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OWASP Zap vs PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 12, 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)
8th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
PortSwigger Burp Suite Prof...
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
6th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (9th), Fuzz Testing Tools (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of OWASP Zap is 5.0%, down from 5.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional is 2.1%, down from 2.7% 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.
Anuradha.Kapoor Kapoor - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers efficient scanning of entire websites but presence of false positive bugs, leading to time-consuming efforts in distinguishing real bugs from false alarms
We have found that so many times, false positive bugs are there, and then we spend a lot of time basically separating them from real bugs. So that's the reason we are looking for some other tool. So we were in discussion with Acunetix. Therefore, the false positive rate is, like, something that we would like to improve. What we are looking for is if this false positive rate goes down because we were OWASP Zap tool users, which was free anyway. But there were a lot of false positives there, and we used to spend a lot of time, like, for security reasons, reproducing those bugs for the development team to fix it. So then we thought, okay, why not we go with the tool? Even if it is not very expensive. But still, every year, we have to renew the license. And we got this tool. Again, we found that in this tool also, even if it is less, there are still a lot of false positive bugs out there. So we again have to spend so much time. So we hired a security tester, who was basically using Acunetix in his previous company for almost three years, and then you said that in that scanning is very slow. The scanning is also slow. Like, sometimes the site scan takes eight hours, six to eight hours. Yeah. And whereas in Acunetix, it took three to four hours. And plus, there are no false positives. I'm not saying none but there's very little. But here, the rate sometimes is very high. These are the two features I think we would like to improve further.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The vulnerabilities that it finds, because the primary goal is to secure applications and websites."
"Two features are valuable. The first one is that the scan gets completed really quickly, and the second one is that even though it searches in a limited scope, what it does in that limited scope is very good. When you use Zap for testing, you're only using it for specific aspects or you're only looking for certain things. It works very well in that limited scope."
"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."
"It updates repositories and libraries quickly."
"The HUD is a good feature that provides on-site testing and saves a lot of time."
"The interface is easy to use."
"Fuzzer and Java APIs help a lot with our custom needs."
"The most valuable feature is scanning the URL to drill down all the different sites."
"The most valuable feature of Burp Suite Professional is its ability to schedule tasks for scanning websites, which helps in performing regular checks of IP addresses."
"The solution is quite helpful for session management and configuration."
"Some of the extensions, available using Burp Extender, are also very good and we have found issues by using them."
"The most valuable feature of PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional is the Burp Intruder tool."
"The technical support from PortSwigger is excellent, managing response time and quality efficiently without any issues."
"The Repeater and the BApp extensions are particularly useful. Certain extensions, such as the Active Scan extensions and the Autoracer extension, are very good."
"I rate PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional ten points out of ten."
"It offers very good accuracy. You can trust the results."
 

Cons

"The reporting feature could be more descriptive."
"I prefer Burp Suite to SWASP Zap because of the extensive coverage it offers."
"The documentation needs to be improved because I had to learn everything from watching YouTube videos."
"The product reporting could be improved."
"Online documentation can be improved to utilize all features of ZAP and API methods to make use in automation."
"The solution is somewhat unreliable because after we get the finding, we have to manually verify each of its findings to see whether it's a false positive or a true finding, and it takes time."
"The ability to search the internet for other use cases and to use the solution to make applications more secure should be addressed."
"Reporting format has no output, is cluttered and very long."
"It would be beneficial to have privileged access management as a part of Burp Suite Professional."
"The scanner and crawler need to be improved."
"We'd like to have more integration potential across all versions of the product."
"The initial setup is a bit complex."
"The solution doesn't offer very good scalability."
"Improvement should be done as per the requirements of customers."
"There could be an improvement in the API security testing. There is another tool called Postman and if we had a built-in portal similar to Postman which captures the API, we would be able to generate the API traffic. Right now we need a Postman tool and the Burp Suite for performing API tests. It would be a huge benefit to be able to do it in a single UI."
"It would be beneficial to have privileged access management as a part of Burp Suite Professional."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"OWASP Zap is free to use."
"The solution’s pricing is high."
"We have used the freeware version. I believe Zap only has freeware."
"As Zap is free and open-source, with tons of features similar to those of commercial solutions, I would definitely recommend trying it out."
"This solution is open source and free."
"This app is completely free and open source. So there is no question about any pricing."
"The tool is open-source."
"Licensing costs are about $450/year for one use. For larger organizations, they're able to test against multiple applications while simultaneously others might have multiple versions of applications which needs to be tested which is why we have the enterprise edition."
"We have one license. The price is very nominal."
"The yearly cost is about $300."
"The platform's pricing is reasonable."
"They should reduce the license cost a little bit. It is $400 per user, and it would be better if they could reduce the licensing fee."
"This is a value for money product."
"At $400 or $500 per license paid annually, it is a very cheap tool."
"PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional is an expensive solution."
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Answers from the Community

reviewer1487928 - PeerSpot reviewer
Nov 17, 2021
Nov 17, 2021
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 quality security vulnerabilities. Both are very comparable in terms of intercepting features, fuzzing capabilities, and encoder and decoders. Both OWASP Zap and PortSwigger Burp Suite Pro have a spide...
2 out of 3 answers
AK
Mar 15, 2021
First things first both are having their own merits, however in my personal experience ZAP can replace your burpsuite for sure considering the License. Also as the latest ZAP versions are covering more advanced techniques and spidering patterns with lots of options in it, it is worth considering ZAP. However remember that burpsuite from latest versions with inbuilt chromium and it's emerging plugin support (Installable jars) you can use burp to the fullest and you can keep it as a swiss knife for your web and app pentesting. Couple of extensions in burp pro are interesting especially the race condition one. I always prefer using Burp and at instances I go with ZAP.
reviewer1526550 - PeerSpot reviewer
Mar 17, 2021
Yes OWASP ZAP is a good option as it's an open source so always preferred but Burp Suite Pro  will give you more options, its one of the best tool to have for pentesters so defo worth it.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Government
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

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.
What do you like most about PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional?
The solution helped us discover vulnerabilities in our applications.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional?
The pricing for Burp Suite Professional is not very high, however, it could be more flexible for clients.
What needs improvement with PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional?
It would be beneficial to have privileged access management as a part of Burp Suite Professional.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Burp
 

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
Google, Amazon, NASA, FedEx, P&G, Salesforce
Find out what your peers are saying about OWASP Zap vs. PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
842,194 professionals have used our research since 2012.