Cloud · head to head
Longhorn vs OWASP ZAP
Longhorn
Cloud
Open source distributed block storage for Kubernetes, incubating at the CNCF
- From
- Free
- Rated
- -
OWASP ZAP
Cybersecurity
Free, open-source web application scanner and intercepting proxy, now governed by the Software Security Project.
- From
- Free
- Rated
- -
The short version
- Each has a real cost: Longhorn there is no vendor and no SLA, so a production incident at three in the morning is your own problem unless you buy SUSE Rancher Prime support separately.; 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: Longhorn covers Per-volume controllers, OWASP ZAP covers Intercepting proxy.
- Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which Longhorn and OWASP ZAP actually diverge.
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 Longhorn
- Per-volume controllers
- Synchronous replication
- Snapshots and backups
- Volume expansion
- Disaster recovery volumes
- Web interface
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.
Longhorn
- An on-premises Kubernetes cluster with local disks and no SAN that needs replicated persistent volumesnot OWASP ZAP
- Edge sites where shipping a storage array is impractical and three nodes is the whole clusternot OWASP ZAP
- A K3s deployment where the storage layer must be light enough to run alongside the workloadsnot OWASP ZAP
- A team that wants snapshots and S3 backups of persistent volumes without paying per-node storage licencesnot 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 Longhorn
- Manual penetration testing that needs an intercepting proxy, request replay and fuzzing without a paid licence per testernot Longhorn
- Teaching developers what an attack against their own endpoint looks like, using a tool they can install themselvesnot Longhorn
- Pre-release regression scanning of an internal application that would never justify a commercial DAST subscriptionnot Longhorn
Where each one falls short
Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.
Longhorn
- There is no vendor and no SLA, so a production incident at three in the morning is your own problem unless you buy SUSE Rancher Prime support separately.
- Synchronous replication across nodes means write latency depends on the slowest replica and the network between nodes, which makes it a poor fit for latency-sensitive databases.
- Every replica is a full copy, so three-way replication consumes three times the raw capacity, unlike erasure-coded systems that are far more space efficient.
- It is designed for block storage on modest clusters and does not scale to the node counts or throughput that Ceph or a commercial array handles, so growth eventually forces a migration.
- Recovery from certain degraded states, such as a volume stuck detaching or replicas failing to rebuild, requires manual intervention and knowledge of Longhorn internals that is not widely held.
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
Longhorn
Free- LonghornFree
- Apache 2.0 licensed, no licence fee
- Community support via GitHub and Slack only
- No vendor SLA or escalation path
OWASP ZAP
Free- Free & Open SourceFree
- Full functionality
- Active & passive scanning
- Spider
Which should you pick?
Choose Longhorn if
- You need per-volume controllers.
- You want to start without paying.
- You work on Linux, Kubernetes.
- You also want synchronous replication.
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.
Questions people ask
- Is Longhorn or OWASP ZAP better?
- Neither clearly leads. Longhorn 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, Longhorn or OWASP ZAP?
- Longhorn starts at Free and OWASP ZAP at Free.
- Does Longhorn or OWASP ZAP run on more platforms?
- Longhorn runs on Linux, Kubernetes. OWASP ZAP runs on Desktop, Cli, Api.
- Can I use Longhorn for free?
- Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
- What is Longhorn best used for?
- Longhorn is most often used for an on-premises kubernetes cluster with local disks and no san that needs replicated persistent volumes, edge sites where shipping a storage array is impractical and three nodes is the whole cluster, a k3s deployment where the storage layer must be light enough to run alongside the workloads, a team that wants snapshots and s3 backups of persistent volumes without paying per-node storage licences. Of those, an on-premises kubernetes cluster with local disks and no san that needs replicated persistent volumes and edge sites where shipping a storage array is impractical and three nodes is the whole cluster are not what OWASP ZAP is typically brought in for.
- What can Longhorn do that OWASP ZAP cannot?
- Longhorn covers Per-volume controllers, Synchronous replication, Snapshots and backups, Volume expansion. OWASP ZAP covers Intercepting proxy, Passive scanner, Active scanner, AJAX spider.
Answered from the vendors’ own pages
Longhorn: Who do we call when it breaks?
Nobody, unless you buy SUSE Rancher Prime, which includes commercial support for Longhorn. This is the decisive question for production use.
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.
Longhorn: How much capacity does replication cost?
Full copies, so three replicas means three times the raw capacity. Budget accordingly rather than assuming erasure coding efficiency.
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.
Longhorn: Is it suitable for production databases?
For modest workloads yes, but synchronous replication adds write latency and high-transaction databases usually want something faster.
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.
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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