Marketing · head to head
Mautic vs OWASP ZAP
Mautic
Marketing
The main open source marketing automation platform, self-hosted and GPL licensed
- 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: Mautic mautic depends on reliably scheduled cron jobs to process segments and send campaigns, and a misconfigured or silently failing schedule stops sends without an obvious error, which is the most common way Mautic deployments fail in production.; 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: Mautic covers Visual campaign builder, OWASP ZAP covers Intercepting proxy.
- Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which Mautic 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 Mautic
- Visual campaign builder
- Contact management and segmentation
- Landing pages and forms
- Lead scoring
- Dynamic web content
- Email builder and A/B testing
- Self-hosted data control
- No feature gating
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.
Mautic
- A marketing agency running automation for many clients that cannot pass on per-contact SaaS pricing at scalenot OWASP ZAP
- A European university or public body whose data protection position requires contact data to stay on infrastructure it controlsnot OWASP ZAP
- A company with a list of several hundred thousand contacts where SaaS per-contact pricing has become the largest line in the marketing budgetnot OWASP ZAP
- A team that needs to modify the automation logic itself, not just configure it, and wants source access to do sonot 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 Mautic
- Manual penetration testing that needs an intercepting proxy, request replay and fuzzing without a paid licence per testernot Mautic
- Teaching developers what an attack against their own endpoint looks like, using a tool they can install themselvesnot Mautic
- Pre-release regression scanning of an internal application that would never justify a commercial DAST subscriptionnot Mautic
Where each one falls short
Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.
Mautic
- Mautic depends on reliably scheduled cron jobs to process segments and send campaigns, and a misconfigured or silently failing schedule stops sends without an obvious error, which is the most common way Mautic deployments fail in production.
- Email sending is not included: you must arrange, pay for and warm up your own sending infrastructure through Amazon SES, SendGrid or similar, and deliverability problems become entirely your problem with no vendor to escalate to.
- Acquia owns the commercial descendant, Campaign Studio, and is the largest contributor, so the loudest commercial interest in the ecosystem benefits from a hosted product rather than from the self-hosted one being easy.
- Upgrades between major versions have historically been disruptive, requiring database migrations and plugin compatibility checks, so a neglected instance can become expensive to bring current.
- The interface and the reporting are noticeably behind commercial platforms, so marketing teams that came from HubSpot or ActiveCampaign will find everyday tasks slower and will need training.
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
Mautic
Free- Self-hosted communityFree
- GPL licensed, no licence fee and no contact limits
- All features included, no paid edition
- You provide hosting, database, cron scheduling and email sending
- Managed Mautic hosting$undefined/month
- Third-party managed hosting listed by the project
- Updates, backups and cron scheduling handled for you
- Pricing varies by provider and is not set by the project
OWASP ZAP
Free- Free & Open SourceFree
- Full functionality
- Active & passive scanning
- Spider
Which should you pick?
Choose Mautic if
- You need visual campaign builder.
- You want to start without paying.
- You work on Web, Linux, Self-hosted, Docker.
- You also want contact management and segmentation.
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 Mautic or OWASP ZAP better?
- Neither clearly leads. Mautic 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, Mautic or OWASP ZAP?
- Mautic starts at Free and OWASP ZAP at Free.
- Does Mautic or OWASP ZAP run on more platforms?
- Mautic runs on Web, Linux, Self-hosted, Docker. OWASP ZAP runs on Desktop, Cli, Api.
- Can I use Mautic for free?
- Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
- What is Mautic best used for?
- Mautic is most often used for a marketing agency running automation for many clients that cannot pass on per-contact saas pricing at scale, a european university or public body whose data protection position requires contact data to stay on infrastructure it controls, a company with a list of several hundred thousand contacts where saas per-contact pricing has become the largest line in the marketing budget, a team that needs to modify the automation logic itself, not just configure it, and wants source access to do so. Of those, a marketing agency running automation for many clients that cannot pass on per-contact saas pricing at scale and a european university or public body whose data protection position requires contact data to stay on infrastructure it controls are not what OWASP ZAP is typically brought in for.
