Burp Suite vs ZAP

Which Is Better: Burp Suite or ZAP?#

**Burp Suite Pro wins for professional penetration testing. ZAP wins for CI/CD pipeline scanning. Most teams use both.

** Burp Suite Pro costs $475/year and delivers the Repeater, Intruder, Sequencer, and BApp Store ecosystem that pentesters rely on for manual testing engagements.

ZAP is completely free under Apache 2.0 and ships with official GitHub Actions, Docker images, a YAML automation framework, and SARIF output — making it the practical default for DevSecOps teams that need automated scanning in pull requests.

If you need to find logic bugs, chain exploits, or deliver a client-ready report, Burp Suite Pro is the right tool.

If you need automated DAST in CI without a license budget, ZAP delivers solid results at zero cost. The false-positive density favors Burp Suite on logic-based issues; ZAP’s alert panel requires more triage for the same application.

For professional pentesters, Burp Suite Pro fits because the Repeater + Intruder + BApp Store workflow is the polished standard for hands-on testing.

For DevSecOps teams adding DAST to pipelines, ZAP fits because the YAML automation framework, official GitHub Actions, and SARIF output make CI/CD integration zero-cost. Choose Burp Suite if a hands-on pentester drives the work. Choose ZAP if pipeline-scanning matters more than manual workflow polish.

In practice, the table below quantifies the comparison and the head-to-head sections below tell you what the table cannot.

From my own testing, the false-positive density on a typical SaaS app is noticeably lower with Burp on logic-based issues, and Burp’s exec-summary report is closer to client-ready out of the box.

ZAP’s full scan typically completes in roughly comparable wall time, but reading the alerts panel takes longer because there is more noise to triage.

Burp Suite is a commercial web application security testing toolkit by PortSwigger, used by professional penetration testers worldwide. ZAP (Zed Attack Proxy) is a free, open-source DAST scanner maintained by Checkmarx with 14,700+ GitHub stars.

AppSec Santa is vendor-neutral. Neither PortSwigger nor Checkmarx pays to be included, ranked higher, or excluded from this comparison. Both tools are evaluated against the same criteria applied across all DAST reviews on this site: vulnerability detection rate, manual testing workflow quality, CI/CD integration depth, extensibility, and pricing transparency.

Where vendor claims about detection accuracy or coverage cannot be independently verified through public test data, that limitation is noted explicitly. Rankings reflect analysis based on publicly verifiable evidence.

What Are the Key Differences?#

Burp Suite vs ZAP: Pricing#

Two products, two pricing models. Numbers below come from each vendor’s public site as of 2026.

Burp Suite Pro is the only tier with a published list price; PortSwigger’s DAST edition (formerly Enterprise) carries enterprise pricing on request. ZAP is fully free under Apache 2.0 with no feature restrictions, no usage limits, and no separate enterprise tier.

Burp Suite vs ZAP: How Do They Compare?#

Scanning Accuracy#

Burp Suite Professional generally outperforms ZAP in detection rate comparisons. PortSwigger’s scanner has been refined over two decades and covers a wider range of vulnerability classes with fewer false positives.

The active scanner is particularly strong at detecting second-order vulnerabilities and logic-based issues that pattern-matching scanners miss.

ZAP’s scanner is capable and has improved steadily. For standard OWASP Top 10 issues — XSS, SQL injection, directory traversal, security misconfigurations — it catches what matters.

The gap between the two tools has narrowed over the years, though Burp still has an edge on complex vulnerability types.

Both tools support REST, GraphQL, and SOAP API scanning. ZAP’s API scanning scripts (zap-api-scan.py) make it easy to import OpenAPI specs and test every endpoint automatically.

Manual Testing#

This is where Burp Suite has its widest lead. Repeater lets you iterate on individual requests with a clean interface.

Intruder offers four attack modes — Sniper, Battering Ram, Pitchfork, and Cluster Bomb — for fuzzing and brute-force testing. Comparer highlights subtle response differences.

Sequencer analyzes token randomness. Decoder handles encoding conversions.

Each tool flows naturally into the next during a test.

