GitLab vs OWASP Zap comparison

GitLab and OWASP are both solutions in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category. GitLab is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.5, while OWASP is ranked #11 with an average rating of 8.0. GitLab holds a 2.4% mindshare in SAST, compared to OWASP’s 4.6% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of GitLab users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 88% of OWASP users who would recommend it.

GitLab

Read 86 GitLab reviews

19,204 Views
2,881 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

OWASP Zap

Read 41 OWASP Zap reviews

8,461 Views
7,700 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

GitLab

OWASP Zap

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 27, 2025

OWASP Zap and GitLab compete in security testing and comprehensive DevOps solutions. GitLab has the upper hand with its extensive integrations, despite OWASP Zap's cost-effectiveness.

Features: OWASP Zap offers powerful security testing tools, open-source nature, and detailed reporting, while GitLab provides comprehensive DevOps capabilities, CI/CD pipelines, and a user-friendly interface.

Room for Improvement: OWASP Zap could enhance support and UI complexity, while GitLab can improve feature diversity and documentation for beginners.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: GitLab provides seamless deployment and reliable commercial support, whereas OWASP Zap is easy to set up but relies on community support.

Pricing and ROI: OWASP Zap is cost-effective due to its open-source nature, offering excellent ROI for security-focused businesses. GitLab has higher upfront costs, but its integrated platform justifies long-term ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed GitLab vs. OWASP Zap Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

GitLab vs. OWASP Zap

September 2025

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Helped 867,370 peers since 2012

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

GitLab

Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

7th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Security Tools (11th), Build Automation (1st), Release Automation (2nd), Rapid Application Development Software (11th), Software Composition Analysis (SCA) (5th), Enterprise Agile Planning Tools (2nd), Fuzz Testing Tools (2nd), DevSecOps (1st)

OWASP Zap

Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

11th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of GitLab is 2.4%, down from 2.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OWASP Zap is 4.6%, up from 4.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Static Application Security Testing (SAST) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
GitLab	2.4%
OWASP Zap	4.6%
Other	93.0%

Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

Featured Reviews

Rohit Kesharwani

Manager, Engineering at 7-Eleven

Improved agility and time to market with CI/CD enhancements

The CI/CD pipelines in GitLab are highly valuable. Another important feature is the single source of repository, allowing efficient repository management and source code management. GitLab provides manageability by allowing us to manage source code effectively through separate repositories. Additionally, GitLab enables the creation of individual CI/CD pipelines for each repository, making software more agile. By integrating GitLab as a DevOps platform, we have enhanced agility, improved our time to market, and different teams can work collaboratively on various projects.

Read full review

Amit Beniwal

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I have found the most valuable features of GitLab are the GitClone, GitPush, GitPull, GitMatch, GitMit, GitCommit, and GitStatus."

"In terms of impact from using GitLab as an all-in-one DevOps platform, it helped with my project development life cycle."

"The most valuable feature of GitLab is the ability to upload scripts and make changes when needed and then reupload them. Additionally, the solution is user-friendly."

"It is very useful for reviews. We are using branch merging operations and full reset operations. It is also very useful for merging our code and tracking another branch. The graph diagrams of Git are very useful. Its interface is straightforward and not too complex for us."

"Continuous integration with deployment is very powerful, which is a significant reason for migrating from TFS to GitLab."

"I like GitLab from the CI/CD perspective. It is much easier to set up CI/CD and then integrate with other tools."

"We're only using the basic features of GitLab and haven't used any advanced features. The solution works fine, so that's what we like about GitLab. We're party using GitHub and GitLab. We have a GitHub server, while we use GitLab locally or only within our team, and it works okay. We don't have any significant problems with the solution. We also found the straightforward setup, stability, and scalability of GitLab valuable."

"This product is always evolving, and they listen to the customers."

More GitLab pros

"You can run it against multiple targets."

"It can be used effectively for internal auditing."

"The application scanning feature is the most valuable feature."

"The OWASP's tool is free of cost, which gives it a great advantage, especially for smaller companies to make use of the tool."

"We use the solution for security testing."

"The solution has tightened our security."

"I consider OWASP Zap to be the most effective solution overall; being open source allows integration with other systems via OWASP Zap APIs."

"They offer free access to some other tools."

More OWASP Zap pros

Cons

"In the next release, I would like to see GitLab expand its integration capabilities to include platforms like DigitalOcean, which developers widely use for cloud infrastructure. Enhancing CI/CD automation features specifically tailored for DigitalOcean would be beneficial."

"GitLab could consider introducing a code-scanning tool. Purchasing such tools from external markets can incur charges, which might not be favorable. Integrating these features into GitLab would streamline the pipeline and make it more convenient for users."

"Perhaps the integration could be better."

"We are having a few problems integrating with Jira at the moment, which is something that our IT department is investigating."

"When deploying the solution on cloud and the CI/CD pipeline, we have to define the steps and it becomes confusing."

"The integration could be slightly better."

"GitLab needs to improve the CI/CD functionality because it is not compatible with Jenkins and other tools, as it is not that efficient."

"Some of the scripts that we encountered in GitLab were not fully functional and threw up errors."

More GitLab cons

"It needs more robust reporting tools."

"For scalability, I would rate OWASP Zap between four to five out of ten."

"Sometimes, we get some false positives."

