Which is better zap or Burp Suite?
Lets us see the pros and cons of both. And decide which one is better for penetration testing of web applications
What is Burp Suite ?
Burp or Burp Suite is a set of tools used for penetration testing of web applications. It is developed by the company named Portswigger, which is also the alias of its founder Dafydd Stuttard. BurpSuite aims to be an all in one set of tools and its capabilities can be enhanced by installing add-ons that are called BApps.
It is the most popular tool among professional web app security researchers and bug bounty hunters. Its ease of use makes it a more suitable choice over free alternatives like OWASP ZAP. Burp Suite is available as a community edition which is free, professional edition that costs $399/year and an enterprise edition that costs $3999/Year
The tools offered by BurpSuite are :
- Spider
- Proxy
- Intruder
- Spider :
It is a web spider/crawler that is used to map the target web application. The objective of the mapping is to get a list of endpoints so that their functionality can be observed and potential vulnerabilities can be found. Spidering is done for a simple reason that the more endpoints you gather during your recon process, the more attack surfaces you possess during your actual testing.
- Proxy :
BurpSuite contains an intercepting proxy that lets the user see and modify the contents of requests and responses while they are in transit. It also lets the user send the request/response under monitoring to another relevant tool in BurpSuite, removing the burden of copy-paste. The proxy server can be adjusted to run on a specific loop-back ip and a port. The proxy can also be configured to filter out specific types of request-response pairs.
- Intruder :
It is a fuzzer. This is used to run a set of values through an input point. The values are run and the output is observed for success/failure and content length. Usually, an anomaly results in a change in response code or content length of the response. BurpSuite allows brute-force, dictionary file and single values for its payload position. The intruder is used for: Brute-force attacks on password forms, pin forms, and other such forms. The dictionary attack on password forms, fields that are suspected of being vulnerable to XSS or SQL injection. Testing and attacking rate limiting on the web-app.
What is ZAP ?
OWASP ZAP (short for Zed Attack Proxy) is an open-source web application security scanner. It is intended to be used by both those new to application security as well as professional penetration testers.
It is one of the most active OWASP projects and has been given Flagship status.
When used as a proxy server it allows the user to manipulate all of the traffic that passes through it, including traffic using https.
It can also run in a daemon mode which is then controlled via a REST API.
Which Is better zap or burp site:
Burp Suite has it's vulnerability scanner and it's fuzzing capabilities, among other things, behind a paywall of up to $400 USD per year. ... However, for an independent web pentester, OWASP Zap is the overall better alternative to Burp Suite.
No doubt, Burp Suite Pro is a better tool compare to OWASP ZAP. If you compare Burp Suite Community Edition and OWASP ZAP, the web application scanning feature is not available in the free version of Burp Suite. Still, most of the other features of Burp Suite make the best choice for security professionals.