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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
116
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (1st), Software Development Analytics (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of OWASP Zap is 4.7%, down from 4.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) is 23.9%, down from 27.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
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

"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."
"The stability of the solution is very good."
"The application scanning feature is the most valuable feature."
"The most valuable feature is scanning the URL to drill down all the different sites."
"OWASP is quite matured in identifying the vulnerabilities."
"The solution is good at reporting the vulnerabilities of the application."
"The scalability of this product is very good."
"I consider OWASP Zap to be the most effective solution overall; being open source allows integration with other systems via OWASP Zap APIs."
"It is a very good tool for analysis despite its limitations."
"I like that it covers most programming languages for source code review."
"The fact that the solution does security scanning is valuable."
"I like that it helps us maintain our work quality and code security."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is that it is free."
"One of the most valuable features of SonarQube is its ability to detect code quality during development. There are rules that define various technologies—Java, C#, Python, everything—and these rules declare the coding standards and code quality. With SonarQube, everything is detectable during the time of development and continuous integration, which is an advantage. SonarQube also has a Quality Gate, where the code should reach 85%. Below that, the code cannot be promoted to a further environment, it should be in a development environment only. So the checks are there, and SonarQube will provide that increase. It also provides suggestions on how the code can be fixed and methods of going about this, without allowing hackers to exploit the code. Another valuable feature is that it is tightly integrated with third-party tools. For example, we can see the SonarQube metrics in Bitbucket, the code repository. Once I raise the full request, the developer, team lead, or even the delivery lead can see the code quality metrics of the deliverable so that they can make a decision. SonarQube will also cover all of the top OWASP vulnerabilities, however it doesn't have penetration testing or hacker testing. We use other tools, like Checkmarx, to do penetration testing from the outside."
"It is a very good tool for analysis and security vulnerability checking."
"We use this solution for qualitative coding. We make use of the SonarLint plugin as well as the dashboard."
 

Cons

"The product should allow users to customize the report based on their needs."
"Online documentation can be improved to utilize all features of ZAP and API methods to make use in automation."
"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."
"Sometimes, we get some false positives."
"The forced browse has been incorporated into the program and it is resource-intensive."
"ZAP's integration with cloud-based CICD pipelines could be better. The scan should run through the entire pipeline."
"The solution is unable to customize reports."
"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."
"I find it is light on the security side."
"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."
"I would also like SonarQube to be able to write custom scanning rules. More documentation would be helpful as well because some of our guys were struggling with the customization script."
"Although it has Sonar built into it, it is still lacking. Customization features of identifying a particular attack still need to be worked on. To give you an example: if we want to scan and do a false positive analysis, those types of features are missing. If we want to rescan something from a particular point that is a feature that is also missing. It’s in our queue. That will hopefully save a lot of time."
"The time it took for me to do the whole process was approximately two hours because I had to download, read the documentation, and do the configurations."
"The solution could improve by providing more advanced technologies."
"SonarQube could be improved by implementing inter-procedural code analysis capabilities, allowing for a more comprehensive detection of defects and vulnerabilities across the entire codebase."
"The reporting can be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 tool is open source."
"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."
"This app is completely free and open source. So there is no question about any pricing."
"This solution is open source and free."
"The tool is open-source."
"It is highly recommended as it is an open source tool."
"There is both a free and licensed version. The free version has limitations on development languages and support."
"My guess is that we have a yearly subscription. We use it quite extensively, so a monthly license wouldn't make sense. Yearly subscriptions are usually cheaper. In addition to the standard licensing fee, there is just the cost of running the hardware where it is hosted."
"The solution is cheaper than other products."
"We are using the open-source community version, but there are enterprise licenses available."
"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 beauty of this solution is the free open-source version is capable enough in doing pretty much what an enterprise-level version can do."
"I am satisfied with the pricing."
"The developer edition is based on cost per lines of code."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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
 

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
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about OWASP Zap vs. SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.