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BMC Helix Cloud Security vs CloudPassage comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

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 Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
8th
Ranking in Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)
8th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (11th), Container Security (11th), SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) (1st), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (6th)
BMC Helix Cloud Security
Ranking in Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
25th
Ranking in Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)
38th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
CloudPassage
Ranking in Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
26th
Ranking in Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)
41st
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) category, the mindshare of Qualys TotalCloud is 1.5%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of BMC Helix Cloud Security is 1.2%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of CloudPassage is 1.1%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Qualys TotalCloud1.5%
BMC Helix Cloud Security1.2%
CloudPassage1.1%
Other96.2%
Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
 

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.
DG
Portfolio Manager/ Helix Administrator at Frontier Communications
A highly scalable and straightforward solution with a knowledgeable support team
We work on a third-party shared environment. It wouldn’t have been feasible for a smaller company. My company was actually the first one to do it. Just like any cloud security, it pays to do your research and have complimentary security involved. The product can’t be the be-all and end-all tool for your security. Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.
it_user854058 - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"TotalCloud offers a comprehensive suite of features, including EDR, XDR, and TrueRisk, providing a centralized platform for managing vulnerabilities and security risks."
"The best part I like is the on-demand scans."
"It is a cloud-native app that integrates with both IaaS and SaaS. It seamlessly integrates with other platforms."
"The most valuable feature is the consolidated information that it provides from various platforms."
"Qualys TotalCloud has significantly reduced our workload in terms of managing risks, helping us to be more efficient and save substantial resources."
"Qualys TotalCloud is an excellent platform, and the beauty of the platform is that we can get all the vulnerabilities, see all the reports in a single dashboard, view them segregated, and easily learn about critical, high, and medium findings with appropriately provided remediation steps."
"I would definitely recommend Qualys TotalCloud to other customers."
"By integrating TotalCloud, we have significantly reduced vulnerabilities in our deployment pipeline."
"The best feature is time to value. With very minimal effort, you are able to have a cohesive view into your security posture on one or multiple cloud accounts, particularly if you are dealing with multicloud. If you have Azure and AWS deployments, you might have multiple subscriptions in Azure and usually multiple accounts in AWS. You may even be doing some GCP work (around Google Cloud Platform). It's very difficult to manage a common set of policies, even less reporting, across multiple subscriptions, accounts, and cloud environments. What BMC Helix Cloud Security does is provide a unified view or single pane of glass as to your baseline. Then, it also facilitates the ability for Level 1 or 2 operations support to take action and report on security vulnerabilities."
"It's also multi-cloud. You can look at several cloud providers: AWS, Azure, or GCP."
"The most valuable aspects of BMC Helix Cloud Security are its security features and regulatory compliance capabilities."
"With very minimal effort, you are able to have a cohesive view into your security posture on one or multiple cloud accounts, particularly if you are dealing with multicloud."
"The features that I've found most valuable are its container security aspect. I also like its vulnerability management tools."
"The cool feature of Helix Cloud Security is that you can do all that — understand and remediate issues — in one dashboard, based on the different policies that are available for security, out-of-the-box."
"Using this solution is an eye-opener; having that holistic view is the biggest eye-opener because you understand, from any of your connected cloud accounts, what your vulnerabilities are with it."
"It is a good tool to make sure that your containers are safe and sound."
"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."
"Key features are the Software Vulnerability Assessment and the CSM, which is the configuration check."
"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

"Their customer support needs improvement."
"Two areas for improvement in Qualys TotalCloud are the speed of the public cloud platform and vulnerability detection."
"The cloud licensing unit system is unclear, especially since "units" aren't well-defined."
"The price is very expensive, actually."
"Regarding technical support from Qualys, they respond, but the response time can be too long. Sometimes we need to wait weeks for solutions to simple questions."
"Qualys TotalCloud has the potential to improve by integrating a hybrid platform for comprehensive management of both on-premises and cloud infrastructures."
"Their support could be improved."
"The support is not up to the mark and seems to be overburdened."
"I think its TOA interfaces are still not that comfortable. The UI could be more user-friendly, easier to use."
"We've had some with issues connectors. The connectors have seemed to have caused a little bit of trouble, perhaps with the APIs trying to scan the environment. The only time I've had to reach out to tech support was for that. It seems it may not have been scanning correctly or I wasn't seeing data within a specific time. But we've set up a couple of connectors in the past couple of weeks and they actually scanned the AWS environment and we had data within about 10 minutes. It's working a lot faster and I think they're making improvements as they go."
"BMC Helix Cloud Security has room for improvement in terms of integrating its various features."
"Every organization out there doesn't rely on just one control body. They use FISMA control. They may use HIPAA, CIS, PCI, or SOX, then blend them. One of the things that is now in big demand for BMC Helix Cloud Security is content. That's the next journey in its lifespan, making it easier for the community to share and collaborate on content for security controls that can be measured and remediated."
"We've had some issues with connectors; the connectors have seemed to cause a little bit of trouble, perhaps with the APIs trying to scan the environment."
"I want the role-based security feature to be improved."
"The biggest challenge now, which is a good problem to have, with BMC Helix is content."
"The UI could be more user-friendly."
"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."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"While Qualys TotalCloud's pricing is currently acceptable, it is becoming increasingly expensive and may soon be considered overpriced."
"I am not sure about the pricing. From what I understand, it is a bit on the higher side, but I do not have the exact numbers."
"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."
"Qualys TotalCloud offers competitive pricing given its comprehensive suite of features, including integration, assessment, remediation, and detection capabilities, all within a single platform."
"TotalCloud's price is about right where I would expect it to be."
"Qualys TotalCloud is expensive, but it offers a premier solution with no headaches."
"The pricing is based on an annual subscription, upfront, and it's based on cloud assets. Whether your assets are in Azure and AWS combined, the tool tells you how many assets are being scanned and that's the number used for pricing."
"It is a subscription model with term licensing that is usually yearly. This includes, not only the product, but support and maintenance. It is based on cloud assets. Therefore, if you have 100 cloud assets, those cloud assets are measured based on evaluation or transactions. For example, if I'm evaluating that cloud asset for CIS compliance, PCI compliance, and AWS best practices, that asset gets evaluated three times, as those are three transactions. However, the license model is based on peak asset usage. So, over a year, if you deploy 100, 1000, 500, and then 2000 assets, you will be charged for the 2000 peak of assets managed by Helix Cloud Security."
"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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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) solutions are best for your needs.
900,747 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Construction Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Construction Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
13%
Performing Arts
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
14%
Manufacturing Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Construction Company
8%
 

Company Size

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

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...
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Also Known As

Qualys TotalCloud with FlexScan
TrueSight Cloud Security, SecOps Policy Service
CloudPassage Halo
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
NHS, Vodafone, Kansas City Life, SKY Italia, Cybera
Citrix
Find out what your peers are saying about BMC Helix Cloud Security vs. CloudPassage and other solutions. Updated: May 2026.
900,747 professionals have used our research since 2012.