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OWASP Zap vs Semgrep comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
Semgrep
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
18th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Supply Chain Management Software (3rd), Software Composition Analysis (SCA) (11th), Static Code Analysis (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of OWASP Zap is 3.1%, down from 5.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Semgrep is 2.5%, up 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 (%)
OWASP Zap3.1%
Semgrep2.5%
Other94.4%
Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
 

Featured Reviews

NK
Technical Analyst at Hexaware Technologies Limited
Open source testing tool empowers manual activities and has room to improve integration and reporting features
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 Postman, so it needs improvement. There are limitations with authentication levels, particularly with form-based and cookie-based authentication. However, overall, we are satisfied with OWASP Zap as there are no major issues, and improving the scan engine could be beneficial. 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.
Manjunath Maneppagol - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud & Application Security at Sixt SE
Context-aware code analysis has reduced noise and now improves developer experience with actionable security findings
I have consistently observed that their scan time is an issue for mono repos. Sometimes with their AI-based scanning, when you triage that scan, the scan never completes or finishes(, which makes it difficult. Another consistent issue is that whenever you have a new repo to onboard to the platform, the tool ideally should detect the master branch by default. However, sometimes the tool fails to identify it and will never scan it unless manually somebody looks into it and fixes the issue. Although their support team is really good, this issue was present six or eight months ago during the POC and is still present now. If it is affecting multiple customers, it should be prioritized and fixed. I would say that their integration aspects could have been improved. I see a lot of different security solutions that provide flexibility to the security teams based on Jira project, team divisions, Slack, and all those can be very much easily customized. Semgrep needs to work on the enhancement of their notification capabilities. Currently, they are working on identifying business logic vulnerabilities or privilege escalation vulnerabilities by looking at the code, and they should continue to focus on and improve this effort. Regarding stability, whenever you have a mono-repo which is a very large repository, the scan never finishes or the scan never kicks in. At that time, you have to reach out to the support team and ask them to expand the resources in the back end to fix it. This is an issue I keep seeing often on that platform.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The scalability of this product is very good."
"The solution is very easy to use, the initial setup is straightforward, it is free due to the fact that it is open-source, the stability is very good, and the product has a strong community surrounding it to help with issues and troubleshooting."
"We use the solution for security testing."
"Simple to use, good user interface."
"The scalability of this product is very good."
"It has improved my organization with faster security tests."
"Automatic scanning is a valuable feature and very easy to use."
"It updates repositories and libraries quickly."
"The best part of Semgrep is its ease of integration with CI/CD pipelines and how it is a developer-friendly tool."
"Compared to other competitors in the market, the AI-backed capability is the biggest strength of Semgrep."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to write our custom rules."
 

Cons

"Zap could improve by providing better reports for security and recommendations for the vulnerabilities."
"There are too many false positives."
"The documentation needs to be improved because I had to learn everything from watching YouTube videos."
"I would recommend this product to people although I think it is very difficult to deploy and we also have issues with maintenance."
"The port scanner is a little too slow."
"We get too many false positives and that should definitely be improved."
"There are areas for improvement with OWASP Zap, particularly in the alignment of vulnerabilities concerning CVSS scores."
"The product reporting could be improved."
"I have consistently observed that their scan time is an issue; sometimes with their AI-based scanning, when you triage that scan, the scan never completes or finishes, which makes it difficult."
"However, as a tool it is really complex to maintain and to use, and it has a huge price tag."
"There should be more information on how to acquire the system, catering to beginners in application security, to make it more user-friendly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution’s pricing is high."
"OWASP Zap is free to use."
"It is highly recommended as it is an open source tool."
"OWASP ZAP is a free tool provided by OWASP’s engineers and experts. There is an option to donate."
"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."
"This solution is open source and free."
Information not available
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893,244 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
11%
University
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise21
No data available
 

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 needs improvement with Semgrep?
The coverage of Semgrep could be a bit better, as there are other tools that are more specialized in other areas of security. Semgrep as an SCA tool is adequate, but if you want to use some other p...
What is your primary use case for Semgrep?
I use Semgrep mainly for its software composition analysis capabilities to identify vulnerabilities in dependencies used in our applications. Every time a new feature is developed or a new version ...
What advice do you have for others considering Semgrep?
The first thing you need to do is to integrate Semgrep with your CI/CD pipelines and once they are running, invest time in reading documentation and getting yourself familiar with all of the produc...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
Semgrep Code, Semgrep Supply Chain, Semgrep AppSec Platform
 

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
Policygenius, Tide, Lyft, Thinkific, FloQast, Vanta, and Fareportal
Find out what your peers are saying about OWASP Zap vs. Semgrep and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,244 professionals have used our research since 2012.