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OWASP Zap vs SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 30, 2024

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)
7th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
38
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
7.5
Number of Reviews
113
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (1st), Software Development Analytics (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of OWASP Zap is 5.0%, down from 6.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) is 27.4%, down from 28.6% 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.
Wang Dayong - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to integrate and has a plug-in that supports both C and C++ languages
The product provides false reports sometimes. It also fails to understand the context of the code. It reports that a line of code has issues without considering its relation with the previous line. The product should improve the report quality. While it asks us to improve the code quality, it would be good if it also suggests how to improve the quality.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"You can run it against multiple targets."
"OWASP Zap is a good tool, one of my favorites for a long time, and I would recommend it."
"Automatic updates and pull request analysis."
"​It has improved my organization with faster security tests.​"
"The solution has tightened our security."
"Fuzzer and Java APIs help a lot with our custom needs."
"They offer free access to some other tools."
"The depth features I have found most valuable. You receive a quick comprehensive comparison overview regarding the current release and the last release and what type of depths dependency or duplication should be used. This is going to help you to make a more readable code and have more flexibility for the engineers to understand how things should work when they do not know."
"I am only interested in the security features in SonarQube. There are plenty of features other features, such as test coverage, code anomalies, and pointer access are handled by the business logic teams. They get the reports and they have to fix them in JIRA or Bugzilla."
"It is a very good tool for analysis despite its limitations."
"The solution offers a very good community edition."
"It helps our developers work more efficiently as we can identify things in a code prior to it being pushed to where it needs to go."
"Offers multi-programming language support"
"The tool helps us to monitor and manage violations. It manages the bugs and security violations."
"It is very good at identifying technical debt."
 

Cons

"Too many false positives; test reports could be improved."
"The product should allow users to customize the report based on their needs."
"The documentation is lacking and out-of-date, it really needs more love."
"It doesn't run on absolutely every operating system."
"The port scanner is a little too slow.​"
"Online documentation can be improved to utilize all features of ZAP and API methods to make use in automation."
"There isn't too much information about it online."
"I'd like to see a kind of feature where we can just track what our last vulnerability was and how it has improved or not. More reports that can have some kind of base-lining, I think that would be a good feature too. I'm not sure whether it can be achieved and implement but I think that would really help."
"We had some issues where the Quality Gate check sometimes gets stuck and it is unclear."
"The security in SonarQube could be better."
"SonarQube is not development-centric like Snyk."
"Technical support and the price could be better."
"SonarQube needs to improve its support model. They do not work 24/7, and they do not provide weekend support in case things go wrong. They only have a standard 8:00 am to 5:00 pm support model in which you have to raise a support ticket and wait. The support model is not effective for premium customers."
"I would like to see more options for security, beyond the basics like SQL injection."
"There are sometimes security breaches in our code, which aren't be caught by SonarQube. In the security area, SonarCube has to improve. It needs to better compete with other products."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 solution is open source and free."
"The solution’s pricing is high."
"The tool is open source."
"OWASP ZAP is a free tool provided by OWASP’s engineers and experts. There is an option to donate."
"It is highly recommended as it is an open source tool."
"This is an open-source solution and can be used free of charge."
"The tool is open-source."
"SonarQube is a fairly affordable solution for a larger scale if you have a specific role or specific department for secure code."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"This solution is free."
"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."
"I do not know about the pricing as I am using the community edition, which is free. But I compared the pricing with Sigma, and it is higher than SonarQube."
"The product’s price is lower than Veracode’s price."
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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
17%
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...
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
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Find out what your peers are saying about OWASP Zap vs. SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
832,138 professionals have used our research since 2012.