AWS GuardDuty vs CloudPassage comparison

Why PeerSpot?

Amazon Web Services (AWS) and CloudPassage are both solutions in the Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) category. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is ranked #8 with an average rating of 9.0, while CloudPassage is ranked #25. Amazon Web Services (AWS) holds a 7.2% mindshare in CWPP, compared to CloudPassage’s 1.5% mindshare. Additionally, 92% of Amazon Web Services (AWS) users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of CloudPassage users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

CloudPassage and AWS GuardDuty are security solutions focused on protecting cloud environments. Although CloudPassage shines in pricing and support, AWS GuardDuty is considered more comprehensive due to its advanced features.

Features: CloudPassage offers real-time threat detection, extensive compliance reporting, and user-friendly deployment. AWS GuardDuty provides integration with AWS services, comprehensive threat detection, and seamless AWS environment support. GuardDuty is preferred in AWS-heavy settings.

Room for Improvement: CloudPassage can enhance scalability, configuration options, and documentation. AWS GuardDuty could benefit from detailed documentation, broader cloud provider support, and more intuitive user experience. CloudPassage's need for scalability improvements is notable, while GuardDuty requires broader support beyond AWS.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: CloudPassage offers an easy deployment process backed by responsive customer support, suitable for teams with limited security resources. AWS GuardDuty ensures smooth deployment within AWS but may demand extra steps outside AWS. Both solutions deliver reliable customer service, with CloudPassage noted for its responsiveness.

Pricing and ROI: CloudPassage presents competitive setup costs delivering strong ROI, appealing to budget-conscious buyers. AWS GuardDuty might have a higher initial cost due to its advanced features, but its integration and protection justify the expense, especially in AWS-centric setups.

To learn more, read our detailed AWS GuardDuty vs. CloudPassage Report (Updated: September 2026).

Buyer's Guide

AWS GuardDuty vs. CloudPassage

September 2026

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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

Qualys TotalCloud

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) category, the mindshare of Qualys TotalCloud is 1.9%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of AWS GuardDuty is 7.2%, down from 13.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of CloudPassage is 1.5%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Qualys TotalCloud	1.9%
AWS GuardDuty	7.2%
CloudPassage	1.5%
Other	89.4%

Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)

Featured Reviews

reviewer2859021

Sr Security Engineer at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees

Risk-based triage has transformed container security and now prioritizes high-impact threats

The best features Qualys TotalCloud offers currently include managing cloud infrastructure and container security while facing major challenges such as alert fatigue. Traditional vulnerability scanners flag hundreds of CVEs on short-lived Kubernetes containers, some of which have no internet exposure or are gone before we can even triage them. I leverage Qualys TotalCloud to move beyond static CVSS. I use it to implement runtime exposure, correlation risk reprioritization, and shift-left integration. This notifies developers to fix a base image upstream rather than patching live ephemeral instances. In my work with cloud and container security, the biggest operational hurdle was alert fatigue. I use Qualys to shift left from static CVSS severity to context-aware risk prioritization. I correlated raw vulnerability data with real-time risk factors such as public network exposure, active runtime execution, or overly permissive IAM roles. This allows us to immediately drop the priority of isolated containers and escalate lower-severity CVEs that sit on an exposed, high-risk path. We can map these findings directly back to our CI/CD pipelines so developers can patch the root base images upstream. We have drastically cut down the signal-to-noise ratio, saved a lot of manual hours doing triage work, and ensured engineering effort goes directly towards high-impact risk reduction.

Read full review

ShantanuKhare

Senior IT Auditor at Ernst & Young

Has provided automated threat detection and daily malicious activity insights while supporting seamless orchestration with existing dashboards

I would assess the integration of AWS GuardDuty with Threat Intelligence as majorly positive; no threat intelligence is 100% accurate, and there are a few false positives, but as a security engineer, this must be accepted, and overall, the response and service is good for us. We do not directly use AWS GuardDuty dashboard by itself, as we have our own integrated security dashboard; AWS GuardDuty gives the feed to that dashboard, and it's giving us a satisfactory view of how the security landscape looks. We use metrics such as zero-day threats, any malicious traffic, and any traffic which originates from OFAC countries to measure its effectiveness, as we are majorly into a financial institution, as any traffic that is from a malicious IP or a rogue device. I don't see any significant negative points regarding AWS GuardDuty; it's a good product to have if you're a cloud consumer. I rate AWS GuardDuty nine out of ten overall.

