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Aqua Cloud Security Platform vs Qualys VMDR comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 2026

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
5.5
Qualys TotalCloud boosts efficiency, reduces manual effort, decreases risk, and offers significant cost savings with a notable ROI.
Sentiment score
6.9
Aqua Cloud Security Platform enhances deployment speed and security, saving costs and reducing breach risk while increasing DevSecOps capabilities.
Sentiment score
7.0
Qualys VMDR enhances ROI by streamlining management, improving compliance, reducing vulnerabilities, saving time, and minimizing breaches effectively.
It has saved about 90% of our time.
Senior Consultant at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
TotalCloud has generated overall savings of 30 to 40 percent across various departments.
Security Manager at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
CallStream helps us integrate and automate tasks.
Senior Security Consultant at CyberNxt Solutions LLP
The impact can reduce remediation effort by 40% to 60%, avoiding production-level fixes which are costlier.
Security Practitioner at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
It is generally used for the DevSecOps pipeline to scan the entire SAST, DAST, or ISC, performing excellently in that area.
Cyber Security Architect at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
The ability to quickly go through and find out what needed to be done allowed us to quickly put reports together to present to the client.
Cloud Security Support at a tech vendor with 501-1,000 employees
We saw a return on investment through significant savings in time, money, and resources.
System Admin at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.4
Qualys TotalCloud support is praised for efficiency and staff knowledge but criticized for delays and inconsistent quality.
Sentiment score
6.4
Aqua Cloud Security Platform's support is generally praised for responsiveness but needs more proactive follow-up and regional adaptability.
Sentiment score
6.6
Qualys VMDR support is responsive and helpful, but users note occasional delays and suggest better response time and depth.
They are helpful, respond to my queries, and can answer any question.
Developer at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Qualys's tech support is highly responsive, providing multiple ways to interact with them.
Service Manager, Security Operations at CDA IT SOLUTIONS
Qualys' customer service provides quality answers, but the response time is long, even though it is within the SLA.
Works at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
On a scale of one to ten, I would rate the customer support for Aqua Cloud Security Platform a ten out of ten.
Cloud Security Support at a tech vendor with 501-1,000 employees
The customer support for Aqua Cloud Security Platform is excellent, available 24/7, and provides better solutions for any issues raised through tickets.
Cyber Security Architect at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
We usually get on calls with tech support, and they are very helpful.
Works at a comms service provider with 1-10 employees
The response time takes a while.
Security Engineer at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
The technical support provided by Qualys is pretty good.
System Admin at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.8
Qualys TotalCloud excels in scalability, efficiently supporting diverse environments and business sizes, though it may require skilled management.
Sentiment score
6.8
Aqua Cloud Security Platform scales efficiently and flexibly, but licensing costs should be considered for extensive deployment.
Sentiment score
7.9
Qualys VMDR is highly scalable, supporting numerous assets efficiently with customizable management and seamless cloud-based architecture.
We started our organization about nine months back. We started with about 30 users, and we now have more than 100 users.
CIO at a venture capital & private equity firm with 11-50 employees
Our organization currently uses it to manage over 1200 web applications.
Analyst, Information Security at Infosys
It is absolutely scalable, and I would rate its scalability as nine out of ten.
retired at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Aqua Cloud Security Platform has good scalability because it is a SaaS platform, so I do not need to think much about scalability.
Security Practitioner at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Aqua Cloud Security Platform did not seem to have any issues with scaling.
Cloud Security Support at a tech vendor with 501-1,000 employees
Aqua Cloud Security Platform's scalability is good, providing better services compared to DevSecOps when compared to CrowdStrike and Orca.
Cyber Security Architect at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Scalability depends on the license and the number of assets being monitored.
System Admin at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Qualys VMDR can handle scalability, although increasing the inventory can raise the licensing costs.
Information Security Analyst at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Qualys VMDR's scalability is good, and the customer support is good.
Cyber Security Solution Engineer at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.3
Qualys TotalCloud is highly stable with reliable support, 99.9% uptime, minimal bugs, and effective maintenance communication.
Sentiment score
7.7
Aqua Cloud Security Platform is stable and reliable with minor network issues, earning a stability rating of 7-8/10.
Sentiment score
7.9
Qualys VMDR is highly stable, reliable, and effective, with minimal downtime and challenges mostly due to user-side issues.
Overall, the support provided has been excellent.
Analyst, Information Security at Infosys
It is a stable solution, which is why we chose it.
CIO at a venture capital & private equity firm with 11-50 employees
Continuous monitoring is crucial to ensure system stability and avoid vulnerabilities or threats.
Developer at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Qualys VMDR is stable.
Cyber Security Solution Engineer at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
 

