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OWASP Zap vs Qualys Web Application Scanning comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 18, 2026

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)
15th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
41
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Qualys Web Application Scan...
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
13th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (20th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of OWASP Zap is 2.6%, down from 4.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Qualys Web Application Scanning is 1.9%, down from 2.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Static Application Security Testing (SAST) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Qualys Web Application Scanning1.9%
OWASP Zap2.6%
Other95.5%
Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
 

Q&A Highlights

MK
Software Test Engineer at a tech company with 501-1,000 employees
Jan 23, 2020
 

Featured Reviews

Amit Beniwal - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
AnkitSharma13 - PeerSpot reviewer
Security Officer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Web scanning needs improvement but offers good vulnerability detection
The downside of Qualys Web Application Scanning is that it cannot crawl automatically. If I provide an IP address and a login form, it does basic testing, but it doesn't go deep as IBM AppScan does. If Qualys Web Application Scanning could improve its crawling capability, it would be more user-friendly. Qualys Web Application Scanning does IP-level testing, requiring direct input of credentials, and can only scan a few pages to provide known generic vulnerabilities, which isn't as beneficial from my point of view. The Vulnerability Management also relies heavily on version numbers and will flag vulnerabilities based on the component version, but it doesn't check if a real fix exists, leading to flags on components that actually have workarounds available.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"This is a very mature tool; it is capable of facilitating the work of many security experts, and I highly recommend it for beginners and advanced users when some other tools fail to catch traffic."
"OWASP is quite matured in identifying the vulnerabilities."
"OWASP Zap is straightforward to use. If someone doesn't have the budget for tools like Burp Suite, OWASP Zap is an excellent alternative."
"Technical support is excellent."
"​It has improved my organization with faster security tests.​"
"ZAP is easy to use. The automated scan is a powerful feature. You can simulate attacks with various parameters. ZAP integrates well with SonarQube."
"Simple to use, good user interface."
"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 combines both web application vulnerability management and internal vulnerability management on one platform and dashboard. Usually, you have to purchase separate tools."
"Network scanner has good reporting, coverage was also good."
"Qualys Web Application Scanning is robust and mature from industry standards."
"WAS gave us visibility into our externally exposed web applications and showed us vulnerabilities that we were not aware of and did not know how to test for."
"I recommend Qualys Web Application Scanning as it is easy to set up scans and is affordable from a cost perspective."
"The product prevents possible vulnerabilities in our network."
"It is a cloud-based solution, so it is easy to scale."
"The most valuable features are scanning analysis and reporting."
 

Cons

"It would be beneficial to enhance the algorithm to provide better summaries of automatic scanning results."
"The product should allow users to customize the report based on their needs."
"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."
"Deployment is somewhat complicated."
"We're currently moving away from OWASP to PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional; it's more user-friendly with a better interface."
"I would recommend this product to people although I think it is very difficult to deploy and we also have issues with maintenance."
"It would be a great improvement if they could include a marketplace to add extra features to the tool."
"We have had stability issues a few times."
"They should try to include business logic vulnerabilities in the scanner testing."
"I have experience with adaptive scanning for single-page applications, which was not very effective."
"We procured around 110 licenses for Web Application Scanning, but we have issues running concurrent scans. I don't currently have the option to trigger scans for all 100-plus websites. The default limit is around 10 conference scans. It's not very scalable, to be honest, because of the limitation that they put on concurrent scans."
"The product should allow users to upload their payloads."
"There's a distinction between internal and external scanning processes that could be streamlined. Currently, for internal scanning, specific configurations and scanner appliances need to be deployed within the network, which differs from the simpler setup for external scans. This dual process complicates the setup for comprehensive scanning coverage."
"The GUI could be a little less complicated as it opens a lot of new windows for creating search lists, templates, reports, or for scanning purposes."
"New features need to be added, specifically LLM-based solutions."
"The area of false positives could be improved. There are quite a number of false positives as compared to other solutions. They could probably fine tune the algorithm to be able to reduce the number of false positives being detected."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"OWASP ZAP is a free tool provided by OWASP’s engineers and experts. There is an option to donate."
"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."
"It is open source, and we can scan freely."
"The tool is open source."
"This solution is open source and free."
"It is highly recommended as it is an open source tool."
"We have used the freeware version. I believe Zap only has freeware."
"There are different options available with respect to licensing."
"Qualys has an IT-based licensing based on a yearly license, which is a good way of handling it. However, in some cases, when we do the PCI scanning, the host will not like the scanning and we lose the IT license. So, this could be improved."
"Qualys Web Application Scanning's pricing is a bit expensive compared to other solutions available in the market."
"I rate the software’s pricing a six out of ten."
"Pricing was reasonable and competitive. It was not too far above the other products."
"From my perspective, it is a budget-friendly option."
"The product has a very good licensing model."
"The product pricing is fair and reasonably priced."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
10%
University
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise22
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise27
 

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 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 needs improvement with OWASP Zap?
The improvement that has to be done for APIs focuses on manual activities where the feature exists, but it is not at the same level as what Burp Suite does with intercepting and tools such as Postm...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Qualys Web Application Scanning?
Regarding pricing, I think for personal use, it is costly, but if organizations are ready to pay, then it is fine as they are using it.
What needs improvement with Qualys Web Application Scanning?
The downside of Qualys Web Application Scanning is that it cannot crawl automatically. If I provide an IP address and a login form, it does basic testing, but it doesn't go deep as IBM AppScan does...
What is your primary use case for Qualys Web Application Scanning?
I use Qualys Web Application Scanning, and we are using Vulnerability Management. By Vulnerability Management, I mean not TotalCloud; they have some on-premises solutions also. Patch Management and...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Qualys WAS
 

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
BskyB, Cartagena, ClearPoint Learning Systems, Connect Group, du, Fortrex Technologies, HBOR, HDI, Highlights for Children, The Lithuanian State Enterprise Centre of Registers, City of Miami Beach, Microsoft, MidlandHR, MSCI Inc., Northern Arizona University, Ofgem, Olympus Europa, PhoneFactor, RTL Nederland, ThousandEyes, VGZ Organisatie B.V.
Find out what your peers are saying about OWASP Zap vs. Qualys Web Application Scanning and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
913,806 professionals have used our research since 2012.