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BMC Helix Automation Console vs Tenable Security Center comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 8, 2026

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
Sponsored
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
11th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
Container Security (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)
BMC Helix Automation Console
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
56th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Tenable Security Center
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
7th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
56
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (12th), Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Vulnerability Management category, the mindshare of Qualys TotalCloud is 1.0%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of BMC Helix Automation Console is 0.9%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tenable Security Center is 2.6%, down from 4.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Vulnerability Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Tenable Security Center2.6%
Qualys TotalCloud1.0%
BMC Helix Automation Console0.9%
Other95.5%
Vulnerability Management
 

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.
ShashiGupta - PeerSpot reviewer
Soo at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Reasonably Priced
In terms of improvement, the product could benefit from streamlining the implementation process, particularly regarding customization. Currently, the process involves navigating through multiple layers of custom and staging forms, which can be cumbersome and time-consuming. Another aspect to consider is the foundation data provided out of the box, particularly regarding categorization and its associated values. This foundational data may only sometimes meet the mark, as organizations often require more flexibility to tailor it to their needs. Discovering hardware, for instance, can lead to different category processing needs, with certain layers providing minimal benefits. The challenge lies in the inability to directly specify servers, hardware, software, and their respective details, highlighting a need for improvement in this area. As per the current state of the Helix product, it has seen some resolution to issues but still faces challenges when adding more attributes. It can lead to restrictions, particularly with the progressive view page, limiting flexibility in certain cases. While benefits can be gained in other aspects, such drawbacks are common. Improvements are necessary to enhance flexibility in this regard. Exploring alternative solutions like containerization or cloud services may offer opportunities for optimization, requiring careful consideration due to the complexity involved. I'm still determining the current strategy. While there have been improvements in the latest version, there's still a need for further enhancements in an extended version. Additionally, stakeholders, including manufacturing companies, emphasize the importance of fine-tuning performance for the Helix product. The search functionality remains problematic, often taking more than 15 seconds, undermining reliability.
reviewer1534134 - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of Information Security at a consultancy with 1,001-5,000 employees
Centralized analytics have strengthened patch visibility and support efficient regulatory reporting
From my experience, I assess the product's analytics capabilities as successful. It helped us significantly with patching and managing the risk of the patching process across all our environments, including network devices with Windows and Unix systems. The product covered several environments and gave us exactly what we needed in our environment. Tenable Security Center's centralized platform helped with risk assessment and management across our IT environments. It covered the patching process, and we previously faced many issues regarding how to patch different environments, how to monitor the patching process, and whether it was successful or not. We obtained good reports showing when patches were closed and the details of each patch, including who executed it and everything related to the patching process until it was closed. This gave us good details about the process which helped us significantly in our reporting and even in audits, whether internal or external. We learned how to close audit issues safely and successfully. We used the dashboards for real-time threat insights and extracted several dashboards from Tenable Security Center. We use these dashboards in our cybersecurity dashboard and committees that we have. These dashboards are part of our committees, especially the cybersecurity committee and other committees that we attend.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I appreciate Qualys TotalCloud's ability to onboard any type of device with ease, including containers."
"TotalCloud provides the easiest and the best approach for cloud infrastructure management."
"The best part I like is the on-demand scans."
"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."
"We were able to realize its benefits within 24 to 48 hours."
"Qualys TotalCloud provides a single, prioritized view of risk, reducing the workload associated with consolidating multiple sources for risk prioritization."
"TotalCloud offers a comprehensive suite of features, including EDR, XDR, and TrueRisk, providing a centralized platform for managing vulnerabilities and security risks."
"TotalCloud's best feature is the integration of cloud accounts. It helps with the risk and security posture management of our cloud infrastructure."
"In terms of scalability, I can only tell you my experience from our clients: I had Remedy installed, and then we installed Discovery, two months ago we installed Server Automation and we've now completed the installation with Vulnerability Management, and everything is inter-operational, it's all automated now, and our customers are happy."
"Takes reports from other vulnerabilities."
"It's reasonably priced."
"Feature-wise, Tenable Security Center is a very fast tool with many dashboards and reports, and it covers all our systems."
"The feature we've liked most recently was being able to take the YARA rules from FireEye and put them into Tenable's scan for the most recent SolarWinds exploit. That was really useful."
"Has a great advanced scanning feature."
"It allows financial institutions to compare their vulnerability management to others in the same sector."
"The reporting vulnerability is very helpful when you link it with the people who close it with the admin and support team, giving them the criticality to find how to close each item, and it's up to date with all the vulnerabilities on the market thanks to prompt updates from the cloud."
"Initial setup was pretty straightforward."
"The predictive prioritization features are pretty good. They do a lot of research and we trust the research that they do internally. They have knowledge of what's going on with many companies, where we only get a view into what's going on here. So the ability to get best practices out of them as part of this solution, is valuable to us."
"The scans are the most valuable aspect of this solution."
 

