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OWASP Zap vs PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 20, 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 (11th), Fuzz Testing Tools (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of OWASP Zap is 4.6%, down from 4.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional is 2.0%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
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.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"This solution has improved my organization because it has made us feel safer doing frequent deployments for web applications. If we have something really big, we might get some professional company in to help us but if we're releasing small products, we will check it ourselves with Zap. It makes it easier and safer."
"The application scanning feature is the most valuable feature."
"The OWASP's tool is free of cost, which gives it a great advantage, especially for smaller companies to make use of the tool."
"It has evolved over the years and recently in the last year they have added, HUD (Heads Up Display)."
"The product discovers more vulnerabilities compared to other tools."
"They offer free access to some other tools."
"The solution is good at reporting the vulnerabilities of the application."
"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."
"The technical support from PortSwigger is excellent, managing response time and quality efficiently without any issues."
"The way they do the research and they keep their profile up to date is great. They identify vulnerabilities and update them immediately."
"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."
"PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional is one of the best user-friendly solutions for getting the proxy set up."
"We use the solution for vulnerability assessment in respect of the application and the sites."
"PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional has an intercept tab that helps us to scan our APIs, set the response, and request errors."
"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."
"The Spider is the most useful feature. It helps to analyze the entire web application, and it finds all the passes and offers an automated identification of security issues."
 

Cons

"Sometimes, we get some false positives."
"It needs more robust reporting tools."
"The automated vulnerability assessments that the application performs needs to be simplified as well as diversified."
"The ability to search the internet for other use cases and to use the solution to make applications more secure should be addressed."
"Reporting format has no output, is cluttered and very long."
"It would be nice to have a solid SQL injection engine built into Zap."
"Lacks resources where users can internally access a learning module from the tool."
"There isn't too much information about it online."
"It would be good if the solution could give us more details about what exactly is defective."
"Scanning APIs using PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional takes a lot of time."
"As with most automated security tools, too many false positives."
"If your application uses multi-factor authentication, registration management cannot be automated."
"The vendor must provide documentation on how to use the new API feature."
"It would be beneficial to have privileged access management as a part of Burp Suite Professional."
"The solution doesn't offer very good scalability."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This is an open-source solution and can be used free of charge."
"The solution’s pricing is high."
"As Zap is free and open-source, with tons of features similar to those of commercial solutions, I would definitely recommend trying it out."
"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 free 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."
"We have used the freeware version. I believe Zap only has freeware."
"There is no setup cost and the cost of licensing is affordable."
"For a country such as Sri Lanka, the pricing is not reasonable."
"PortSwigger is a bit expensive."
"The cost is approximately $500 for a single license, and there are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fees."
"We are using the community version, which is free."
"There are multiple versions available of PortSwigger Burp Suite, such as enterprise, commercial, professional, and beginners."
"It is expensive for us in Brazil because the currency exchange rate from a dollar to a Brazilian Real is quite steep."
"We have one license. The price is very nominal."
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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
17%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Government
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

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 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?
I find the price of PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional to be very cost-efficient.
What needs improvement with PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional?
The dashboard of PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional could be made more user-friendly.
 

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: June 2025.
860,168 professionals have used our research since 2012.