Performance and Resource Usage

Performance comparisons require careful consideration of artificial limitations. ZAP operates at full capacity within hardware constraints. Spider and scanner performance depends on configured thread counts, available memory, and target application capacity. Users control these parameters without artificial restrictions. Memory usage scales with session size but remains manageable through proper configuration.

Burp Suite Community edition includes deliberate performance throttling making meaningful comparison impossible. Professional edition performs well, with efficient memory usage and good scanning speeds. However, users report that optimal performance requires careful tuning and significant memory allocation for large applications. The built-in Chromium browser for rendering JavaScript increases resource usage compared to ZAP's approach.

Real-world performance often depends more on configuration and usage patterns than tool choice. Both tools can overwhelm target applications if misconfigured. ZAP's transparency allows performance profiling and optimization, while Burp Suite's closed-source nature limits deep performance analysis. For most applications, both tools provide adequate performance when properly configured.