Room For Improvement

Users suggest enhancing Qualys TotalCloud with clearer reports, better integration, intuitive UI, AI risk assessments, and improved documentation.
Aqua Cloud Security needs enhancements in reporting, UI, pricing, integrations, onboarding, documentation, performance, and Kubernetes setup.
Qualys VMDR needs improved support, efficient reporting, UI, asset notifications, reduced tool dependency, better pricing, and comprehensive resources.
Ideally, the scanner should automatically detect and scan all subdomains, even if not explicitly defined, ensuring comprehensive vulnerability assessment.
Analyst, Information Security at Infosys
Ideally, updates should be more immediate, enabling quicker implementation of solutions.
Project Lead at Persistent Systems
Our goal is to integrate all these functions into Qualys, creating a single dashboard for comprehensive security monitoring and management.
Senior Information Security Engineer at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Risk prioritization in security graphs is a point where Aqua Cloud Security Platform is less mature than Wiz, which excels at identifying critical vulnerabilities as a single attack path.
Cyber Security Architect at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Alert noise and tuning are required because Aqua generates a large number of initial alerts that need tuning to reduce false positives.
Security Practitioner at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
A user interface that integrates smoothly with CI/CD pipelines and Kubernetes clusters would be a significant improvement.
Consultant at Infosys
It does not automate patching unless the patch management module is purchased separately.
System Admin at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
If AI features were integrated, it could enhance the capabilities significantly.
Information Security Analyst at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
One area where Qualys VMDR can be improved is the missing feature for deploying agents for over 1,000 assets, as we need to do it manually.
Cyber Security Solution Engineer at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
 

Setup Cost

Qualys TotalCloud's pricing is high yet justified by comprehensive features and flexibility, benefiting larger enterprises seeking robust security.
Aqua Cloud Security Platform offers flexible, workload-based pricing, seen as fair and competitive compared to alternatives like Prisma Cloud.
Qualys VMDR pricing is high for small businesses but offers flexibility, discounts, and comprehensive features for larger enterprises.
Qualys TotalCloud's pricing is currently acceptable, it is becoming increasingly expensive.
Senior Manager at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Pricing is managed by our finance team; however, Qualys TotalCloud offers cost-effective licensing flexibility.
IT Manager at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Qualys TotalCloud is expensive, but it offers a premier solution with no headaches.
Vice President at Inspira Enterprise
Compared to other vendors, Aqua Cloud Security Platform's pricing is good or lesser.
Cyber Security Architect at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
I am not directly involved in the pricing part, but while implementing Aqua Cloud Security Platform, I have seen that pricing is quite higher, especially for large-grade enterprises.
Security Practitioner at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
I would rate the pricing between seven to eight out of ten.
System Admin at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
I have a notion that Qualys might be more expensive than Rapid7.
Information Security Analyst at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Qualys offers better pricing and is feature-packed compared to other tools.
Works at a comms service provider with 1-10 employees
 

Valuable Features

Qualys TotalCloud offers comprehensive vulnerability detection, cloud security management, and automation with insightful dashboards for efficient threat management.
Aqua Cloud Security excels in comprehensive container security, vulnerability management, and user-friendly cloud coverage, enhancing compliance and visibility.
Qualys VMDR offers user-friendly management, real-time insights, and powerful integrations, significantly improving vulnerability prioritization and remediation efficiency.
This view of risk helps reduce the work we would have to do to combine multiple sources to prioritize risk.
Works at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
It will help cybersecurity professionals monitor the cloud and find vulnerabilities.
Developer at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
We are enjoying the new feature, FlexScan, which is valuable for Internet-facing VMs.
Senior Consultant at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Aqua provides end-to-end security across containers, Kubernetes, serverless, and cloud workloads starting from build, deployment, runtime, and compliance in one platform.
Security Practitioner at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Aqua Cloud Security Platform positively impacted my organization by allowing deployment from code to cloud in the entire CI/CD pipeline, with excellent capabilities and recent AI application security that is useful in the DevSecOps platform.
Cyber Security Architect at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
One additional feature of Aqua Cloud Security Platform is cloud infrastructure entitlement management, which tracks human and machine identities across cloud platforms while discovering privileged accounts, unused permissions, and potential threats.
Consultant at Infosys
The prioritization of vulnerabilities has improved our remediation efforts by around thirty to thirty-five percent.
Works at a comms service provider with 1-10 employees
It impacts my workflow overall, with the patch management features as it has the missing patches listed in detail, making it easier to get a comprehensive report and providing some dashboards that offer visual representation.
JMS, RPSG Ventures Limited at RP Sanjiv Goenka Group
Qualys VMDR's continuous monitoring capabilities help us respond to emergent threats by enabling my team to reach out to the security engineers whenever there is any detection of a vulnerability, informing them about it, and creating an incident.
Soc Lead & Edr Administration at Persistent Systems
 

