Head-To-Head Comparison: Zapata Quantum (OTCMKTS:ZPTA) & Progress Software (NASDAQ:PRGS)

Zapata Quantum (OTCMKTS:ZPTA) and Progress Software (NASDAQ:PRGS) are both small-cap technology companies, but which is the superior investment? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their earnings, profitability, dividends, analyst recommendations, valuation, institutional ownership and risk.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

51.2% of Zapata Quantum shares are owned by institutional investors. 39.3% of Zapata Quantum shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 4.1% of Progress Software shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Volatility & Risk

Zapata Quantum has a beta of 20.94, meaning that its share price is 1,994% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Progress Software has a beta of 0.89, meaning that its share price is 11% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent ratings and price targets for Zapata Quantum and Progress Software, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Zapata Quantum	0	1	1	1	3.00
Progress Software	0	2	6	1	2.89

Zapata Quantum currently has a consensus target price of $1.00, suggesting a potential upside of 36.05%. Progress Software has a consensus target price of $51.57, suggesting a potential upside of 14.78%. Given Zapata Quantum’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, equities analysts clearly believe Zapata Quantum is more favorable than Progress Software.

Profitability

This table compares Zapata Quantum and Progress Software’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Zapata Quantum	N/A	-7.23%	-3.10%
Progress Software	9.24%	42.91%	9.09%

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Zapata Quantum and Progress Software”s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Zapata Quantum	$3.88 million	35.49	$9.34 million	($0.02)	-36.75
Progress Software	$977.83 million	1.88	$73.13 million	$2.17	20.71

Progress Software has higher revenue and earnings than Zapata Quantum. Zapata Quantum is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Progress Software, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Summary

Progress Software beats Zapata Quantum on 7 of the 13 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Zapata Quantum

Zapata Computing Holdings Inc. operates as an industrial generative artificial intelligence (AI) software company in the United States. The company offers subscription-based solutions that combine software and services to develop generative AI applications, as well as accompanying services to solve complex industrial problems. It also provides Zapata AI Sense, a suite of algorithms and complex mathematical models to enhance analytics and other data-driven applications; Zapata AI Prose, a set of generative AI solutions based on large language models for generic chatbot applications; and Orquestra, an industrial generative AI application development platform, which provides sense and prose. It serves enterprise organizations. Zapata Computing Holdings Inc. was founded in 2017 and is based in Boston, Massachusetts.

About Progress Software

Progress Software Corporation develops, deploys, and manages business applications in the United States and internationally. The company offers OpenEdge, an application development platform for running business-critical applications; Chef, a DevOps/DevSecOps automation software; Developer Tools that consists of software development tooling collection, including .NET and JavaScript UI components for web, desktop and mobile applications, reporting and report management tools, and automated testing and mocking tools; Kemp LoadMaster, an application delivery and security product offering cloud-native, and virtual and hardware load balancers; and Sitefinity, a digital experience platform foundation delivering intelligent and ROI-driving tools for marketers. It also provides MOVEit, a managed file transfer software for managing and controlling the movement of sensitive files and securing them both at-rest and in-transit; DataDirect, a secure data connectivity tools for Relational, NoSQL, Big Data and SaaS data sources; WhatsUp Gold, a network infrastructure monitoring software providing complete visibility of all network devices, servers, virtual machines, and cloud and wireless environments to find and fix network problems; Flowmon, a network security and visibility product with automated response across hybrid cloud ecosystems; Corticon, a decision automation platform to transform user experiences by streamlining and automating complex business rules; MarkLogic, a data agility platform to connect data and metadata; and Semaphore, a Semantic AI platform. The company offers project management, implementation, custom software development, programming, and other services, as well as web-enable applications; and training services. It sells its products to end users, independent software vendors, original equipment manufacturers, system integrators, value added resellers, and distributors. The company was founded in 1981 and is headquartered in Burlington, Massachusetts.