- What can Mautic do that OWASP ZAP cannot?
- Mautic covers Visual campaign builder, Contact management and segmentation, Landing pages and forms, Lead scoring. OWASP ZAP covers Intercepting proxy, Passive scanner, Active scanner, AJAX spider.
Answered from the vendors’ own pages
Mautic: Is Mautic free?
Yes, GPL licensed with no licence fee and no contact limits. You pay for hosting, email sending and the staff time to maintain it.
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.
Mautic: Does Acquia own Mautic?
Acquia acquired the founding commercial entity in 2019 and sells Campaign Studio built on it, but the Mautic trademark sits with the Open Source Collective and the project is community governed.
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.
Mautic: What breaks most often?
Cron scheduling. If segment rebuilding and campaign triggers are not running on schedule, campaigns quietly stop sending with no alert.
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.
Mautic: Can it handle large contact lists?
Yes, but performance at several hundred thousand contacts depends on database tuning and queue configuration, which is work you must do yourself.
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.
Related pages
Other head to heads
- Mautic vs Umami
- Mautic vs Countly
- Mautic vs Matomo
- Mautic vs Zoho Marketing Automation
- Mautic vs Bloomreach
- Mautic vs WebEngage
- Mautic vs Plausible
- Mautic vs Netcore Cloud
- Mautic vs Freshpaint
- Mautic vs Swydo
- Mautic vs Wrike
- Mautic vs Iterable
- Mautic vs Instapage
- Mautic vs Invoca
- Mautic vs June
- Mautic vs Kissmetrics
- Mautic vs Leadpages
- Mautic vs Lucky Orange
- Mautic vs 1Password
- Mautic vs Bitdefender Total Security
- Mautic vs Norton 360
- Mautic vs LastPass
- Mautic vs Bitwarden
- Mautic vs Burp Suite
- Mautic vs Metasploit
- Mautic vs Wireshark
- Mautic vs authentik
- Mautic vs Authelia
- Mautic vs Infisical
- Mautic vs Trivy
- Mautic vs Feedzai
- Mautic vs Frontegg
- Mautic vs HashiCorp Boundary
- Mautic vs JumpCloud
- Mautic vs McAfee Total Protection
- OWASP ZAP vs Umami
- OWASP ZAP vs Countly
- OWASP ZAP vs Matomo
- OWASP ZAP vs Zoho Marketing Automation
- OWASP ZAP vs Bloomreach
- OWASP ZAP vs WebEngage
- OWASP ZAP vs Plausible
- OWASP ZAP vs Netcore Cloud
- OWASP ZAP vs Freshpaint
- OWASP ZAP vs Swydo
- OWASP ZAP vs Wrike
- OWASP ZAP vs Iterable
- OWASP ZAP vs Instapage
- OWASP ZAP vs Invoca
- OWASP ZAP vs June
- OWASP ZAP vs Kissmetrics
- OWASP ZAP vs Leadpages
- OWASP ZAP vs Lucky Orange
- OWASP ZAP vs 1Password
- OWASP ZAP vs Bitdefender Total Security
- OWASP ZAP vs Norton 360
- OWASP ZAP vs LastPass
- OWASP ZAP vs Bitwarden
- OWASP ZAP vs Burp Suite
- OWASP ZAP vs Metasploit
- OWASP ZAP vs Wireshark
- OWASP ZAP vs authentik
- OWASP ZAP vs Authelia
- OWASP ZAP vs Infisical
- OWASP ZAP vs Trivy
- OWASP ZAP vs Feedzai
- OWASP ZAP vs Frontegg
- OWASP ZAP vs HashiCorp Boundary
- OWASP ZAP vs JumpCloud
- OWASP ZAP vs McAfee Total Protection