OWASP Zap vs PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional comparison

OWASP and PortSwigger are both solutions in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category. OWASP is ranked #11 with an average rating of 8.0, while PortSwigger is ranked #6 with an average rating of 8.8. OWASP holds a 4.7% mindshare in SAST, compared to PortSwigger’s 2.0% mindshare. Additionally, 88% of OWASP users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 98% of PortSwigger users who would recommend it.

OWASP Zap

Read 41 OWASP Zap reviews

8,982 Views
8,174 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

PortSwigger Burp Suite Prof...

Read 64 PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional reviews

4,607 Views
2,948 Comparison Views

98% willing to recommend

OWASP Zap

PortSwigger Burp Suite Prof...

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 27, 2025

PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional and OWASP Zap compete in the web application security testing category. Burp Suite holds the upper hand due to its automated scanning and customization capabilities, while OWASP Zap is favored for cost-free usage.

Features: PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional offers features like Proxy, Repeater, and Extender, supported by an extensive BApp store for additional modules. The Intruder provides customizable payloads, making it stand out for thorough security assessments. OWASP Zap is preferred for its spidering, proxies, and automated scanning, complemented by a user-friendly interface.

Room for Improvement: Burp Suite could improve by reducing false positives and enhancing scanning for RESTful services, with better documentation suggested for new users. OWASP Zap users see room for growth in API security, report customization, and expanding vulnerability scanning capabilities.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Both tools offer strong deployment options, mainly on-premises, with some cloud capabilities. Burp Suite provides comprehensive technical support and resources like webinars. OWASP Zap has extensive community support but could improve response time and availability.

Pricing and ROI: Burp Suite is noted for offering significant ROI despite higher initial licensing fees, with community versions and various licensing options available. Conversely, OWASP Zap is completely free, appealing to early-stage companies and cost-conscious users, though it requires more manual intervention for advanced needs.

To learn more, read our detailed OWASP Zap vs. PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

OWASP Zap vs. PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional

July 2025

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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

OWASP Zap

Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

11th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

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

Ranking in other categories

Application Security Tools (10th), Fuzz Testing Tools (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of OWASP Zap is 4.7%, up from 4.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional is 2.0%, up from 1.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

Featured Reviews

Amit Beniwal

Project Manager at Al Hassan LLC

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.

Read full review

Anuradha.Kapoor Kapoor

Head - Quality Control at Net Solutions

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It has improved my organization with faster security tests."

"They offer free access to some other tools."

"OWASP is quite matured in identifying the vulnerabilities."

"Simple and easy to learn and master."

"It can be used effectively for internal auditing."

"You can run it against multiple targets."

"The vulnerabilities that it finds, because the primary goal is to secure applications and websites."

"The application scanning feature is the most valuable feature."

More OWASP Zap pros

"You can scan any number of applications and it updates its database."

"The most valuable feature of Burp Suite Professional is its ability to schedule tasks for scanning websites, which helps in performing regular checks of IP addresses."

"We use the solution for vulnerability assessment in respect of the application and the sites."

"The active scanner, which does an automated search of any web vulnerabilities."

"The most valuable feature is Burp Collaborator."

"I have found this solution has more plugins than other competitors which is a benefit. You are able to attach different plugins to the security scan to add features. For example, you can check to see if there are any payment systems that exist on a server, or username and password brute force analysis."

"The most valuable features of PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional are its ease of use and its cost efficiency."

"The extension that it provides with the community version for the skills mapping is excellent."

More PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional pros

Cons

"The reporting feature could be more descriptive."

"There are too many false positives."

"When comparing OWASP Zap and Burp Suite, the main difference besides pricing is that OWASP Zap has limitations with reporting levels and UI, which affects its reporting capabilities, whereas Burp Suite is already advancing with new AI features and scanning capabilities that OWASP Zap seems to be lacking."

"There's very little documentation that comes with OWASP Zap."

"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."

"The product should allow users to customize the report based on their needs."

"Reporting format has no output, is cluttered and very long."

"It needs more robust reporting tools."

More OWASP Zap cons

"The solution lacks sufficient stability."

