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PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional vs w3af 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

PortSwigger Burp Suite Prof...
Ranking in Application Security Tools
8th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
65
Ranking in other categories
Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (5th), Fuzz Testing Tools (1st)
w3af
Ranking in Application Security Tools
39th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Application Security Tools category, the mindshare of PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional is 2.7%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of w3af is 0.6%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Security Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional2.7%
w3af0.6%
Other96.7%
Application Security Tools
 

Featured Reviews

MH
Penetration Tester & Information Security Expert at a comms service provider with 11-50 employees
Dedicated browser and repeater have improved my proxy testing and manual vulnerability checks
I'm hoping perhaps for something to make it easier, such as to define things where if a message or a response is such and such, automatically make a request that is such and such. Perhaps something like this because otherwise, nowadays we have to do it manually. Perhaps they can automate it a bit more. Perhaps they could add some automation to things, to see what we do manually, which it has the tools to do manually, and perhaps enable with a click of a button to do things automatically. I'm not too sure which, but I'm sure they can from a product management point of view, do things that we need to do two, three, or four steps manually regarding specific testing. For instance, we want to check something specific if it's this or if it's that. Perhaps to define it once and have it more automatic, perhaps.
OS
Information Security Advisor, CISO & CIO, Docutek Services at Docutek Services
It's buggy and seems to try to do too many things, but having this on a USB drive has been valuable.
I tried to install this on numerous systems and eventually, with help, I got it running. It needs far too many dependencies installed and there's too much messing about to be of much use. Once running, it's buggy and begs the question can it be relied upon? Even within Kali it reports website time-outs, yet Zap or Burp are able to do a successful scan. I wanted this to work so much and be able to use it as an additional check of my results but have now binned it.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The free version is one of the best proxy tools for manual testing."
"The feature that we have found most valuable is that it comes with pre-set configurations, with a set of predefined options where you can pick one and start scanning, and we also have the option of creating our own configurations, such as how often the applications need to be scanned, along with good reporting and dashboards that integrate well with other task management applications we are using."
"There is no other tool like it. I like the intuitiveness and the plugins that are available."
"It was easy to learn."
"This tool is more accurate than the other solutions that we use, and reports fewer false positives."
"The tool provides complimentary services. It allows you to add a lot of extensions, and you can get extensions quite often. It is quite a flexible application."
"It's good testing software."
"I highly recommend it because everybody in Web Applications Security is using it."
"The best free software for pen testing web applications."
 

Cons

"We'd like to have more integration potential across all versions of the product."
"As with most automated security tools, too many false positives."
"For a country such as Sri Lanka, the pricing is not reasonable."
"The initial setup is a bit complex."
"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."
"Spidering large websites can use a lot of memory and might result in a crash on systems with lower RAM."
"I need the solution to be more user-friendly. The solution needs to be user-friendly."
"The price could be better. The rest is fine."
"Unfortunately, once you get around the seemingly strict set of pre-requisites to install it, it is incredibly buggy."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"PortSwigger is reasonably-priced. It's fair."
"The solution is reasonably priced."
"It's a lower priced tool that we can rely on with good standard mechanisms."
"This solution requires a license. It is expensive but you receive a lot of functionality for the price."
"The solution used to be expensive. However, they have reduced the price to approximately $400.00 which is reasonable."
"We pay a yearly licensing fee for the solution, which is neither cheap nor expensive."
"It is a cheap solution, but it may not be cheaper than other solutions."
"The pricing of the solution is cost-effective and is best suited for small and medium-sized businesses."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise14
Large Enterprise35
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 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.
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Also Known As

Burp
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Google, Amazon, NASA, FedEx, P&G, Salesforce
Information Not Available
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