Read full review

it_user854058

Lead Information Security Engineer

It helped us be more aware of what our security posture is, but not all of the features work in my environment

I would say CloudPassage is very useful for certain things. If you just want a few modules then focus on what you need and negotiate the price based on the individual module, rather than looking at the whole thing, because I didn't find all the modules very useful. Also, use Splunk in combination with it if you want reporting. I would give CloudPassage at least a seven out of 10. I rate it on the high-end because of the customer support - I've never seen any support that is comparable to that, it's very good, excellent. The support staff actually care, they actually follow up; it's very nice. And CloudPassage really listens to its customers. The product itself is very nice if you're only looking to check off your compliance requirements, but if you're looking for more of dashboarding and things like that, CloudPassage is improving but it's not quite there.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I depend heavily on the reports that I have from this tool."

"I would definitely recommend Qualys TotalCloud to other users."

"Its dashboards are brilliant. It provides in-depth insights."

"With TotalCloud, we can scan through the API. If we are not able to deploy cloud agents on the machine, we can use the API."

"I would definitely recommend Qualys TotalCloud to other customers."

"I like the web API security and IoT scanning features the most. The user-friendly design of TotalCloud's interface enables customers to navigate it and use its full potential easily"

"Qualys TotalCloud's most valuable features are its security capabilities that help identify and mitigate risk factors."

"One of Qualys' best features is its categorization, which allows us to see the types of assets, their security postures, and the AI-powered version of the tool."

More Qualys TotalCloud pros

"What we found most valuable in Amazon GuardDuty is its threat detection feature, especially because we were monitoring a huge number of AWS accounts, so we needed a solution that would monitor for any kind of malicious activity. The monitoring aspect of the solution was great because it gave us timely notifications if and when anything happened, and Amazon GuardDuty helped keep us on our toes to make sure we took action right away."

"What I like most about Amazon GuardDuty is that you can monitor your AWS accounts across, but you don't have to pay the additional cost. You can get all your CloudTrail VPC flow logs and DNS logs all in one, and then you get the monitoring with that. A lot of times, if you had a separate tool on-premise, you would have to set up your DNS logs, so usually, Amazon GuardDuty helps with all your additional networking requirements, so I utilize it for continuous monitoring because you can't detect anything if you're not monitoring, and the solution fills that gap. If you don't do anything else first, you can deploy your firewall, and then you've got your Route 53 DNS and DNSSEC, but then Amazon GuardDuty fills that, and then you have audit requirements in AU that says, "Hey, what are your additional logs?", so you can just say, "Hey, we utilize Amazon GuardDuty." You're getting your CloudTrail, your VPC flow logs, and all your DNS logs, and those are your additional logs right there, so the solution meets a lot of requirements. Now, everything comes with a cost, but I also like that the solution also provides threat response and remediation. It's a pretty good product. I've just used it more for log analysis and that's where the value is at, the niche value. Once you do threat detection, it goes into a lot of other integrations you need to implement, so threat detection is only good as the integration, as the user that knows the tools itself, and the architecture and how it's all set up and the rules that you set within that."

"We have over 1,000 employees, and we monitor their activity through AWS GuardDuty."

"Amazon GuardDuty is a very good service, and we are not planning to change it any time soon."

"GuardDuty's comprehensive threat detection does not only monitor data - it also detects a wide range of security threats."

"We generally use AWS GuardDuty for detection of zero-day vulnerabilities and automatic threat responses; it serves as a SOAR, an orchestrated and automated response solution for us in the AWS platform."

"The correlation back end is the solution's most valuable feature."

"Deployment is great, and we didn't face any big challenges."

More AWS GuardDuty pros

"Key features are the Software Vulnerability Assessment and the CSM, which is the configuration check."

"Our scores let us know when to trigger workflow to go out in a patch, it has reduced the amount of time we had to take to manually verify software and check our updates, and it helped us be more aware of what our security posture is."

"Policies are very easy to manage on a day-to-day basis."

"CloudPassage allowed us to implement changes that affected hundred of servers within our environments in seconds."

Cons

"In a future release, I suggest that zero-day vulnerabilities should be predicted in advance using AI technologies. The system is not 100% secure yet, so proactive threat hunting could be enhanced to be more proactive than the current system."