Cons

"Qualys TotalCloud has the potential to improve by integrating a hybrid platform for comprehensive management of both on-premises and cloud infrastructures."
"There should be improvement from a dashboard perspective when collecting and showcasing data to lead management."
"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."
"It is already perfect, but they can bring some newer dashboards and customization options for the dashboard. It would be great to be able to include on-prem assets on the dashboard."
"We encountered challenges identifying the correct resource category for certain items, such as those in containers or storage."
"Areas that need improvement in every solution include the remediation part. The remediation steps should be simple enough for everyone to understand."
"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."
"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."
"No third-party applications or integrations with additional software solutions."
"In terms of improvement, the product could benefit from streamlining the implementation process, particularly regarding customization."
"With BMC I'd like to see the ability to integrate with other software."
"We experienced some difficulties with the solution’s support."
"To be honest, I find SecurityCenter to be lacking in too many ways where my usage of it has been concerned."
"Tenable's reporting engine needs improvement. It needs to be more efficient and add more features."
"The web application is not very functional."
"I think the vendor training provided for Tenable.sc could be a lower price. It's quite expensive for the training."
"Tenable's technical support has declined in quality over time. While they used to be excellent, achieving ratings of eight or nine, they now rate around six or seven due to longer response times and less thorough assistance."
"Current web page needs improvement, slows down processes."
"As it is now, integration with new tools has to be developed specifically, so it's not easy."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 offers cost-effective licensing flexibility."
"TotalCloud's price is about right where I would expect it to be."
"It isn't cheap, but it's reasonable. It helps us to manage things with very few resources."
"The cost is high, but it meets our organizational needs."
"Qualys TotalCloud offers good pricing that is affordable and competitive with the market. Our partnership also provides us with additional benefits."
"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."
"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."
Information not available
"It is a bit expensive. Everything is included in the license."
"Costing is pretty reasonable compared to the competition."
"The tool provides competitive pricing."
"For 500 users the licensing fee is roughly $100,000."
"The price can start at €10,000 ($13,000 USD) for between 500 and 1,000 assets, and the price can climb into the millions as more assets are added."
"The pricing depends upon the number of IPs."
"I use a local license to perform penetration testing and I'm pretty happy with everything when it comes to pricing and licensing."
"Tenable is open-source."
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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
20%
Construction Company
18%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Insurance Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise29
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise27
 

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...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Tenable SC?
The price of Tenable Security Center is not so high; it's relatively a cheaper solution.
What needs improvement with Tenable SC?
We did conduct a long implementation which relates to what I think can be improved about Tenable Security Center. In ...
What is your primary use case for Tenable SC?
The typical use case for Tenable Security Center is that it is an on-premise solution, and it can use the agent and a...
 

Also Known As

Qualys TotalCloud with FlexScan
TrueSight Vulnerability Management, SecOps Response Service, BladeLogic Threat Director, BMC Helix Remediate
Tenable.sc, Tenable Unified Security, Tenable SecurityCenter
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Online Business Systems
IBM, Sempra Energy, Microsoft, Apple, Adidas, Union Pacific
Find out what your peers are saying about BMC Helix Automation Console vs. Tenable Security Center and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,747 professionals have used our research since 2012.