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Developer Tools · head to head

Hookdeck vs OWASP ZAP

Hookdeck logo

Hookdeck

Developer Tools

Event gateway that receives, queues, retries and replays inbound webhooks

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Full reviewWebsite
OWASP ZAP logo

OWASP ZAP

Cybersecurity

Free, open-source web application scanner and intercepting proxy, now governed by the Software Security Project.

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Hookdeck pricing meters delivered events, so fan-out multiplies the bill: one inbound event routed to four services counts as four deliveries.; OWASP ZAP authenticated scanning of modern single-page applications is the hard part and ZAP makes you build it by hand: session handling, token refresh and login scripts are configured per application, and a misconfigured session means the scanner logs itself out and reports a clean result for pages it never reached.
  • They diverge on capability: Hookdeck covers Ingest and persist, OWASP ZAP covers Intercepting proxy.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Hookdeck and OWASP ZAP actually diverge.

Attributes where Hookdeck and OWASP ZAP differ
AttributeHookdeckOWASP ZAP
Pricing modelPer month by delivered event countfree
PlatformsWeb, Linux, macOS, WindowsDesktop, Cli, Api
CategoryDeveloper ToolsCybersecurity
FoundedUnknown2001

Identical on both: starting price (Free), free tier (Yes), user rating (Not yet rated).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Hookdeck

  • Ingest and persist
  • Automatic retries
  • Filters and fan-out
  • Transformations
  • Local development CLI
  • Rate limiting

Only in OWASP ZAP

  • Intercepting proxy
  • Passive scanner
  • Active scanner
  • AJAX spider
  • Automation Framework
  • Headless daemon and REST API
  • Docker images
  • Add-on marketplace

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Hookdeck

  • A payments integration where losing a Stripe event during a deploy causes an order to go unfulfillednot OWASP ZAP
  • Fanning one provider webhook out to several internal services without each subscribing separatelynot OWASP ZAP
  • Debugging a partner integration by replaying the exact failing payload after shipping a fixnot OWASP ZAP
  • Receiving production-shaped webhooks on a developer laptop without running a public tunnelnot OWASP ZAP

OWASP ZAP

  • Adding a baseline security scan to every application's pipeline where per-target commercial licensing would limit coverage to a handfulnot Hookdeck
  • Manual penetration testing that needs an intercepting proxy, request replay and fuzzing without a paid licence per testernot Hookdeck
  • Teaching developers what an attack against their own endpoint looks like, using a tool they can install themselvesnot Hookdeck
  • Pre-release regression scanning of an internal application that would never justify a commercial DAST subscriptionnot Hookdeck

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Hookdeck

  • Pricing meters delivered events, so fan-out multiplies the bill: one inbound event routed to four services counts as four deliveries.
  • Free-tier retention is three days, which is shorter than the time it typically takes to notice a failing integration, so the payloads needed for a replay are often already gone.
  • It becomes a single point of failure in front of every third-party integration, and an outage there means every provider webhook queues or fails at once.
  • The transformation layer runs JavaScript in a constrained environment, so anything that needs a database lookup or an external call has to happen downstream instead.
  • For a team already running Kafka or SQS the value is mostly the console and the replay UI, which is a hard cost to justify against infrastructure they already operate.

OWASP ZAP

  • Authenticated scanning of modern single-page applications is the hard part and ZAP makes you build it by hand: session handling, token refresh and login scripts are configured per application, and a misconfigured session means the scanner logs itself out and reports a clean result for pages it never reached.
  • There is no support contract in the product, so when a scan breaks the day before a release the escalation path is a GitHub issue and a community chat, which is not an answer that satisfies a delivery manager or an auditor who wants a named responsible party.
  • Active scanning sends genuine attack traffic, so it can create records, trigger emails, exhaust rate limits or destabilise a fragile environment, and pointing it at production without prior agreement produces an incident rather than a test result.
  • Output needs triage: passive rules generate large volumes of low-severity informational findings about headers and cookie flags that bury the few results that matter, and a team without someone tuning the rule set stops reading the report within a few sprints.
  • As a dynamic scanner it can only test what it can reach, so authorisation flaws between accounts, business logic abuse and anything behind an undiscovered endpoint go unreported, and a passing ZAP scan is evidence of nothing more than the absence of the classes of bug it looks for.