"I would like the ability to disable certain default built-in policies as they can be misleading when creating dashboards. That is the top one."

"Overall, we are satisfied with it. However, the response part of the Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) module can be improved. It is not yet in place according to requirements; it is not completely available even though the module has been released."

"The response part of the Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) module can be improved."

"The patching process with Qualys Patch Management, which is part of TotalCloud, does not cover installing certain prerequisites on the servers or workstations. This shortcoming means we must rely on SCCM when any service stack updates or additional prerequisites are needed."

"The downside is only in container security, but it has not been a long time since they introduced these models."

"There is room for improvement in vulnerability scanning, particularly for PaaS environments. Currently, Qualys does not have full access to these instances, which limits its effectiveness."

"A feature improvement could be the inclusion of Windows OS support for container security, as it is currently only supported for Linux."

More Qualys TotalCloud cons

"Improvement-wise, Amazon GuardDuty should have an overall dashboard analytics function so we could see what's in the current environment, and then in addition to that, provide best practices and recommendations, particularly to provide some type of observability, and then figure out the login side of it, based on our current environment, in terms of what we're not monitoring and what we should monitor. The solution should also give us a sample code configuration to implement that added feature or feature request. What I'd like to see in the next release of Amazon GuardDuty are more security analytics, reporting, and monitoring. They should provide recommendations and additional options that answer questions such as "Hey, what can we see in our environment?", "What should we implement within the environment?", What's recommended?" We know that cost will always be associated with that, but Amazon GuardDuty should show us the increased costs or decreased costs if we implement it or don't implement it, and that would be a good feature request, particularly with all products within AWS, just for cloud products in general because there are times features are implemented, but once they're deployed, they don't tell you about costs that would be generated along with those features. After features are deployed, there should a summary of the costs that would be generated, and projected based on current usage, so they would give us the option to figure out how long we're going to use those features and the option to keep those on or turn those off. If more services were like that, a lot more people would use those on the cloud."

"I would rate Amazon GuardDuty seven out of ten because some of the integrations may not work well with it, and depending on the integration that you're working with, the security tools have a lot of requirements to implement."

"In future updates of AWS GuardDuty, I would suggest implementing better UI features."

"An improvement would be to have a mobile version where remote workers can log in and monitor and fix issues."

"Cost changes. It's very expensive. If you turn on every feature, it's more than most commercial vendors. For smaller orgs, that doesn't make sense."

"I would like to see more integration with other AWS provided services."

"The solution's user interface could be improved because it will help users to understand multiple options."

"I think that some detections in container environments such as container runtime, and on services such as AWS container service, Fargate service or EKS service could be improved."

More AWS GuardDuty cons

"In the CSM module the policies are really hard to work with it. It is not very flexible at all. I would suggest that they change that. Right now, the scan is based on the group that the server is in. What happens if the server is in multiple groups?"

"Anything outside of the software vulnerability management and the CSM, things like the GhostPort, need some improvement. The dashboard is in beta. It looks really good, I wish it would come out of beta."

"Of all the advertised functions, I only find two things that really work in my environment, even though I wanted to use all of them. They're not flexible enough to be used."

"The reports and graphs are unintuitive."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Although Qualys TotalCloud is relatively expensive due to its unique automation features, its cost-effectiveness is rated an eight out of ten, with ten being the most costly."

"The pricing for TotalCloud is attractive and competitive in the market. Given the features, especially the dashboard, I have no concerns regarding pricing."

"Qualys TotalCloud offers good pricing that is affordable and competitive with the market. Our partnership also provides us with additional benefits."

"As a middle management member, I do not have direct pricing knowledge, but based on the knowledge from our meetings, its pricing is competitive."

"Qualys TotalCloud is expensive."

"Its price seems higher compared to other tools, but it is worth it. If they could adjust the pricing and make it comparable with other tools, that would be great."

"TotalCloud's price is about right where I would expect it to be."

"While Qualys TotalCloud's pricing is currently acceptable, it is becoming increasingly expensive and may soon be considered overpriced."

More Qualys TotalCloud pricing and cost advice

"We use a pay-as-you-use license, which is competitively priced in the market."

"The tool's licensing model is pay-as-you-go."

"GuardDuty only enables accounts in regions where you have an active workload. If there are places where you don't have an active workload, you wouldn't even enable them. That's one area where they could allow you to cut down your cost."

