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PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional vs SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 9, 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

PortSwigger Burp Suite Prof...
Ranking in Application Security Tools
8th
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
6th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
Fuzz Testing Tools (1st)
SonarQube Server (formerly ...
Ranking in Application Security Tools
1st
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
114
Ranking in other categories
Software Development Analytics (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Application Security Tools category, the mindshare of PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional is 2.0%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) is 25.1%, down from 26.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Security Tools
 

Featured Reviews

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.
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

"It offers flexibility, macros, and features to reduce the effort required for authenticated sessions."
"There is no other tool like it. I like the intuitiveness and the plugins that are available."
"The feature that we have found most valuable is that it comes with pre-set configurations. They have a set of predefined options where you can pick one and start scanning. We also have the option of creating our own configurations, like how often do the applications need to be scanned."
"This solution has helped a lot in finding bugs and vulnerabilities, and the scanner is good enough for simple web apps."
"The solution is stable."
"The automated scan is what I find most useful because a lot of customers will need it. Not every domain will be looking for complete security, they just need a stamp on the security key. For these kinds of customers, the scan works really well."
"PortSwigger Burp Suite does not hamper the node of the server, and it does not shut down the server if it is running."
"With the Extender Tab, if you know how to code then you can create a plugin and add it to Burp."
"Integrate it into the developers' workbench so that they can bench check their code against what will be done in the server-based audit version."
"Any developer can easily identify issues using the process flow or steps provided by SonarQube. In terms of integration, SonarQube makes it quite easy, simplifying the steps for users."
"The tool helps us to monitor and manage violations. It manages the bugs and security violations."
"The most valuable features are code scanning and Quality Gates."
"All the features of the solution are quite good."
"I like that it's easy to navigate not just in terms of code findings but you can actually see them in the context of your source code because it gives you a copy of your code with the items that it found and highlights them. You can see it directly in your code, so you can easily go back and make the corrections in the code. It basically finds the problems for you and tells you where they are."
"We have the software metrics that SonarQube gives us, which is something we did not have before. This helps us work towards aiming coding standards to empower us to move in the direction of better code quality. SonarQube provides targets and metrics for that."
"It's enabled us to improve software quality and help us to disseminate best practices."
 

Cons

"If we're running a huge number of scans regularly, it slows down the tool."
"Improvement should be done as per the requirements of customers."
"The initial setup is a bit complex."
"The solution’s pricing could be improved."
"The one feature that I would like to see in Burp is active scanning of REST based web services. A lot of organizations are providing APIs to access their services to support different business models like SaaS. Scanning these APIs is still a challenge for many security product companies."
"One thing that is not up to the mark in PortSwigger is web application testing. I found some issues with its performance and reporting. They should work on these and give us a better outcome."
"One area for improvement is the integrated browser, Chromium. Single Sign-On (SSO) methods like Microsoft authentication login sometimes fail and show errors. As a workaround, I have to use a different browser, such as Firefox, to log in and make Burp work."
"The Initial setup is a bit complex."
"The time it took for me to do the whole process was approximately two hours because I had to download, read the documentation, and do the configurations."
"Their dashboarding is very limited. They can improve their dashboards for multiple areas, such as security review, maintainability, etc. They have all this information, so they should publish all this information on the dashboard so that the users can view the summary and then analyze it further. This is something that I would like to see in the next version."
"Currently requires multiple tools, lacking one overall tool."
"A robust credential scanner would be a huge bonus as it would remove the need for yet another niche product."
"A little bit more emphasis on security and a bit more security scanning features would be nice."
"Dynamic scanning is missing and there are some issues with security scanning."
"An improvement is with false positives. Sometimes the tool can say there is an issue in your code but, really, you have to do things in a certain way due to external dependencies, and I think it's very hard to indicate this is the case."
"The product's pricing could be lower."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is no setup cost and the cost of licensing is affordable."
"There are multiple versions available of PortSwigger Burp Suite, such as enterprise, commercial, professional, and beginners."
"The solution used to be expensive. However, they have reduced the price to approximately $400.00 which is reasonable."
"This is a value for money product."
"The platform's pricing is reasonable."
"It has a yearly license. I am satisfied with its price."
"This solution requires a license. It is expensive but you receive a lot of functionality for the price."
"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."
"The free version of SonarQube does everything that we need it to."
"We are using the open-source community version, but there are enterprise licenses available."
"Get the paid version which allows the customized dashboard and provides technical support."
"SonarQube is a cost-effective solution."
"The tool's pricing is reasonable."
"Some of the plugins that were previously free are not free now."
"The price of the solution could be reduced."
"We're using their free Community Edition version."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Government
12%
Manufacturing Company
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 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?
I find the price of PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional to be very cost-efficient.
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

Burp
Sonar
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Google, Amazon, NASA, FedEx, P&G, Salesforce
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional vs. SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.