Amazon Inspector vs Qualys VMDR comparison

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Qualys are both solutions in the Vulnerability Management category. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is ranked #17 with an average rating of 8.4, while Qualys is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.6. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 2.7% mindshare in VM, compared to Qualys’s 6.7% mindshare. Additionally, 88% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of Qualys users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 13, 2025

Qualys VMDR and Amazon Inspector compete in the vulnerability management category, providing effective solutions for identifying and mitigating security risks. Based on the results of the data comparisons, Qualys VMDR seems to have the upper hand in terms of features and deployment versatility, while Amazon Inspector excels in automation and integration with AWS environments.

Features: Qualys VMDR's standout features include robust integrations like WAF, continuous monitoring, and asset management. It also offers web application security and detailed vulnerability prioritization. Amazon Inspector is recognized for its automated assessments, integration with Security Hub, and extensive vulnerability categorization, particularly in container and server environments.

Room for Improvement: Qualys VMDR could improve its complex reporting and reduce false positives. Enhancing dashboard customization and better integration with ServiceNow and IoT/SCADA systems is also suggested. Amazon Inspector needs enhancement in real-time capabilities and broader vulnerability detection. Additionally, its reliance on agents for deeper assessments is seen as a limitation.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Qualys VMDR offers deployment versatility, supporting private, on-premises, and hybrid cloud models, suiting diverse infrastructure needs. It receives mixed reviews for customer service, pointing to slow response times. Amazon Inspector is designed primarily for AWS public cloud deployment and benefits from AWS's established support network, garnering positive feedback for responsiveness and efficiency.

Pricing and ROI: Qualys VMDR is considered high-cost, potentially deterring smaller companies, yet its comprehensive features may justify the expense, especially with volume discounts. Amazon Inspector is seen as more affordable, using a pay-per-scan model that scales with usage, reflecting its narrower feature scope but offering cost-effectiveness. Both solutions contribute positively by reducing vulnerabilities, enhancing security postures.

To learn more, read our detailed Amazon Inspector vs. Qualys VMDR Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Amazon Inspector vs. Qualys VMDR

September 2025

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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

Zafran Security

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Vulnerability Management category, the mindshare of Zafran Security is 1.1%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Amazon Inspector is 2.7%, up from 2.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Qualys VMDR is 6.7%, down from 11.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Vulnerability Management Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Qualys VMDR	6.7%
Zafran Security	1.1%
Amazon Inspector	2.7%
Other	89.5%

Vulnerability Management

Featured Reviews

Israel Cavazos Landini

Associate Director IT Security Operations at a pharma/biotech company with 10,001+ employees

Weekly insights and risk analysis facilitate informed security decisions

I appreciate the weekly insights Zafran provides, which include critical topics for networks and IT security, allowing us to evaluate which insights apply to our environment. The organization score feature is valuable to keep the leadership team updated on how our infrastructure fares security-wise. The applicable risk level versus base risk level feature is beneficial because prior to Zafran, we only used the base risk level, but now understand that risk depends on the asset itself. Zafran is an excellent tool.

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Abdalla Kenawy

AWS DevOps SRE/Infrastructure Engineer at Capgemini

Automated insights streamline data security assessment

For Amazon Inspector, we have many EC2 or virtual machines deployed inside our AWS environment, and the problem is that the existing package deployed inside this EC2 instance has already outdated packages. As we progress with time, this package needs to be updated for security enhancement, which requires us to uninstall the package, install the new version, and then we should be fine. However, the challenge comes with how to scan all our EC2 instances for security vulnerabilities, which is currently managed by Amazon Inspector. Amazon Inspector can scan EC2 instances or ECR, which is the ECR registry where we can save artifacts Docker images. Amazon Inspector can also scan Docker images uploaded to ECR for Elastic Registry service, and it can scan databases and S3 based on the latest updates. I noticed this from a couple of months ago, and it provides huge benefits for security. Regarding the best features of Amazon Inspector, it gives us a list of all existing outdated packages as part of a deployed package on EC2 instances or specific Python packages that are part of the Docker file and the Docker image itself, which are causing security concerns. Amazon Inspector can list these security concerns and offer guidance on how we can remediate it by updating the package to a specific upper version or something similar.