Categories and Ranking

Qualys TotalCloud
Sponsored
Ranking in Container Security
11th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (11th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (8th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (8th), SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) (1st), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (6th)
Aqua Cloud Security Platform
Ranking in Container Security
20th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
Cloud and Data Center Security (14th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (19th), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (18th), Software Supply Chain Security (11th), DevSecOps (13th)
Qualys VMDR
Ranking in Container Security
9th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
96
Ranking in other categories
IT Asset Management (3rd), Vulnerability Management (3rd), Configuration Management Databases (3rd), Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Container Security category, the mindshare of Qualys TotalCloud is 1.4%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Aqua Cloud Security Platform is 2.9%, down from 3.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Qualys VMDR is 2.1%, down from 2.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Container Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Qualys VMDR2.1%
Qualys TotalCloud1.4%
Aqua Cloud Security Platform2.9%
Other93.6%
Container Security
 

Featured Reviews

RO
IT Security Expert at Alior Bank S.A.
Unified risk scoring has improved our cloud visibility and simplifies remediation priorities
Qualys TotalCloud provides unified vulnerability and threat assessment across both IAS and SaaS. This solution provides a single prioritized view of risk, which helps reduce the work I would have to do. We are no longer based on CVSS; we are based on Qualys risk scoring, which is based on CVSS plus internal findings made by Qualys, and then assigns its own score. The TruRisk insight feature has found a small number of assets with high vulnerability scores, though I am cautious since some information is classified. Qualys TotalCloud has positively impacted our bank's performance, and we have definitely seen benefits after implementing this solution.
Samir Paul - PeerSpot reviewer
Security Practitioner at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Secures cloud workloads from build to runtime and has needed simpler setup and alert tuning
Regarding how Aqua Cloud Security Platform can be improved, the first area is the complex initial setup. Deployment and configuration can be complex, especially in large environments that require skilled resources. For Kubernetes environments, initial onboarding and policy setup takes time. Compared to Wiz onboarding, it is not very straightforward, as I have also worked with Wiz. The UI is powerful but not very simple for new users, as navigation and dashboard can be overwhelming. Alert noise and tuning are required because Aqua generates a large number of initial alerts that need tuning to reduce false positives. Additionally, pricing can be high depending on workload scale, especially for large Kubernetes and multi-cloud environments. For improvements to Aqua Cloud Security Platform, I think better integration with SOAR and XDR platforms, more AI-driven prioritization, and providing simpler out-of-the-box policies would be beneficial.
Vaibhav Ghule - PeerSpot reviewer
Soc Lead & Edr Administration at Persistent Systems
Continuous risk-based monitoring has strengthened incident response and vulnerability prioritization
I haven't explored Qualys VMDR's vulnerability lifecycle automation yet. One of my analysts mentioned that queries lack grouping operators in Qualys VMDR. From my experience, I would appreciate improvements in the query options in Qualys VMDR, specifically in the query-building process where I would need more features and operators. Additionally, we have been facing issues with Qualys on the cloud level. We cannot download the configuration profile from the cloud agent, and it is showing a pending action for download. During 2025, we noticed outages of Qualys a couple of times. I want to mention that there is an issue with receiving timely RCA deliveries. While this is not necessarily about the tool, it relates to support. The support has not been very responsive, and we are receiving RCAs a little delayed whenever we raise support cases or communicate with the TAMs. Additionally, the UI has a slight latency, which I and my team have experienced. They have also reported this latency issue when navigating through different pages.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Construction Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
21%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
7%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise29
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise13
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise70
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Qualys TotalCloud?
Areas that need improvement in every solution include the remediation part. The remediation steps should be simple en...
What is your primary use case for Qualys TotalCloud?
Our use case involves the assets that we have under cloud, the assets exposed to the internet, and the internal appli...
What do you think of Aqua Security vs Prisma Cloud?
Aqua Security is easy to use and very manageable. Its main focus is on Kubernetes and Docker. Security is a very valu...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Aqua Security?
I am not directly involved in the pricing part, but while implementing Aqua Cloud Security Platform, I have seen that...
What needs improvement with Aqua Security?
Regarding how Aqua Cloud Security Platform can be improved, the first area is the complex initial setup. Deployment a...
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.
What needs improvement with Qualys VMDR?
I haven't explored Qualys VMDR's vulnerability lifecycle automation yet. One of my analysts mentioned that queries la...
What advice do you have for others considering Qualys VMDR?
I have some understanding about PeerSpot, and I have visited the website. PeerSpot is similar to TrustRadius. It take...
 

Also Known As

Qualys TotalCloud with FlexScan
Aqua Security Platform, CloudSploit, Argon
Qualys VM, QualysGuard VM, Qualys Asset Inventory, Qualys Container Security
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
HPE Salesforce Telstra Ellie Mae Cathay Pacific HomeAway
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
Find out what your peers are saying about Aqua Cloud Security Platform vs. Qualys VMDR and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.