"If your application uses multi-factor authentication, registration management cannot be automated."

"The biggest drawback is reporting. It's not so good. I can download them, but they're not so informative."

"If we're running a huge number of scans regularly, it slows down the tool."

"Mitigating the issues and low confluence issues needs some improvement. Implementing demand with the ChatGPT under the web solution is an additional feature I would like to see in the next release."

"There could be an improvement in the API security testing. There is another tool called Postman and if we had a built-in portal similar to Postman which captures the API, we would be able to generate the API traffic. Right now we need a Postman tool and the Burp Suite for performing API tests. It would be a huge benefit to be able to do it in a single UI."

"Improvement should be done as per the requirements of customers."

"I would like to see the return of the spider mechanism instead of the crawling feature. Burp Suite's earlier version 1.7 had an excellent spider option, and it would be beneficial if Burp incorporated those features into the current version. The crawling techniques used in the current version are not as efficient as those used in earlier versions."

More PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have used the freeware version. I believe Zap only has freeware."

"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 tool is open-source."

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

"OWASP Zap is free to use."

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

"The tool is open source."

"As Zap is free and open-source, with tons of features similar to those of commercial solutions, I would definitely recommend trying it out."

More OWASP Zap pricing and cost advice

"We pay a yearly licensing fee for the solution, which is neither cheap nor expensive."

"There are multiple versions available of PortSwigger Burp Suite, such as enterprise, commercial, professional, and beginners."

"The pricing of the solution is reasonable. We only need to pay for the annual subscription. I rate the pricing five out of ten."

"It's a lower priced tool that we can rely on with good standard mechanisms."

"This is a value for money product."

"PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional is expensive compared to other tools."

"There are different licenses available that include a free version."

"It is expensive for us in Brazil because the currency exchange rate from a dollar to a Brazilian Real is quite steep."

More PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional pricing and cost advice

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Answers from the Community

reviewer1487928

Subdirector de Seguridad Informática e Infraestructura at a financial services firm with 201-500 employees

Nov 17, 2021

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 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

Avinash-Kumar

MCE at CGI

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.

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reviewer1526550

Lead Security Architect at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees

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.

Read full answer

See all 3 answers

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

University

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Government

11%

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

Is OWASP Zap better than PortSwigger Burp Suite Pro?

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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

What do you like most about PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional?

The solution helped us discover vulnerabilities in our applications.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

What needs improvement with PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional?

The only potential improvement would be adding Postman integration specifically for APIs.

See all answers

Comparisons

SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) vs OWASP Zap

Compared 19% of the time

Acunetix vs OWASP Zap

Compared 14% of the time

Checkmarx One vs OWASP Zap

Compared 11% of the time

Qualys Web Application Scanning vs OWASP Zap

Compared 9% of the time

OpenText Dynamic Application Security Testing vs OWASP Zap

Compared 4% of the time

More OWASP Zap Competitors

Acunetix vs PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional

Compared 16% of the time

OpenText Dynamic Application Security Testing vs PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional

Compared 13% of the time

SonarQube Server (formerly SonarQube) vs PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional

Compared 7% of the time

HCL AppScan vs PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional

Compared 6% of the time

Nucleus vs PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional

Compared 6% of the time

More PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

OWASP Zap

August 2025

Download OWASP Zap product report

Buyer's Guide

PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional

August 2025

PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional report

Download PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional product report

Also Known As

No data available

Burp

Overview

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

Burp Suite Professional, by PortSwigger, is the world’s leading toolkit for web security testing. Over 52,000 users worldwide, across all industries and organization sizes, trust Burp Suite Professional to find more vulnerabilities, faster. With expertly-engineered manual and automated tooling, you're able to test smarter - not harder.

PortSwigger is the web security company that is enabling the world to secure the web. Over 50,000 security engineers rely on our software and expertise to secure their world.

PortSwigger

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

Buyer's Guide

OWASP Zap vs. PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional

July 2025

Free Report: OWASP Zap vs. PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional

Find out what your peers are saying about OWASP Zap vs. PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.

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