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Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) vs SUSE Rancher comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
5.3
Qualys TotalCloud enhances efficiency, reduces costs by 30-40%, and increases ROI by 10-20%, significantly saving time and resources.
Sentiment score
7.0
Deploying more services on AKS reduces costs, offers OS-related savings, and improves ROI despite varying results across use cases.
Sentiment score
6.4
SUSE Rancher offers quick ROI by reducing deployment costs and time, improving efficiency, and simplifying Kubernetes management.
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
We see a return on investment with Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), as we no longer manage the control plane ourselves, which saves us a lot of time and employee effort.
Senior DevOps Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
For cost reduction, we save a lot on manpower; instead of hiring a 24/7 team to do the provisioning, we could just hire a couple of teams to monitor SUSE Rancher Management to do the provisioning.
GM Technical Management at PT. DATACOMM DIANGRAHA
Our team spends less time switching between clusters and performing respective administrative tasks.
Associate System Engineer at Dhanyaayai enterprise private limited
It definitely saved time and manpower.
Technical Solutions Engineer at a leisure / travel company with 501-1,000 employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.0
Qualys TotalCloud's customer support is praised for expertise and responsiveness but occasionally faces response delays and inefficiencies.
Sentiment score
7.5
Azure Kubernetes Service support is often praised, but some users experience delays and mixed outcomes, with variable response times.
Sentiment score
6.8
SUSE Rancher's support is reliable and effective, with clear documentation reducing the need for frequent assistance.
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
They are very fast to respond and begin analysis to resolve problems.
IT Specialist | SRE | Cloud Public and Private at Parana Banco
Customer support for Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) is typically good, but in some instances where technical expertise is required, I sometimes feel I know more than the support personnel.
Senior DevOps Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
The customer support is very friendly, and they are very fast in addressing the issues.
Technical Solutions Engineer at a leisure / travel company with 501-1,000 employees
Since we were the partner for deployment, customer support was especially robust from the presales team at SUSE.
Presales Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
In one important case, we needed a license for SUSE Rancher and the key was not working. We contacted the SUSE support team and they helped us by providing a new key for our organization.
Associate System Engineer at Dhanyaayai enterprise private limited
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
Qualys TotalCloud excels in scalability but may need skilled management, adaptable for varying environments and large-scale deployments.
Sentiment score
7.2
Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) offers robust scalability, efficient auto-scaling, and cost management, handling enterprise needs with few cost concerns.
Sentiment score
7.6
SUSE Rancher is praised for its scalability and centralized management, efficiently handling growth and multiple clusters without issues.
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
AKS offers excellent scalability due to its adaptation from Kubernetes.
Senior Software Developer at Simpson Strong-Tie
The scalability of Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) is one of the best I have experienced in the market.
Senior DevOps Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
SUSE Rancher's scalability is working with high performance, and it can handle growth and additional clusters easily based on my experience.
DavOps at a university with 51-200 employees
It uses HPA in the backend, so horizontal pod autoscaling is by default inherited in SUSE Rancher.
Chief Executive Officer at a training & coaching company with 10,001+ employees
As the number of Kubernetes clusters grows, it helps provide a single place to manage all of them, so the operational overhead doesn't increase as much.
Associate System Engineer at Dhanyaayai enterprise private limited
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.3
Qualys TotalCloud is praised for stability, boasting 99.9% uptime with minimal downtime and quickly resolved minor bugs.
Sentiment score
6.9
Azure Kubernetes Service is stable and highly rated, with minimal issues, occasional glitches, and praised self-healing capabilities.
Sentiment score
8.4
SUSE Rancher is stable and reliable for cluster management, with occasional infrastructure issues but generally positive user experiences.
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
From my usage, I would rate its stability as eight to nine out of ten.
Senior Software Developer at Simpson Strong-Tie
It's very stable, and the support is satisfactory.
IT Specialist | SRE | Cloud Public and Private at Parana Banco
The tool is working fine with SUSE without any downtimes, technical issues, or critical errors.
Technical Architect at BORN Group
There are some areas where it can improve, such as on the stability and reliability side.
Technical Solutions Engineer at a leisure / travel company with 501-1,000 employees
We haven't faced any major downtime caused by SUSE Rancher itself.
Associate System Engineer at Dhanyaayai enterprise private limited
 

Room For Improvement

Users recommend enhancing compliance, UI, integration, and reporting, improving security features, and optimizing pricing and navigation for Qualys TotalCloud.
AKS requires enhanced technical support, better integration, simpler setup, improved UI, and cost management features to address user concerns.
SUSE Rancher faces challenges in performance, integration, UI, cost visibility, reporting, and documentation, needing significant improvements.
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
The costs are rising rapidly, and we have not seen any cost reductions by moving to Azure.
Product Owner at ABN AMRO Bank N.V.
It is costly compared to other solutions such as Canonical.
Senior System Specialist at General Directorate of Residence and Foreigners Affairs (GDRFA)
I do not see any specific areas for improvement in Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), except for the kind of support they provide.
Senior DevOps Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
For complex scenarios such as air-gapped environments, disaster recovery, or multi-cluster upgrades, having more step-by-step examples and troubleshooting guides would be very helpful.
Associate System Engineer at Dhanyaayai enterprise private limited
The most pressing issue that I found in SUSE Rancher is that it is a bit slow. Compared with Komodor, it is very slow.
Technical Solutions Engineer at a leisure / travel company with 501-1,000 employees
I wish the container could be more lightweight so that anyone can test and verify SUSE Rancher Prime.
Chief Executive Officer at a training & coaching company with 10,001+ employees
 

