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OWASP Zap vs SonarQube comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 5, 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)
10th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
41
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SonarQube
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
134
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (1st), Software Development Analytics (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2025, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of OWASP Zap is 4.4%, down from 4.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SonarQube is 20.8%, down from 26.5% 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)20.8%
OWASP Zap4.4%
Other74.8%
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 API is exceptional."
"The community edition updates services regularly. They add new vulnerabilities into the scanning list."
"They offer free access to some other tools."
"Automatic updates and pull request analysis."
"The OWASP's tool is free of cost, which gives it a great advantage, especially for smaller companies to make use of the tool."
"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."
"OWASP Zap is straightforward to use. If someone doesn't have the budget for tools like Burp Suite, OWASP Zap is an excellent alternative."
"The HUD is a good feature that provides on-site testing and saves a lot of time."
"There are many options and examples available in the tool that help us fix the issues it shows us."
"Recently, they introduced support for mono reports and microservices, which is a noteworthy development as it provides a more detailed view of each service."
"SonarQube is one of the more popular solutions because it supports 29 languages."
"If code coverage is a low number then that's of great value to me."
"When comparing other static code analysis tools, SonarQube has fewer false-positive issues being reported. They have a lot of support for different tech stacks. It covers the entire developer community which includes Salesforce or it could be the regular Java.net project. It has actually sufficed all the needs in one tool for static code analysis."
"The good thing with SonarQube is it covers a lot of issues, it's a very robust framework."
"I find SonarQube Cloud to be very user-friendly with an easy-to-use interface."
"It is very good at identifying technical debt."
 

Cons

"OWASP Zap needs to extend to mobile application testing."
"The port scanner is a little too slow.​"
"ZAP's integration with cloud-based CICD pipelines could be better. The scan should run through the entire pipeline."
"Online documentation can be improved to utilize all features of ZAP and API methods to make use in automation."
"Reporting format has no output, is cluttered and very long."
"OWASP Zap could benefit from a noise cancellation feature like that of Burp Suite Professional, where AI helps reduce certain non-critical findings."
"OWASP should work on reducing false positives by using AI and ML algorithms. They should expand their capabilities for broader coverage of business logic flaws and complex issues."
"It would be a great improvement if they could include a marketplace to add extra features to the tool."
"There are limitations to the free version that limit development options as far as languages."
"We also use Fortify, which is another tool to find security errors. Fortify is a better security tool. It is better than SonarQube in finding errors. Sometimes, SonarQube doesn't find some of the errors that Fortify is able to find. Fortify also has a community, which SonarQube doesn't have. Its installation is a little bit complex. We need to install a database, install the product, and specify the version of the database and the product. They can simplify the installation and make it easier. We use docker for the installation because it is easier to use. Its dashboard needs to be improved. It is not intuitive. It is hard to understand the interface, and it can be improved to provide a better user experience."
"SonarQube could improve by adding automatic creation of tasks after scanning and more support for the Czech language."
"SonarQube is not development-centric like Snyk."
"I would like to see improvements in defining the quality sets of rules and the quality to ensure code with low-performance does not end up in production."
"If I configure a project in SonarQube, it generates a token. When we're compiling our code with SonarQube, we have to provide the token for security reasons. If IP-based connectivity is established with the solution, the project should automatically be populated without providing any additional token. It will be easy to provide just the IP address. It currently supports this functionality, but it makes a different branch in the project dashboard. From the configuration and dashboard point of view, it should have some transformations. There can be dashboard integration so that we can configure the dashboard for different purposes."
"SonarQube Cloud could improve its vulnerability detection compared to Veracode. Additionally, it has fewer capabilities, which prompted us to use Veracode."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is open source, and we can scan freely."
"It is highly recommended as it is an open source tool."
"OWASP Zap is free to use."
"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 is an open-source solution and can be used free of charge."
"OWASP ZAP is a free tool provided by OWASP’s engineers and experts. There is an option to donate."
"The tool is open source."
"We have used the freeware version. I believe Zap only has freeware."
"For the Community edition, there is no extra cost. It's totally free. The Enterprise edition, Data Center edition, and Developer edition are the paid versions."
"Get the paid version which allows the customized dashboard and provides technical support."
"We are using the free, unlicensed version."
"It's a bit expensive for us. The currency rate of the dollar is a problem but it may be fine for other countries."
"SonarQube is a cost-effective solution."
"We're using the Community Edition, and we don't pay for anything."
"Compared to similar solutions, SonarQube was more accessible to us and had more benefits, with regards to size of the code base and supported languages. Apart from the Enterprise licensing fee, there are no additional costs."
"As a user and a consumer of this solution, it can be pricey for my company to support and use, even though there are many benefits. For this reason, we use the free version. In the future, as our product cycles develop and evolve at a more steady pace, we hope to invest in the licensing for this tool."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
10%
University
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
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 Business41
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise79
 

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...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
Sonar, SonarQube Cloud
 

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 and other solutions. Updated: November 2025.
873,085 professionals have used our research since 2012.