"In terms of the costs associated with Amazon GuardDuty, it was $1 per GB from what I recall. Pricing was based on per gigabyte. For example, for the first five hundred gigabytes per month, it'll be $1 per GB, so it'll be $500. If your usage was greater, there's another bracket, for example, the next two thousand GB, then there's an add-on cost of 50 cents per GB. That's how Amazon GuardDuty pricing slowly goes up. I can't remember if there was any kind of additional cost apart from standard licensing for the solution. Nothing else that at least comes to mind. What the service was charging was worth it. That was one good thing when using Amazon GuardDuty because my company could be in a certain tier for a certain period. My company wasn't under a licensing model where it could overestimate its usage and under-utilize its usage and pay much more. This was what made the pricing model for Amazon GuardDuty better."

"80 percent of the customers are using AWS GuardDuty, and we recommend it due to its low cost, especially for small customers, ranging from five to ten dollars a month. In our policies, we enforce the usage of this service, making it a recommended practice for security."

"The tool has no subscription charges."

"Pricing is determined by the number of events sent."

"It can get very expensive. If you turn on every feature, it can turn into hundreds of thousands of dollars."

More AWS GuardDuty pricing and cost advice

"CloudPassage is a little bit on the expensive side. So my suggestion is that the company lower its price point a wee bit or sell modules, separate them in modules, because I only find two things that are useful to me, yet I pay for four or five modules. It didn't seem like it was a fair deal."

"We also evaluated VMware NSX, but the pricing and features available in a CloudPassage implementation were decisive in deciding to go with CP."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Comms Service Provider

18%

Outsourcing Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

15%

Comms Service Provider

13%

Construction Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	16
Midsize Enterprise	11
Large Enterprise	38

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	7
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	16

No data available

Questions from the Community

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

We purchased Qualys TotalCloud for GCP and Azure as well. It is comparatively better than others regarding pricing. T...

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What needs improvement with Qualys TotalCloud?

I am unsure about how Qualys TotalCloud can be improved. I do not have anything else to add about the needed improvem...

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What is your primary use case for Qualys TotalCloud?

My main use case for Qualys TotalCloud is telemetry, although I am unsure about the specifics. A quick specific examp...

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

AWS GuardDuty is an expensive feature, and while you can't expect the price to be low, it can be lower because it's p...

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What needs improvement with Amazon GuardDuty?

AWS GuardDuty is a good product; it's doing its job right now, and I don't see any additional improvements needed. Co...

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What is your primary use case for Amazon GuardDuty?

We generally use AWS GuardDuty for detection of zero-day vulnerabilities and automatic threat responses; it serves as...

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Compared 4% of the time

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Compared 13% of the time

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Compared 12% of the time

Illumio Segmentation vs CloudPassage

Compared 10% of the time

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Compared 1% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Qualys TotalCloud

October 2026

Download Qualys TotalCloud product report

Buyer's Guide

AWS GuardDuty

October 2026

Download AWS GuardDuty product report

Buyer's Guide

Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)

October 2026

Download CloudPassage product report

Also Known As

Qualys TotalCloud with FlexScan

No data available

CloudPassage Halo

Overview

Qualys TotalCloud enhances security posture across cloud environments with continuous monitoring, vulnerability management, and risk visualization, ensuring efficient threat assessment and automated remediation for improved cyber risk reduction.

Qualys TotalCloud offers a robust suite of security tools essential for organizations managing multi-cloud infrastructures. By integrating cloud accounts and automating workflows, it supports AWS, Azure, and GCP, offering comprehensive vulnerability management and zero-day detection. The platform's user-friendly design, combined with its extensive risk management and unified threat assessment capabilities, enables organizations to prioritize and remediate vulnerabilities effectively. TruRisk Insights provides clear insights on cyber risks, while the automation options streamline patch management and scanning processes. API integration across IaaS and SaaS environments further enhances resource allocation efficiency and saves time, addressing misconfigurations across cloud environments.

What are the most important features of Qualys TotalCloud?

Accurate Vulnerability Reports: Delivers precise and actionable insights for risk mitigation.
Zero-Day Detection: Identifies and addresses zero-day vulnerabilities proactively.
Unified Threat Assessment: Offers comprehensive evaluation of threats across the environment.
Extensive Risk Management: Manages risks effectively with advanced insights and prioritization.
Continuous Monitoring: Provides non-stop surveillance for vulnerabilities and threats.
Cloud-Native Automation: Streamlines processes and reduces manual efforts using automation.
FlexScan for Internet-Facing VMs: Scans external VMs efficiently to detect vulnerabilities.
Dashboard Risk Visualization: Clear visualization helps prioritize vulnerabilities.