Setup Cost

Qualys TotalCloud is costly but offers value and integration, ideal for enterprises despite higher pricing.
Azure Kubernetes Service costs can be high due to nodes, networking, and storage, with discounts for longer commitments.
SUSE Rancher offers cost-effective, flexible pricing and licensing, with options for open-source use or support services.
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
Transitioning to Azure did not bring cost reductions; in fact, costs are rising rapidly.
Product Owner at ABN AMRO Bank N.V.
The solution is very expensive in my opinion.
IT Specialist | SRE | Cloud Public and Private at Parana Banco
My experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing for Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) involves booking quotas for commitments of three to five years to receive significant discounts.
Senior DevOps Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Rancher is free of cost for us as it is open source.
Technical Architect at BORN Group
It is a very good tool to use, and it has a very good costing structure.
Technical Solutions Engineer at a leisure / travel company with 501-1,000 employees
Licensing, which is per unit based, was straightforward.
Presales Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
 

Valuable Features

Qualys TotalCloud enhances risk management with misconfiguration detection, TruRisk integration, continuous monitoring, automation, and seamless integration for IaaS and SaaS.
Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) provides secure, scalable container orchestration with seamless Azure integration, enhancing application management and CI/CD.
SUSE Rancher offers open-source flexibility, centralized Kubernetes management, enhanced productivity, automation, and ease of use with effective governance.
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
The most valuable features of Azure Kubernetes Service are its integration with Kubernetes, offering similar features for a seamless experience.
Senior Software Developer at Simpson Strong-Tie
Since pricing is not a major concern, we chose the best fit for our application, which was specifically designed for this particular platform.
Senior System Specialist at General Directorate of Residence and Foreigners Affairs (GDRFA)
The integration with Azure Active Directory helped with the security of our applications.
IT Specialist | SRE | Cloud Public and Private at Parana Banco
We use Rancher Desktop for local development, testing APIs locally, and it helps to seamlessly publish to the cloud.
Technical Architect at BORN Group
SUSE Rancher has impacted my organization positively by enabling us to identify issues before they happen through monitoring utilizations and node pressure.
DavOps at a university with 51-200 employees
The openness helped in integrating the existing tools with SUSE Rancher itself, which was the biggest use case.
Presales Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
 

Categories and Ranking

Qualys TotalCloud
Sponsored
Ranking in Container Security
11th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
41
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (10th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (7th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (7th), SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) (2nd), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (6th)
Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
Ranking in Container Security
24th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SUSE Rancher
Ranking in Container Security
15th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Container Security category, the mindshare of Qualys TotalCloud is 1.7%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) is 0.9%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SUSE Rancher is 0.5%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Container Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Qualys TotalCloud1.7%
SUSE Rancher0.5%
Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)0.9%
Other96.9%
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.
Daniel Wichinescki - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Specialist | SRE | Cloud Public and Private at Parana Banco
Has supported production deployments and simplified permission management though could reduce monitoring costs
For Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), we only used it to orchestrate the Kubernetes pods. We didn't use the other features. We only used the environment to start our application. I utilized the automatic scaling capabilities. The integration with Azure Active Directory helped with the security of our applications. I think Amazon EKS is better. EKS is the best because there are many features to use for scaling and to control the environments.
Shivamp Kachole - PeerSpot reviewer
Associate System Engineer at Dhanyaayai enterprise private limited
Centralized cluster management has improved daily operations and simplifies troubleshooting
I am happy with SUSE Rancher, but there are a few areas where it could be improved. During major version upgrades, the process can become a bit complex, especially in air-gapped environments where image management and dependencies require extra planning. Additionally, troubleshooting sometimes still requires switching to the command line because not every error is visible in the UI. If the UI provided more detailed diagnostic and troubleshooting information, it would make our issue resolution even faster. Other than that, it has been a reliable platform for all of us. I think the documentation is already very good, but for complex scenarios such as air-gapped environments, disaster recovery, or multi-cluster upgrades, having more step-by-step examples and troubleshooting guides would be very helpful. On the UI side, if SUSE Rancher could provide more detailed error messages and built-in diagnostic recognition, it would reduce the need to switch to logs and command lines. Those improvements would make our daily operations even easier and smoother, especially for new administrators and fresh team members.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
9%
Construction Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Outsourcing Company
26%
Computer Software Company
23%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise30
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise23
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise7
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Qualys TotalCloud?
To be totally honest, I do not have any best features because I have had a bad experience using this tool, especially...
What is your primary use case for Qualys TotalCloud?
My main use case for Qualys TotalCloud is vulnerability management and exposure management. I use this tool to evalua...
What needs improvement with Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)?
I do not see any specific areas for improvement in Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), except for the kind of support the...
What is your primary use case for Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)?
My main use case for Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) is hosting a Comark website on it. In addition to hosting a Comar...
What advice do you have for others considering Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)?
I would rate Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) at a nine out of ten. I deduct one point for customer support, as seventy...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SUSE Rancher?
I wasn't directly involved in the commercial side such as pricing, negotiation, or licensing decisions. Since we are ...
What needs improvement with SUSE Rancher?
I am happy with SUSE Rancher, but there are a few areas where it could be improved. During major version upgrades, th...
What is your primary use case for SUSE Rancher?
I have been working in the DevOps field and platform engineering field for around two years, approximately 1.9 years....
 

Also Known As

Qualys TotalCloud with FlexScan
No data available
No data available
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) vs. SUSE Rancher and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
908,800 professionals have used our research since 2012.