Contrast Security Assess vs OWASP Zap comparison

Contrast Security and OWASP are both solutions in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category. Contrast Security is ranked #27, while OWASP is ranked #10 with an average rating of 8.0. Contrast Security holds a 1.0% mindshare in SAST, compared to OWASP’s 3.5% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Contrast Security users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 88% of OWASP users who would recommend it.

Contrast Security Assess

Read 11 Contrast Security Assess reviews

1,990 Views
1,055 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

OWASP Zap

Read 41 OWASP Zap reviews

7,287 Views
6,704 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

Contrast Security Assess

OWASP Zap

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 8, 2024

OWASP Zap and Contrast Security Assess compete in the application security testing category. Contrast Security Assess has the upper hand due to its comprehensive real-time threat detection capabilities, which many users find justifies its higher cost.

Features: OWASP Zap is recognized for its effective vulnerability scanning, strong community support, and cost-effectiveness. It enables users to identify security loopholes efficiently. Contrast Security Assess integrates seamlessly into existing development workflows, offers continuous security assessments, and provides valuable real-time security insights, making it a popular choice for maintaining robust security measures.

Room for Improvement: Users suggest OWASP Zap could enhance its reporting features, offer better user guidance, and streamline the overall user experience. Contrast Security Assess, while functional, could reduce the complexity of some advanced features, modify its onboarding process, and improve initial user training to help new users navigate its capabilities more easily.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: OWASP Zap users find deployment straightforward, supported by extensive community resources and documentation, though its support services are limited. Contrast Security Assess requires a more complex deployment but benefits from dedicated and responsive customer support, providing comprehensive assistance throughout the process.

Pricing and ROI: OWASP Zap is often considered a budget-friendly option due to its no-cost setup. Contrast Security Assess involves higher setup costs but offers a significant return on investment through continuous and proactive security monitoring, which users find valuable in maintaining a strong security stance.

To learn more, read our detailed Contrast Security Assess vs. OWASP Zap Report (Updated: February 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Contrast Security Assess vs. OWASP Zap

February 2026

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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

Contrast Security Assess

Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

27th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Security Tools (30th)

OWASP Zap

Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

10th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of Contrast Security Assess is 1.0%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OWASP Zap is 3.5%, down from 4.9% 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 (%)
OWASP Zap	3.5%
Contrast Security Assess	1.0%
Other	95.5%

Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

Featured Reviews

reviewer1605099

Director of Threat and Vulnerability Management at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees

We're gathering vulnerability data from multiple environments in real time, fundamentally changing how we identify issues in applications

The solution is very accurate in identifying vulnerabilities. In cases where we are performing application assessment using Contrast Assess, and also using legacy application security testing tools, Contrast successfully identifies the same vulnerabilities that the other tools have identified but it also identifies significantly more. In addition, it has visibility into application components that other testing methodologies are unaware of. Assess also provides the option of helping developers incorporate security elements while they're writing code. It depends on whether individual developers decide to utilize the information that's provided to them from the solution, but it definitely gives them visibility into more environments. It gives them an opportunity to remediate vulnerabilities well before production deployments.

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Prasant Pokarnaa

Delivery Head - DevOps at Datamato Technologies

Effective vulnerability identification enhances security scans but AI-driven enhancements are needed

OWASP is only meant for two or three different types of scans. It is a tool which will scan the code for security for vulnerabilities We were able to convince the customers to really remove those rules when GitLab was able to show the results. Customers should be aware that GitLab is not just a…

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"When we access the application, it continuously monitors and detects vulnerabilities."

"By far, the thing that was able to provide value was the immediate response while testing ahead of release, in real-time."

"The solution is very accurate in identifying vulnerabilities. In cases where we are performing application assessment using Contrast Assess, and also using legacy application security testing tools, Contrast successfully identifies the same vulnerabilities that the other tools have identified but it also identifies significantly more. In addition, it has visibility into application components that other testing methodologies are unaware of."

"It is a stable solution...Contrast Security Assess is one of the first players in this market, so they have experience and customers, especially abroad. Overall, it's a good product."

"The most valuable feature is the continuous monitoring aspect: the fact that we don't have to wait for scans to complete for the tool to identify vulnerabilities. They're automatically identified through developers' business-as-usual processes."

"The accuracy of the solution in identifying vulnerabilities is better than any other product we've used, far and away. In our internal comparisons among different tools, Contrast consistently finds more impactful vulnerabilities, and also identifies vulnerabilities that are nearly guaranteed to be there, meaning that the chance of false positives is very low."

"Assess has an excellent API interface to pull APIs."

"No other tool does the runtime scanning like Contrast does. Other static analysis tools do static scanning, but Contrast is runtime analysis, when the routes are exercised. That's when the scan happens. This is a tool that has a very unique capability compared to other tools. That's what I like most about Contrast, that it's runtime."

More Contrast Security Assess pros

"They offer free access to some other tools."

"OWASP Zap is a good tool, one of my favorites for a long time, and I would recommend it."

"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."

"It's great that we can use it with Portswigger Burp."

"Automatic scanning is a valuable feature and very easy to use."

"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, it's very difficult."

"We use the solution for security testing."

"OWASP is quite matured in identifying the vulnerabilities."

More OWASP Zap pros

Cons

"Personalization of the board and how to make it appealing to an organization is something that could be done on their end. The reports could be adaptable to the customer's preferences."