ZAP has manual testing capabilities — you can intercept, modify, and replay requests — but the workflow is not as polished. The fuzzer works but offers fewer attack configuration options than Intruder.

For professional pentesters who spend hours in manual testing tools, the quality-of-life difference adds up.

CI/CD Integration#

ZAP takes the lead here. Official GitHub Actions (zaproxy/action-baseline, zaproxy/action-full-scan, zaproxy/action-api-scan), pre-built Docker images, GitLab CI templates, and the YAML automation framework make ZAP pipeline-ready out of the box.

The automation framework lets you define entire scan workflows — contexts, authentication, spidering, scanning, reporting — as code in version control. SARIF output integrates directly with GitHub and GitLab code scanning.

Burp Suite DAST (formerly Enterprise Edition) runs from Docker containers and integrates with Jenkins, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Azure DevOps, and TeamCity. It delivers Burp’s scanner engine in a headless, CI-friendly format.

The catch is that it requires a separate enterprise license on top of Professional.

The Burp Community Edition and Professional Edition are desktop applications designed for interactive use. They are not built for pipeline automation.

Extensibility#

Burp’s BApp Store has 500+ extensions covering active scanning enhancements, JWT manipulation, access control testing, traffic analysis, and more. Custom extensions use Java or Python (Jython). PortSwigger also introduced BChecks for lightweight custom scan checks.

ZAP’s add-on marketplace has hundreds of extensions for additional scan rules, import/export formats, authentication handlers, and reporting templates. Custom scripting supports JavaScript, Python, and Zest (a graphical scripting language designed for security testing). The open-source nature means community contributions flow freely.

Both ecosystems are robust. Burp’s BApps tend to be more polished, while ZAP’s open-source add-ons sometimes move faster on emerging technologies.

Pricing#

ZAP is free. No tiers, no limits, no restrictions.

Apache 2.0 license. Checkmarx funds development but charges nothing for the tool.

Burp Suite Community Edition is free but severely limited — throttled scanning, no project saves, no automated scanner. Professional costs $475/year per user and is the minimum for real-world work. Burp Suite DAST pricing is separate and enterprise-quoted.

For individual pentesters, $475/year for Burp Professional is a reasonable investment. For organizations adding DAST across dozens of pipelines, ZAP’s zero cost is a significant advantage.

When Should You Choose Burp Suite?#

Choose Burp Suite if:

• You are a professional pentester who needs the best manual testing workflow available
• Scanner accuracy on complex vulnerability types is a top priority
• The BApp Store ecosystem and Burp AI add value to your assessments
• You need polished client-facing reports from a recognized tool
• Budget for $475/year per tester is not a constraint

When Should You Choose ZAP?#

Choose ZAP if:

• You need free DAST with no feature restrictions or usage limits
• Automated CI/CD scanning is your primary use case
• YAML-based scan configuration as code fits your DevSecOps workflow
• SARIF output for GitHub or GitLab code scanning integration is required
• You want an open-source tool you can inspect, modify, and extend without restrictions
• Your team is adding DAST for the first time and wants to start without purchasing decisions

Many security teams use both tools. Burp Suite Professional for manual penetration testing engagements, ZAP for automated scanning in CI/CD pipelines.

The two tools serve different parts of the security testing workflow and complement each other well.

For more options, browse the AppSec Santa DAST tools category or see the Burp Suite alternatives guide.

Related Comparisons#

• Burp Suite Alternatives — options if you’ve outgrown or want more than Burp.
• ZAP Alternatives — the full alternatives list for teams moving off ZAP.
• Invicti vs Acunetix — the other major DAST head-to-head if you want an automated-scanner comparison.
• StackHawk vs ZAP — ZAP under the hood, but with CI/CD and API workflows layered on top.
• DAST Tools — every DAST scanner I’ve reviewed, filterable by licensing and deployment model.

Frequently Asked Questions

Written & maintained by

Suphi Cankurt

Eight years on the vendor side of application-security sales — thousands of evaluations and demos. I started AppSec Santa in 2022 to put that insider view to work for buyers. Independent of any vendor, paid by none, and honest about what fits whom.

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