Caido vs OWASP ZAP

Caido is a web security auditing toolkit for scaling manual testing through AI and teamwork. Its proxy intercepts and monitors HTTP and WebSocket traffic, with history for intercepted traffic and WebSocket messages. HTTPQL filtering lets users search requests and responses. Node-based workflows support ad-hoc automation, and automated attacks can use custom payloads and placeholders. Users can connect existing LLM providers, including Anthropic, Google, OpenAI, and providers available through OpenRouter. AI agents can access Caido programmatically through its Client SDK. Community plugins and custom extensions are supported; the Basic plan allows three plugins. Basic is free forever and includes two projects, seven workflows, five filter presets, and one pipeline session at a time. The pricing note lists paid access from $20/user/mo, while the opened pricing page did not display prices for Individual, Team, or Enterprise. Caido lists Linux, macOS, Windows, web, API, and self-hosted platforms, and presents the product for pentesters, security engineers, and bug bounty hunters.

OWASP ZAP is a web application scanner and proxy for security testing. Its tools include active and passive scanning, a spider, alerts, and scan policies. ZAP’s Automation Framework uses YAML plans to coordinate jobs such as scanning, spidering, API imports, and report generation. It can import OpenAPI, GraphQL, SOAP, and Postman definitions through jobs or add-ons. GitHub Actions are available for baseline, full, and API scans via Docker-packaged scans, and the project publishes Docker images, including a minimal image for CI. Add-ons come from an online Marketplace and are generally installed or removed without restarting ZAP. The software is free and open source, with a free plan at free. It supports Linux, macOS, Windows, API use, and self-hosted deployment. Windows and Linux installers require Java 17 or later; the macOS installer includes Java 17. ZAP says it can support only its latest full release, and current releases are unsigned, though checksums are provided.