Burp Suite vs OWASP ZAP 2026: Full Comparison
Last Updated: May 2026
Bug Bounty & Offensive Security · head-to-head
Burp Suite and OWASP ZAP are the two most widely used web application security testing tools in the world. Burp Suite by PortSwigger is the commercial industry standard used by over 80,000 organizations, while OWASP ZAP is the leading free and open-source alternative maintained by the OWASP community. This comparison covers scanning capabilities, manual testing features, extensibility, pricing, and which tool fits different use cases in 2026.
| Feature | Burp Suite |
|---|---|
| Category | Bug Bounty & Offensive Security |
| Pricing | Freemium |
| Rating | ★★★★ 4.8/5 |
| Open Source | No |
| Free Trial | Yes |
Our Verdict
Scanning and Detection — Burp Suite Professional includes an advanced web vulnerability scanner that automatically crawls and audits applications for SQL injection, XSS, SSRF, authentication flaws, and business logic issues. Its scan accuracy is best-in-class with low false positive rates. The 2025-2026 releases added AI-powered scan optimization. OWASP ZAP provides solid automated scanning through its active and passive scanners. While detection has improved significantly, Burp still catches more edge cases, particularly for complex authentication flows and second-order vulnerabilities.
Manual Testing — Burp Suite's intercepting proxy, Repeater, and Intruder are the gold standard for manual web testing. Burp Collaborator detects out-of-band vulnerabilities like blind SSRF and XXE that many scanners miss entirely. OWASP ZAP offers similar manual testing with its proxy, Requester, and Fuzzer. The functionality is comparable for basic testing, but Burp's interface is more polished for experienced testers.
CI/CD and Automation — OWASP ZAP has a significant advantage here. Its Docker containers, CLI tools, and GitHub Actions make it easy to embed in CI/CD pipelines at zero cost. Burp Suite Enterprise provides pipeline integration but at significant cost.
Pricing — Burp Suite Community is free but limited to manual tools only. Professional costs $449/year per user. Enterprise starts around $8,000/year. OWASP ZAP is completely free and open-source with full functionality including the scanner.
Choose Burp Suite if you are a professional pentester, bug bounty hunter, or AppSec engineer needing the most accurate scanner and best manual testing workflow. Choose OWASP ZAP if you are a student, a developer integrating security into CI/CD, or an organization needing free scanning at scale. Many professionals use both — Burp for manual testing, ZAP for automated CI/CD scanning.