Pricing, plan by plan

Hookdeck

Free
  • DeveloperFree
    • Up to ten thousand events per month
    • Three-day retention
    • One user
  • Team$39/month
    • Ten thousand events included
    • Unlimited users
    • Pay as you go metering above the included events
  • Growth$499/month
    • Ten thousand events included plus metered usage
    • Thirty-day retention
    • Uptime and latency SLAs
  • Enterprise$undefined/year
    • Negotiated event volume
    • Custom retention
    • Dedicated support

OWASP ZAP

Free
  • Free & Open SourceFree
    • Full functionality
    • Active & passive scanning
    • Spider

Which should you pick?

Choose Hookdeck if

  • You need ingest and persist.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, Linux, macOS, Windows.
  • You also want automatic retries.
Hookdeck review

Choose OWASP ZAP if

  • You need intercepting proxy.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Desktop, Cli, Api.
  • You also want passive scanner.
OWASP ZAP review

Questions people ask

Is Hookdeck or OWASP ZAP better?
Neither clearly leads. Hookdeck starts at Free and OWASP ZAP at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Hookdeck or OWASP ZAP?
Hookdeck starts at Free and OWASP ZAP at Free.
Does Hookdeck or OWASP ZAP run on more platforms?
Hookdeck runs on Web, Linux, macOS, Windows. OWASP ZAP runs on Desktop, Cli, Api.
Can I use Hookdeck for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is Hookdeck best used for?
Hookdeck is most often used for a payments integration where losing a stripe event during a deploy causes an order to go unfulfilled, fanning one provider webhook out to several internal services without each subscribing separately, debugging a partner integration by replaying the exact failing payload after shipping a fix, receiving production-shaped webhooks on a developer laptop without running a public tunnel. Of those, a payments integration where losing a stripe event during a deploy causes an order to go unfulfilled and fanning one provider webhook out to several internal services without each subscribing separately are not what OWASP ZAP is typically brought in for.
What can Hookdeck do that OWASP ZAP cannot?
Hookdeck covers Ingest and persist, Automatic retries, Filters and fan-out, Transformations. OWASP ZAP covers Intercepting proxy, Passive scanner, Active scanner, AJAX spider.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Hookdeck: Is there a free plan?

Yes, ten thousand events a month with three-day retention and one user.

OWASP ZAP: Is it still called OWASP ZAP?

The project left OWASP in August 2024 and is now governed by the Software Security Project, with core development sponsored by Checkmarx. The tool is now just ZAP, though most existing documentation, courses and search results still use the OWASP name.

Hookdeck: How is usage counted?

By delivered events, so a single inbound webhook fanned out to three destinations counts as three.

OWASP ZAP: Is it free for commercial use?

Yes. It is Apache 2.0 licensed, with no per-application, per-scan or per-user cost, and it can be used and modified commercially without a licence agreement.

Hookdeck: Can I replay a failed webhook?

Yes, individually or in bulk from the console, with the original payload.

OWASP ZAP: Can it replace a penetration test?

No. It automates checks for known vulnerability classes against endpoints it can reach. It does not reason about business logic, chain findings into an attack, or test authorisation between accounts, which is most of what a tester actually does.

Hookdeck: Does it work for outbound webhooks too?

Yes, the same queueing, retry and observability applies to webhooks you send.

OWASP ZAP: Does it run in CI?

Yes, through the official Docker images and the Automation Framework, which defines scan jobs in YAML so configuration lives in the repository. A baseline passive scan is the usual starting point because it is fast and non-intrusive.

OWASP ZAP: How does it compare to Burp Suite?

Burp Suite Professional is the more polished manual testing tool and has a stronger scanner and extension ecosystem, but it is licensed per tester and Burp Suite Enterprise per target. ZAP is the better fit where cost per target is the binding constraint; many teams use both.

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