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Ankesh Raj

Information Security Analyst at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

Real-time responses and reporting streamline vulnerability management

Qualys VMDR provides a real-time response and reporting feature, which is excellent. It allows us to see real-time graphs and reports for every asset, server, and more, which is very user-friendly. Our clients have given good feedback, and they are satisfied with the tool. We use it daily to fix vulnerabilities by connecting with infrastructure to remediate. The feedback from the client side is very good.

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Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"Zafran has become an indispensable tool in our cybersecurity arsenal."

"We saw benefits from Zafran Security almost immediately after deploying it."

"Overall, we have seen about eighty-seven percent reduction of the number of vulnerabilities that require urgency to remediate, specifically the number of criticals."

"Zafran is an excellent tool."

"We are able to see the real risk of a vulnerability on our environment with our security tools."

"The integration of Amazon Inspector with other AWS services has enhanced our security. Security Hub is a major asset because it allows us to centralize data from various AWS services. We can integrate third-party tools as well. It is just a single-click option."

"The scalability of the solution itself is unparalleled."

"I recommend Amazon Inspector because it allows the automation of processes and requires less manual monitoring."

"Amazon Inspector is highly stable, rated ten out of ten, and this stability impacts business security and administration positively."

"The vulnerability discovery is valuable, and they also rank those vulnerabilities for you. So, you could rapidly attack some of the higher, severe vulnerabilities as they pop up, if they do pop up."

"The findings dashboards are neat and easy to understand, offering clear demarcations for different types of findings and detailed insights into specific vulnerabilities and their associated instances. It is not a place where everything is dumped together. It offers an easy-to-understand layout."

"It operates continuously, so as soon as resources are created, it scans them for vulnerabilities."

"The most valuable feature of Amazon Inspector is the categorization of findings, which filters vulnerabilities by instance, container image, container repository, and Lambda function."

More Amazon Inspector pros

"It gives you a lot of options, and it integrates with our ServiceNow for ticketing and all."

"Performs automated, regular scans in the network."

"Qualys has a continuous endpoint monitoring feature for agent-based scanning. Once you deploy the solution, it monitors everything that is happening every 30 minutes. Then, if there are any vulnerabilities, they are reported."

"Qualys VM's best features are vulnerability management and customizable scoring."

"This is one of the best products I have worked with so far. I like the power of Qualys, and it's a better solution because you can scan a compact file, a BIT file, or batch files. The product already knows what's happening inside, and you don't need to expand the package. Tenable will do the same thing, but you need to have a package issuance claim. With Qualys, we can immediately understand the file, even a compact file. If there's some kind of discovery or incident, you will know what happened in the environment."

"It's a good product. After the scan our internet works well. It scans our security posture."

"They also have threat detection which maps threats. There is a feed that comes from Qualys when a new vulnerability is found. It tells us which machines are infected with that vulnerability."

"The reporting is fine."

More Qualys VMDR pros

Cons

"Initially, we were somewhat concerned about the scalability of Zafran due to our large asset count and the substantial amount of information we needed to process."

"The dashboarding and reporting functionality of Zafran Security is an area that definitely could use some improvements."

"I think the ability to have some enhanced reporting capabilities is something they can improve on, as they have good reports but we have asked for some specific reporting enhancements."

"The other point is that the reporting features of Inspector need improvement. For example, I am in an organization with millions of CVEs, and getting an overview of all this is challenging."

"It has a limited scope. So, AWS Inspector primarily focuses on the security of the EC2 instance. So, if your architecture includes other AWS services, then you may need to use additional tools for your comprehensive security assessment. So that is one con. Another is, like, we have a dependency on agents."

"One major area for improvement is remediation. My team works on remediating findings over time, likely using available patches. However, easier integration with Amazon's patching services would be very helpful."

"It has automated vulnerability assessment, yet I seek more flexibility in defining custom vulnerability checks tailored to my needs, which is more difficult."

