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PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional vs w3af comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

PortSwigger Burp Suite Prof...
Ranking in Application Security Tools
10th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
65
Ranking in other categories
Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (7th), Fuzz Testing Tools (1st)
w3af
Ranking in Application Security Tools
42nd
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Application Security Tools category, the mindshare of PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional is 3.4%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of w3af is 0.7%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Security Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional3.4%
w3af0.7%
Other95.9%
Application Security Tools
 

Featured Reviews

MH
Penetration Tester & Information Security Expert at a comms service provider with 11-50 employees
Dedicated browser and repeater have improved my proxy testing and manual vulnerability checks
I'm hoping perhaps for something to make it easier, such as to define things where if a message or a response is such and such, automatically make a request that is such and such. Perhaps something like this because otherwise, nowadays we have to do it manually. Perhaps they can automate it a bit more. Perhaps they could add some automation to things, to see what we do manually, which it has the tools to do manually, and perhaps enable with a click of a button to do things automatically. I'm not too sure which, but I'm sure they can from a product management point of view, do things that we need to do two, three, or four steps manually regarding specific testing. For instance, we want to check something specific if it's this or if it's that. Perhaps to define it once and have it more automatic, perhaps.
OS
Information Security Advisor, CISO & CIO, Docutek Services at Docutek Services
It's buggy and seems to try to do too many things, but having this on a USB drive has been valuable.
I tried to install this on numerous systems and eventually, with help, I got it running. It needs far too many dependencies installed and there's too much messing about to be of much use. Once running, it's buggy and begs the question can it be relied upon? Even within Kali it reports website time-outs, yet Zap or Burp are able to do a successful scan. I wanted this to work so much and be able to use it as an additional check of my results but have now binned it.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Since we began this practice for every application, our clients are really happy and value our work."
"The most valuable feature is the application security. It also has a reasonable price."
"The solution has a great user interface."
"It was easy to learn."
"The most valuable feature of PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional is the Burp Intruder tool."
"PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional is one of the best user-friendly solutions for getting the proxy set up."
"This is a very nice tool and anybody can use it, from beginner to expert level."
"The most valuable features are Burp Intruder and Burp Scanner."
"The best free software for pen testing web applications."
 

Cons

"The solution isn't too stable; the fundamentals of it make it difficult to use."
"One more thing they can improve is that despite having a good architecture, it needs a lot of specification."
"Scanning APIs using PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional takes a lot of time."
"There is a certain amount of lead time for the tickets to get resolved."
"PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional could improve the static code review."
"You can have many false positives in Burp Suite. It depends on the scale of the penetration testing."
"Request handling capacity, it do not handle huge chuck of requests as it freezes."
"It would be beneficial to have privileged access management as a part of Burp Suite Professional."
"Unfortunately, once you get around the seemingly strict set of pre-requisites to install it, it is incredibly buggy."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"At $400 or $500 per license paid annually, it is a very cheap tool."
"The price for the solution is expensive and could be cheaper. We pay an annual license and our team has several of them."
"Our licensing cost is approximately $400 USD per year."
"Pricing is not very high. It was around $200."
"The pricing of the solution is cost-effective and is best suited for small and medium-sized businesses."
"We are using the community version, which is free."
"Burp Suite is affordable."
"We have one license. The price is very nominal."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise14
Large Enterprise35
No data available
 

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 PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional?
The cost of PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional is reasonable at approximately $500 per year per user.
What needs improvement with PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional?
I'm hoping perhaps for something to make it easier, such as to define things where if a message or a response is such and such, automatically make a request that is such and such. Perhaps something...
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Also Known As

Burp
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Google, Amazon, NASA, FedEx, P&G, Salesforce
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about SonarSource Sàrl, Checkmarx, Veracode and others in Application Security Tools. Updated: June 2026.
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