"The out-of-the-box reporting could be improved. We need to write our own APIs to make the reporting more robust."

"The setup of the solution is different for each application. That's the one thing that has been a challenge for us. The deployment itself is simple, but it's tough to automate because each application is different, so each installation process for Contrast is different."

"The product's retesting part needs improvement. The tool also needs improvement in the suggestions provided for fixing vulnerabilities. It relies more on documentation rather than on quick fixes."

"To instrument an agent, it has to be running on a type of application technology that the agent recognizes and understands. It's excellent when it works. If we're using an application that is using an unsupported technology, then we can't instrument it at all. We do use PHP and Contrast presently doesn't support that, although it's on their roadmap. My primary hurdle is that it doesn't support all of the technologies that we use."

"Contrast's ability to support upgrades on the actual agents that get deployed is limited. Our environment is pretty much entirely Java. There are no updates associated with that. You have to actually download a new version of the .jar file and push that out to your servers where your app is hosted. That can be quite cumbersome from a change-management perspective."

"I would like to see them come up with more scanning rules."

"Contrast Security Assess covers a wide range of applications like .NET Framework, Java, PSP, Node.js, etc. But there are some like Ubuntu and the .NET Core which are not covered. They have it in their roadmap to have these agents. If they have that, we will have complete coverage."

More Contrast Security Assess cons

"The work that it does in the limited scope is good, but the scope is very limited in terms of the scanning features. The number of things it tests or finds is limited. They need to make it a more of a mainstream tool that people can use, and they can even think about having it on a proprietary basis. They need to increase the coverage of the scan and the results that it finds. That has always been Zap's limitation. Zap is a very good tool for a beginner, but once you start moving up the ladder where you want further details and you want your scan to show more in-depth results, Zap falls short because its coverage falls short. It does not have the capacity to do more."

"The documentation is lacking and out-of-date, it really needs more love."

"The forced browse has been incorporated into the program and it is resource-intensive."

"There isn't too much information about it online."

"It doesn't run on absolutely every operating system."

"There are areas for improvement with OWASP Zap, particularly in the alignment of vulnerabilities concerning CVSS scores."

"They stopped their support for a short period. They've recently started to come back again. In the early days, support was much better."

"The automated vulnerability assessments that the application performs needs to be simplified as well as diversified."

More OWASP Zap cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product's pricing is low. I would rate it a two out of ten."

"I like the per-application licensing model... We just license the app and we look at different vulnerabilities on that app and we remediate within the app. It's simpler."

"For what it offers, it's a very reasonable cost. The way that it is priced is extremely straightforward. It works on the number of applications that you use, and you license a server. It is something that is extremely fair, because it doesn't take into consideration the number of requests, etc. It is only priced based on the number of onboarded applications. It suits our model as well, because we have huge traffic. Our number of applications is not that large, so the pricing works great for us."

"You only get one license for an application. Ours are very big, monolithic applications with millions of lines of code. We were able to apply one license to one monolithic application, which is great. We are happy with the licensing. Pricing-wise, they are industry-standard, which is fine."

"The good news is that the agent itself comes in two different forms: the unlicensed form and the licensed form. Unlicensed gives use of that software composition analysis for free. Thereafter, if you apply a license to that same agent, that's when the instrumentation takes hold. So one of my suggestions is to do what we're doing: Deploy the agent to as many applications as possible, with just the SCA feature turned on with no license applied, and then you can be more choosy and pick which teams will get the license applied."

"The solution is expensive."

"It's a tiered licensing model. The more you buy, as you cross certain quantity thresholds, the pricing changes. If you have a smaller environment, your licensing costs are going to be different than a larger environment... The licensing is primarily per application. An application can be as many agents as you need. If you've got 10 development servers and 20 production servers and 50 QA servers, all of those agents can be reporting as a single application that utilizes one license."

"It is open source, and we can scan freely."

"The tool is open-source."

"This solution is open source and free."

"The tool is open source."

"The solution’s pricing is high."

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

"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 app is completely free and open source. So there is no question about any pricing."

More OWASP Zap pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

22%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Computer Software Company

10%

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

13%

University

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	2
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	6

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

Questions from the Community

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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 ...

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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...

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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 9% of the time

Veracode vs OWASP Zap

Compared 8% of the time

PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional vs OWASP Zap

Compared 7% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Contrast Security Assess

February 2026

Download Contrast Security Assess product report

Buyer's Guide

OWASP Zap

January 2026

Download OWASP Zap product report

Also Known As

Contrast Assess

No data available

Overview

Contrast Security is the world’s leading provider of security technology that enables software applications to protect themselves against cyberattacks, heralding the new era of self-protecting software. Contrast's patented deep security instrumentation is the breakthrough technology that enables highly accurate assessment and always-on protection of an entire application portfolio, without disruptive scanning or expensive security experts. Only Contrast has sensors that work actively inside applications to uncover vulnerabilities, prevent data breaches, and secure the entire enterprise from development, to operations, to production.

Contrast Security

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

Williams-Sonoma, Autodesk, HUAWEI, Chromeriver, RingCentral, Demandware.

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

Contrast Security Assess vs. OWASP Zap

February 2026

Free Report: Contrast Security Assess vs. OWASP Zap

Find out what your peers are saying about Contrast Security Assess vs. OWASP Zap and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.

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