"There is room for improvement in the scanning capabilities. I'd like to see broader coverage in terms of the vulnerabilities detected."

"There are challenges associated with the interdependencies in AWS services, like requiring an Active Directory for other services, resulting in additional charges."

"There isn't too much to improve right now. Scanning on demand or as a part of the pipeline versus a post pipeline solution would be good, but it is not a deal breaker by any means."

"One area for improvement in Amazon Inspector is the automation aspect."

More Amazon Inspector cons

"The disadvantage of working with Qualys is that the graphical interface is quite outdated."

"They can tweak their UI since the new version seems a bit jumbled up, and the old UI was more user-friendly."

"If AI features were integrated, it could enhance the capabilities significantly."

"Qualys VMDR identifies vulnerabilities and suggests fixes. However, it does not automate patching unless the patch management module is purchased separately."

"There are scenarios where a vulnerability is reported once yet not in subsequent scans, even if we have not fixed it."

"Qualys does have an on-prem solution, but it is very expensive."

"The response time of technical support takes a while."

"The only improvement I can think of is on the implementation side. At times it is a bit slow."

More Qualys VMDR cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

"The lowest cost would be around $10 for a few small accounts, however, for thousands of accounts, it could be around $5000 to $6000 dollars per month."

"The pricing is very transparent and clear."

"It's priced according to market standards for its services."

"It is scaled as you go. There are probably a certain number of scans per month, and there are tiers. If you're under a certain tier, it is free. The second level is pennies, and then all the way up to like a million. So, it has a tiered pricing program. They're pretty good with your initial scanning, and there is room to scale based on being affordable, but it is fairly cheap. There are no additional costs. They pretty much think about it as a pay-per-scan type model."

"When you want to cover yourself for scalability, you will be charged for the number you place on the scan itself."

"It is more expensive than other products on the market."

"It is different for every company, but for us, it's every three years."

"The product is more expensive than that of any other vendor."

"We do see over $100,000 in terms of price, for mid-size programs. You likely will pay more than $100,000 without any discount. It is a bit pricey."

"The solution is costly."

"Qualys VM is reasonably priced."

"In Nigerian Naira, we spend about roughly four to five million to use this solution and this is expensive compared to solutions like Nessus."

More Qualys VMDR pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

11%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

13%

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	3
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	4

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	20
Midsize Enterprise	12
Large Enterprise	69

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zafran Security?

Since we stood Zafran Security up in our private cloud, we handle the maintenance on our side. As we opted not to use...

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What needs improvement with Zafran Security?

In terms of areas for improvement, Zafran Security is doing a really great job as a new and emerging company. Oftenti...

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What is your primary use case for Zafran Security?

My use cases for Zafran Security revolve around two primary areas. One is around vulnerability management and priorit...

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What do you like most about Amazon Inspector?

The integration of Amazon Inspector with other AWS services has enhanced our security. Security Hub is a major asset...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon Inspector?

I manage pricing and purchase reserved instances, yet face challenges due to dependencies and lack of options for res...

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What needs improvement with Amazon Inspector?

I would like to see improvements in Amazon Inspector, specifically the support for scanning attached EBS storage for ...

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What do you like most about Qualys VMDR?

I like that we have many scanners and channels that don't overload. It helps us scan and track easily. Also, the tagg...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Qualys VMDR?

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing shows that we can consider both time and money saved.

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What needs improvement with Qualys VMDR?

One area where Qualys VMDR can be improved is the missing feature for deploying agents for over 1,000 assets, as we n...

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Zafran Security

September 2025

Download Zafran Security product report

Buyer's Guide

Amazon Inspector

September 2025

Download Amazon Inspector product report

Buyer's Guide

Qualys VMDR

September 2025

Download Qualys VMDR product report

Also Known As

No data available

Qualys VM, QualysGuard VM, Qualys Asset Inventory, Qualys Container Security

Overview

Zafran Security integrates with existing security tools to identify and mitigate vulnerabilities effectively, proving that most critical vulnerabilities are not exploitable, optimizing threat management.

