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Government · head to head

mySidewalk vs OWASP ZAP

mySidewalk logo

mySidewalk

Government

Community data dashboards for local government and public health, prewired to federal datasets

From
On request
Free plan
No
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

  • Only OWASP ZAP has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: mySidewalk it produces analysis and presentation rather than operational change, so the value has to be re argued at every renewal against services with more visible outputs.; 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: mySidewalk covers Prewired federal datasets, OWASP ZAP covers Intercepting proxy.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

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

Attributes where mySidewalk and OWASP ZAP differ
AttributemySidewalkOWASP ZAP
Starting priceOn requestFree
Pricing modelquotefree
Free tierNoYes
PlatformsWebDesktop, Cli, Api
CategoryGovernmentCybersecurity
FoundedUnknown2001

Identical on both: 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 mySidewalk

  • Prewired federal datasets
  • Margin of error handling
  • Custom geographies
  • Published dashboards
  • Local data integration
  • Report generation

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.

mySidewalk

  • A public health department producing a community health needs assessment on deadlinenot OWASP ZAP
  • A city applying for federal funding that requires demographic and disparity evidence for a service areanot OWASP ZAP
  • An agency that lost its only analyst who understood American Community Survey margins of errornot OWASP ZAP
  • A council wanting published neighbourhood indicator dashboards residents can browsenot 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 mySidewalk
  • Manual penetration testing that needs an intercepting proxy, request replay and fuzzing without a paid licence per testernot mySidewalk
  • Teaching developers what an attack against their own endpoint looks like, using a tool they can install themselvesnot mySidewalk
  • Pre-release regression scanning of an internal application that would never justify a commercial DAST subscriptionnot mySidewalk

Where each one falls short

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

mySidewalk

  • It produces analysis and presentation rather than operational change, so the value has to be re argued at every renewal against services with more visible outputs.
  • Budget frequently comes from a grant, which means the subscription is exposed when the grant cycle ends rather than being protected as core infrastructure.
  • The prewired datasets are American, so the platform has effectively no value outside United States federal statistical sources.
  • Analytical depth is bounded by what the platform exposes, so an agency with a genuine analyst will hit the ceiling and move to a statistical environment.
  • Small area estimates remain small area estimates, and presenting them as polished dashboards can lend unwarranted confidence to figures whose error bars overlap.

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

mySidewalk

On request
  • mySidewalk$undefined/year
    • Quoted annually by agency scope and dataset needs
    • Custom geography and local data integration work priced separately
    • No public price list, though agency contracts are public records

OWASP ZAP

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

Which should you pick?

Choose mySidewalk if

  • You need prewired federal datasets.
  • You also want margin of error handling.
mySidewalk 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 mySidewalk or OWASP ZAP better?
Neither clearly leads. mySidewalk starts at On request and OWASP ZAP at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, mySidewalk or OWASP ZAP?
OWASP ZAP has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at On request for mySidewalk and Free for OWASP ZAP.
Does mySidewalk or OWASP ZAP run on more platforms?
mySidewalk runs on Web. OWASP ZAP runs on Desktop, Cli, Api.
Can I use OWASP ZAP for free?
Yes. OWASP ZAP has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. mySidewalk starts at On request.
What is mySidewalk best used for?
mySidewalk is most often used for a public health department producing a community health needs assessment on deadline, a city applying for federal funding that requires demographic and disparity evidence for a service area, an agency that lost its only analyst who understood american community survey margins of error, a council wanting published neighbourhood indicator dashboards residents can browse. Of those, a public health department producing a community health needs assessment on deadline and a city applying for federal funding that requires demographic and disparity evidence for a service area are not what OWASP ZAP is typically brought in for.
What can mySidewalk do that OWASP ZAP cannot?
mySidewalk covers Prewired federal datasets, Margin of error handling, Custom geographies, Published dashboards. OWASP ZAP covers Intercepting proxy, Passive scanner, Active scanner, AJAX spider.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

mySidewalk: What problem does it actually solve?

Correct use of American Community Survey and federal health data for small geographies, which is difficult and is usually held by one person in an agency.

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.

mySidewalk: Is it useful outside the United States?

No. Its value is the maintained pipeline into US federal statistical datasets.

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.

mySidewalk: Who buys it?

Mostly public health departments and city planning or performance teams, often funded from a grant that requires the evidence it produces.

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.

mySidewalk: Can we see comparable contract values?

Yes. Agency contracts are public records and appear in council and health board agenda materials.

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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