What benefits and ROI should users look for?

Improved Security Posture: Enhances threat detection and response across clouds.
Time Savings: Automation reduces time spent on manual vulnerability management.
Resource Efficiency: Better allocation of resources through streamlined workflows.
Enhanced Risk Prioritization: Focus on critical vulnerabilities for effective mitigation.
Integrated Cloud Accounts: Facilitates seamless cloud management and security.

Qualys TotalCloud is deployed in sectors needing rigorous vulnerability management, such as finance and healthcare. Companies utilize it to secure multi-cloud environments like AWS, Azure, and GCP, focus on compliance, and integrate security into CI/CD pipelines to detect and remedy threats pre-deployment.

Qualys

AWS GuardDuty is a security service providing threat detection and continuous monitoring, integrating seamlessly with AWS services and third-party tools. Enhanced by machine learning, it offers comprehensive protection against unauthorized access and malicious activity within AWS environments.

GuardDuty offers behavior analysis and automated responses, utilizing multiple data sources like CloudTrail and VPC Flow Logs for thorough threat analysis. Its scalability and cost-effectiveness simplify the process of identifying suspicious activities, thereby protecting AWS environments from security threats. While users appreciate these features, there's room for improvement in expanded integrations, a more intuitive dashboard, and detailed threat intelligence. Key capabilities include facilitating compliance and enhancing cloud security by monitoring accounts, services, and detecting unusual patterns in real-time.

What are the key features of AWS GuardDuty?

Threat Detection: Identifies potential threats using behavior analysis and anomaly detection.
Continuous Monitoring: Provides round-the-clock surveillance of AWS environments.
Integration: Connects with AWS services and third-party tools for extended functionality.
Automated Responses: Facilitates immediate action against detected threats.

What benefits and ROI should users expect from AWS GuardDuty reviews?

Cost-Effectiveness: Offers scalable solutions without significant overhead costs.
Ease of Use: Simplifies threat detection and monitoring processes.
Scalability: Adapts to growing security needs efficiently.
Comprehensive Security: Protects AWS environments from unauthorized access and malicious activities.

Industries utilize AWS GuardDuty for robust security management, detecting threats and analyzing potential risks within AWS environments. This is crucial for sectors needing strict compliance and security, such as finance and healthcare, enabling these sectors to respond effectively to security events and maintain integrity.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

CloudPassage offers cloud security solutions ensuring data protection and compliance. Its comprehensive platform provides security monitoring, vulnerability management, and incident response for dynamic cloud environments.

CloudPassage specializes in securing cloud-based infrastructures, facilitating visibility and control across complex environments. Its key functionalities include real-time vulnerability management and automated security monitoring, helping maintain compliance with industry standards. The adaptable solution is designed to seamlessly integrate with existing systems, providing users with effective security measures needed to safeguard cloud resources. CloudPassage delivers significant protection against evolving threats, empowering organizations to confidently deploy applications in the cloud.

What are the most valuable features of CloudPassage?

Automated Security Monitoring: Offers continuous oversight of cloud environments to identify potential threats.
Vulnerability Management: Detects vulnerabilities to help prioritize remediation efforts efficiently.
Compliance Management: Ensures adherence to regulatory standards and automates compliance checks.
Incident Response: Provides real-time alerts and comprehensive incident management tools.

What benefits and ROI should users consider?

Improved Security Posture: Helps enhance overall security, reducing risk exposure.
Cost Efficiency: Minimizes potential security breaches, reducing associated financial impacts.
Time Savings: Streamlines security processes, allowing teams to focus on critical tasks.
Scalability: Supports growing workloads, adapting to changing requirements effectively.

CloudPassage is implemented across industries such as finance, healthcare, and retail where securing sensitive data is crucial. Its versatile capabilities support compliance with sector-specific regulations, ensuring secure cloud infrastructure deployment regardless of industry-specific challenges.

CloudPassage

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

autodesk, mapbox, fico, webroot

Citrix

Buyer's Guide

AWS GuardDuty vs. CloudPassage

September 2026

Free Report: AWS GuardDuty vs. CloudPassage

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