"OWASP should work on reducing false positives by using AI and ML algorithms."

"ZAP's integration with cloud-based CICD pipelines could be better. The scan should run through the entire pipeline."

"The technical support team must be proactive."

"The documentation needs to be improved because I had to learn everything from watching YouTube videos."

"The reporting feature could be more descriptive."

More OWASP Zap cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is okay."

"The open-source version is very good and the commercial version is reasonably priced."

"I'm not sure if they have some kind of discount. I've been negotiating with them on prices before, and I believe they weren't too happy to give discounts, but list prices are $19 per user, per month for Premium and $99 per user, per month for Ultimate. So, the difference between Premium and Ultimate is a bit bigger, and in most companies, you need to build some type of business case."

"In terms of the pricing for GitLab, on a scale of one to five, with one being expensive and five being cheap, I'm rating pricing for the solution a four. It could still be cheaper because right now, my company has a small team, and sometimes it's difficult to use a paid product for a small team. You'd hope the team will grow and scale, but currently, you're paying a high license fee for a small team. I'm referring to the GitLab license that has premium features and will give you all features. This can be a problem for management to approve the high price of the license for a team this small."

"It is very expensive. We can't bear it now, and we have to find another solution. We have a yearly subscription in which we can increase the number of licenses, but we have to pay at the end of the year."

"GitLab is a free solution to use."

"My company uses the free version of GitLab, which is GitLab Community Edition. There is a licensed version also available for GitLab."

"The solution is based on a licensing model that includes technical support and is paid annually."

More GitLab pricing and cost advice

"The solution’s pricing is high."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"OWASP ZAP is a free tool provided by OWASP’s engineers and experts. There is an option to donate."

More OWASP Zap pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

13%

Government

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

University

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	35
Midsize Enterprise	9
Large Enterprise	42

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	10
Midsize Enterprise	11
Large Enterprise	21

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about GitLab?

I find the features and version control history to be most valuable for our development workflow. These aspects provide us with a clear view of changes and help us manage requests efficiently.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for GitLab?

The pricing and cost are on par with other tools and are neither too expensive nor cheap.

See all answers

What needs improvement with GitLab?

Regarding improvements, making task management is something that GitLab can potentially make easier, similar to what DevOps or Jira does.

See all answers

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 ...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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Compared 5% of the time

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Compared 4% of the time

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Compared 19% of the time

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Compared 14% of the time

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Compared 11% of the time

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Compared 9% of the time

Pentest-Tools.com vs OWASP Zap

Compared 2% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

GitLab

September 2025

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Buyer's Guide

OWASP Zap

August 2025

Download OWASP Zap product report

Also Known As

Fuzzit

No data available

Overview

GitLab offers a secure and user-friendly platform for CI/CD pipeline management, code repository control, and collaboration, enhancing development speed and efficiency. It facilitates automation with extensive customization and tool integration, ideal for DevOps processes.

GitLab supports source code management, version control, and collaborative development. It's frequently used in CI/CD processes to automate builds and deployments while integrating DevOps practices. GitLab allows companies to manage repositories, automate pipelines, conduct code reviews, and maintain development lifecycles. The platform supports infrastructure and configuration management, enabling efficient code collaboration, deployment automation, and comprehensive repository handling. Many organizations commit and deploy developed code using GitLab's capabilities.

What are GitLab's most valuable features?

CI/CD Pipeline Management: Streamlines development through automated testing and deployment.
User-Friendly Interface: Ensures ease of collaboration and task automation.
Code Merging and Branching: Facilitates smooth code integration and version control.
Security Platform: Provides strong security features for safe development.
Tool Integration: Enhances functionality with diverse tool integration.

What benefits should users evaluate?

Development Speed: Accelerates processes through automation.
Collaboration Ease: Simplifies team interactions and workflow.
Customization Options: Offers extensive personalization for specific needs.
Comprehensive Documentation: Provides detailed guidance for users.
Secure Platform: Maintains integrity with robust security features.

In specific industries, GitLab serves as a backbone for source code management and CI/CD implementation. Companies leverage its capabilities for infrastructure management and deployment automation, thus streamlining project delivery timelines. Its ability to handle configuration management and code repositories effectively aids in maintaining development lifecycles, making it a preferred choice for organizations committed to enhancing their DevOps practices.

GitLab

OWASP Zap is a free and open-source web application security scanner.

The solution helps developers identify vulnerabilities in their web applications by actively scanning for common security issues.

With its user-friendly interface and powerful features, Zap is a popular choice among developers for ensuring the security of their web applications.

OWASP

Sample Customers

1. NASA 2. IBM 3. Sony 4. Alibaba 5. CERN 6. Siemens 7. Volkswagen 8. ING 9. Ticketmaster 10. SpaceX 11. Adobe 12. Intuit 13. Autodesk 14. Rakuten 15. Unity Technologies 16. Pandora 17. Electronic Arts 18. Nordstrom 19. Verizon 20. Comcast 21. Philips 22. Deutsche Telekom 23. Orange 24. Fujitsu 25. Ericsson 26. Nokia 27. General Electric 28. Cisco 29. Accenture 30. Deloitte 31. PwC 32. KPMG

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

Buyer's Guide

GitLab vs. OWASP Zap

September 2025

Free Report: GitLab vs. OWASP Zap

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