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OWASP Zap vs PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 27, 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)
11th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
41
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
PortSwigger Burp Suite Prof...
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
6th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
64
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (10th), Fuzz Testing Tools (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of OWASP Zap is 4.5%, up from 4.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional is 1.9%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Static Application Security Testing (SAST) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional1.9%
OWASP Zap4.5%
Other93.6%
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.
Anton Krivonosov - PeerSpot reviewer
A special tool for penetration testers or security specialists to conduct security assessments
We use the solution for security assessments. It's a special tool for penetration testers or security specialists PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional is a standard tool in the security industry. It's a stable solution that has many features. You can download different plugins if you don't have…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The OWASP's tool is free of cost, which gives it a great advantage, especially for smaller companies to make use of the tool."
"OWASP Zap is straightforward to use. If someone doesn't have the budget for tools like Burp Suite, OWASP Zap is an excellent alternative."
"It updates repositories and libraries quickly."
"OWASP Zap is a good tool, one of my favorites for a long time, and I would recommend it."
"You can run it against multiple targets."
"​It has improved my organization with faster security tests.​"
"The scalability of this product is very good."
"OWASP is quite matured in identifying the vulnerabilities."
"It offers flexibility, macros, and features to reduce the effort required for authenticated sessions."
"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."
"BurpSuite helps us to identify and fix silly mistakes that are sometimes introduced by our developers in their coding."
"The reporting part is the most valuable. It also has very good features. We use almost all of the features for different kinds of customers and needs."
"It's good testing software."
"Enables automation of different tasks such as authorization testing."
"Once I capture the proxy, I'm able to transfer across. All the requested information is there. I can send across the request to what we call a repeater, where I get to ready the payload that I send to the application. Put in malicious content and then see if it's responding to it."
"The solution is quite helpful for session management and configuration."
 

Cons

"For scalability, I would rate OWASP Zap between four to five out of ten."
"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 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 product reporting could be improved."
"It doesn't run on absolutely every operating system."
"It would be ideal if I could try some pre-built deployment scenarios so that I don't have to worry about whether the configuration sector team is doing it right or wrong. That would be very helpful."
"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."
"Sometimes, we get some false positives."
"There should be a heads up display like the one available in OWASP Zap."
"One area that can be improved, when compared to alternative tools, is that they could provide different reporting options and in different formats like PDF or something like that."
"The solution lacks sufficient stability."
"The solution’s pricing could be improved."
"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 reporting needs to be improved; it is very bad."
"It would be beneficial to have privileged access management as a part of Burp Suite Professional."
"The solution’s pricing could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This solution is open source and free."
"This is an open-source solution and can be used free of charge."
"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."
"OWASP ZAP is a free tool provided by OWASP’s engineers and experts. There is an option to donate."
"The tool is open-source."
"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."
"The solution’s pricing is high."
"This app is completely free and open source. So there is no question about any pricing."
"The pricing of the solution is reasonable. We only need to pay for the annual subscription. I rate the pricing five out of ten."
"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."
"PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional is an expensive solution."
"We have one license. The price is very nominal."
"This is a value for money product."
"Burp Suite is affordable."
"PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional is an expensive solution."
"The solution used to be expensive. However, they have reduced the price to approximately $400.00 which is reasonable."
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Answers from the Community

reviewer1487928 - PeerSpot reviewer
Nov 17, 2021
Nov 17, 2021
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 quality security vulnerabilities. Both are very comparable in terms of intercepting features, fuzzing capabilities, and encoder and decoders. Both OWASP Zap and PortSwigger Burp Suite Pro have a spide...
2 out of 3 answers
AK
Mar 15, 2021
First things first both are having their own merits, however in my personal experience ZAP can replace your burpsuite for sure considering the License. Also as the latest ZAP versions are covering more advanced techniques and spidering patterns with lots of options in it, it is worth considering ZAP. However remember that burpsuite from latest versions with inbuilt chromium and it's emerging plugin support (Installable jars) you can use burp to the fullest and you can keep it as a swiss knife for your web and app pentesting. Couple of extensions in burp pro are interesting especially the race condition one. I always prefer using Burp and at instances I go with ZAP.
reviewer1526550 - PeerSpot reviewer
Mar 17, 2021
Yes OWASP ZAP is a good option as it's an open source so always preferred but Burp Suite Pro  will give you more options, its one of the best tool to have for pentesters so defo worth it.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
University
8%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

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 Business16
Midsize Enterprise14
Large Enterprise35
 

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.
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?
The cost of PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional is reasonable at approximately $500 per year per user.
What needs improvement with PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional?
The only potential improvement would be adding Postman integration specifically for APIs.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Burp
 

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
Google, Amazon, NASA, FedEx, P&G, Salesforce
Find out what your peers are saying about OWASP Zap vs. PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
868,787 professionals have used our research since 2012.