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Coverity vs OWASP Zap comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 8, 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

Coverity
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
5th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
43
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
OWASP Zap
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
11th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
41
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of Coverity is 7.2%, up from 6.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OWASP Zap is 4.6%, down from 4.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
 

Featured Reviews

Jaile Sebes - PeerSpot reviewer
Resolving critical software issues demands faster implementation and better integration
We use Coverity primarily to find issues such as software bugs and memory leaks, especially in C++ and C# projects. It helps us identify deadlocks, synchronization issues, and product crashes Coverity has been instrumental in resolving product crashes by detecting various issues like deadlocks.…
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The tool as it is can be used for code quality improvement."
"We were very comfortable with the initial setup."
"The product has deeper scanning capabilities."
"The security analysis features are the most valuable features of this solution."
"I encountered a bug with Coverity, and I opened a ticket. Support provided me with a workaround. So it's working at the moment, or at least it seems to be."
"The most valuable feature is that there were not a whole lot of false positives, at least on the codebases that I looked at."
"The solution effectively identifies bugs in code."
"The solution has improved our code quality and security very well."
"We use the solution for security testing."
"The product discovers more vulnerabilities compared to other tools."
"ZAP is easy to use. The automated scan is a powerful feature. You can simulate attacks with various parameters. ZAP integrates well with SonarQube."
"The solution has tightened our security."
"The API is exceptional."
"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."
"The solution is good at reporting the vulnerabilities of the application."
"It has evolved over the years and recently in the last year they have added, HUD (Heads Up Display)."
 

Cons

"Coverity could improve the ease of use. Sometimes things become difficult and you need to follow the guides from the website but the guides could be better."
"The quality of the code needs improvement."
"The product should include more customization options. The analytics is not as deep as compared to SonarQube."
"When I put my code into Coverity for scanning, the code information of the product is in the system. The solution could be improved by providing a SBOM, a software bill of material."
"I would like to see integration with popular IDEs, such as Eclipse."
"Reporting engine needs to be more robust."
"Right now, the Coverity executable is around 1.2GB to download. If they can reduce it to approximately 600 or 700MB, that would be great. If they decrease the executable, it will be much easier to work in an environment like Docker."
"Sometimes it's a bit hard to figure out how to use the product’s UI."
"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 documentation is lacking and out-of-date, it really needs more love."
"The product should allow users to customize the report based on their needs."
"It needs more robust reporting tools."
"The port scanner is a little too slow.​"
"The documentation needs to be improved because I had to learn everything from watching YouTube videos."
"As security evolves, we would like DevOps built into it. As of now, Zap does not provide this."
"Online documentation can be improved to utilize all features of ZAP and API methods to make use in automation."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is affordable."
"I would rate the pricing a six out of ten, where one is low, and ten is high price."
"I would rate the tool's pricing a one out of ten."
"The price is competitive with other solutions."
"The solution's pricing is comparable to other products."
"Offers varying prices for different companies"
"Depending on the usage types, one has to opt for different types of licenses from Coverity, especially to be able to use areas like report viewing or report generation."
"This is a pretty expensive solution. The overall value of the solution could be improved if the price was reduced. Licensing is done on an annual basis."
"This is an open-source solution and can be used free of charge."
"As Zap is free and open-source, with tons of features similar to those of commercial solutions, I would definitely recommend trying it out."
"OWASP Zap is free to use."
"This app is completely free and open source. So there is no question about any pricing."
"We have used the freeware version. I believe Zap only has freeware."
"This solution is open source and free."
"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."
"The tool is open-source."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
32%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Government
4%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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...
What do you like most about Coverity?
The solution has improved our code quality and security very well.
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.
 

Also Known As

Synopsys Static Analysis
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SAP, Mega International, Thales Alenia Space
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
Find out what your peers are saying about Coverity vs. OWASP Zap and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
860,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.