nice to have a solid SQL injection engine built into Zap."
"It should be user-friendly."
"The tool needs to be more compatible with C/C++ language"
"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."
"It would be better if SonarQube provided a good UI for external configuration."
"If the product could assist us with fixing issues by giving us more pointers then it would help to resolve more of the warnings without such a commitment in terms of time."
"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."
"Code security could be better. They are already focusing on it, but I see a lot of improvement opportunities over there. I can see a lot of false positives in terms of security. They need to make the tests more accurate so that the false positives are not detected so frequently. It would also help if they provided us with an installer."
"Depending on the tool's configuration, sometimes you get false alarms that are unimportant to you."
 

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 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 solution is open source and free."
"OWASP Zap is free to use."
"The tool is open-source."
"We have used the freeware version. I believe Zap only has freeware."
"This app is completely free and open source. So there is no question about any pricing."
"As Zap is free and open-source, with tons of features similar to those of commercial solutions, I would definitely recommend trying it out."
"We use the solution free of cost."
"The solution has a free version and a license version. The license is priced reasonably, the cost of hiring one programmer is more expensive than the solution."
"The tool's pricing is reasonable."
"It's an open-source solution, with no additional costs."
"We are using the Community edition of SonarQube."
"The price of this solution is more expensive than competitors. However, it works better than competitors."
"We are using the open-source version, which is available free of cost."
"We're using the Community Edition, and we don't pay for anything."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
University
7%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise21
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise75
 

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 do you like most about OWASP Zap?
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, i...
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.
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...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Sonar
 

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
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about OWASP Zap vs. SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
867,349 professionals have used our research since 2012.