Zafran Security introduces an innovative operating model for managing security threats and vulnerabilities. By leveraging the threat exposure management platform, it pinpoints and prioritizes exploitable vulnerabilities, reducing risk through immediate remediation. This platform enhances your hybrid cloud security by normalizing vulnerability signals and integrating specific IT context data, such as CVE runtime presence and internet asset reachability, into its analysis. No longer reliant on patch windows, Zafran Security allows you to manage risks actively.

What are the key features of Zafran Security?

Threat Exposure Management: Utilizes existing tools to prioritize vulnerabilities and manage threats.
Integrative Analysis: Combines security data with IT context for precise vulnerability management.
Real-time Risk Reduction: Enables immediate risk management without waiting for patches.
Hybrid Cloud Compatibility: Functions across diverse cloud environments for comprehensive security.

What benefits can users expect from Zafran Security?

Improved Security: Enhances protection by efficiently identifying and mitigating risks.
Cost Efficiency: Reduces unnecessary patching expenses by confirming non-exploitable vulnerabilities.
Time Savings: Frees developers to focus on root causes by handling immediate threats.
Comprehensive Insight: Offers a holistic view of security threats and vulnerabilities.

In industries where security is paramount, such as finance and healthcare, Zafran Security provides invaluable protection by ensuring that only exploitable vulnerabilities are addressed. It allows entities to maintain robust security measures while allocating resources efficiently, fitting seamlessly into existing security strategies.

Zafran Security

Amazon Inspector is an automated security assessment service that helps improve the security and compliance of applications deployed on AWS. Amazon Inspector automatically assesses applications for exposure, vulnerabilities, and deviations from best practices. After performing an assessment, Amazon Inspector produces a detailed list of security findings prioritized by level of severity. These findings can be reviewed directly or as part of detailed assessment reports which are available via the Amazon Inspector console or API.

Amazon Inspector security assessments help you check for unintended network accessibility of your Amazon EC2 instances and for vulnerabilities on those EC2 instances. Amazon Inspector assessments are offered to you as pre-defined rules packages mapped to common security best practices and vulnerability definitions. Examples of built-in rules include checking for access to your EC2 instances from the internet, remote root login being enabled, or vulnerable software versions installed. These rules are regularly updated by AWS security researchers.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Vulnerability Management, Detection, and Response (VMDR) is a cornerstone product of the Qualys TruRisk Platform and a global leader in the enterprise-grade vulnerability management (VM) vendor space. With VMDR, enterprises are empowered with visibility and insight into cyber risk exposure - making it easy to prioritize vulnerabilities, assets, or groups of assets based on business risk. Security teams can take action to mitigate risk, helping the business measure their actual risk exposure over time.

Qualys VMDR offers an all-inclusive risk-based vulnerability management solution to prioritize vulnerabilities and assets based on risk and business criticality. VMDR seamlessly integrates with configuration management databases (CMDB), Qualys Patch Management, Custom Assessment and Remediation (CAR), Qualys TotalCloud and other Qualys and non-Qualys solutions to facilitate vulnerability detection and remediation across the entire enterprise.

With VMDR, users are empowered with actionable risk insights that translate vulnerabilities and exploits into optimized remediation actions based on business impact. Qualys customers can now aggregate and orchestrate data from the Qualys Threat Library, 25+ threat intelligence feeds, and third-party security and IT solutions, empowering organizations to measure, communicate, and eliminate risk across on-premises, hybrid, and cloud environments.

Qualys

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

betterment, caplinked, flatiron, university of nutri dame

Agrokor Group, American Specialty Health, American State Bank, Arval, Life:), Axway, Bank of the West, Blueport Commerce, BSkyB, Brinks, CaixaBank, Cartagena, Catholic Health System, CEC Bank, Cegedim, CIGNA, Clickability, Colby-Sawyer College, Commercial Bank of Dubai, University of Utah, eBay Inc., ING Singapore, National Theatre, OTP Bank, Sodexo, WebEx

Buyer's Guide

Amazon Inspector vs. Qualys VMDR

September 2025

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