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DefectDojo vs Tenable Security Center 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Qualys TotalCloud
Sponsored
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
5th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
54
Ranking in other categories
Container Security (8th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (7th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (6th), SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) (2nd), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (6th)
DefectDojo
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
55th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
DevSecOps (17th)
Tenable Security Center
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
18th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
56
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (24th), Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Vulnerability Management category, the mindshare of Qualys TotalCloud is 1.2%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of DefectDojo is 0.7%, down from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tenable Security Center is 2.4%, down from 3.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Vulnerability Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Qualys TotalCloud1.2%
Tenable Security Center2.4%
DefectDojo0.7%
Other95.7%
Vulnerability Management
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2859021 - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
reviewer2267097 - PeerSpot reviewer
Integration and Solution Architect at a government with 501-1,000 employees
Easy to use with efficient vulnerability reporting and team collaboration
Use case, so all the reports from GitLeaks, DefectDojo, GitLeaks or dependency check or Trivy, they make reports, and we send this report to DefectDojo to have CVMs, Central Vulnerability Management. DefectDojo is Central Vulnerability Management. If you have a dashboard to set, we have…
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

"The vulnerability management feature is the one I like the most because it provides a clear picture of all vulnerabilities."
"The dashboards are particularly valuable as they offer a comprehensive view of the environment, highlighting any misconfigurations."
"The platform's unified view of the organization proves particularly valuable for leadership team meetings."
"Multi-cloud visibility saves time and makes things easier, as we can also have comparability to see what configuration differences have been made from cloud to cloud."
"In my opinion, this is the best tool."
"Qualys TotalCloud helps you not just to identify misconfigurations, but you can actually also fix issues."
"Qualys TotalCloud has positively impacted my organization by providing visibility into the environment."
"I appreciate Qualys TotalCloud's ability to onboard any type of device with ease, including containers."
"With the pipeline of detection and DefectDojo, we are able to see the real vulnerabilities, and we fix them."
"Overall, I rate the solution 9.8 out of 10."
"It's a very useful tool."
"My advice for those considering Tenable Security Center is to note the benefit of upgrading vulnerable devices."
"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."
"It increases the trust in the information from the tool, cuts down on accusations of false-positives, helps people do their job better, helps us to understand our cyber-exposure, and helps us focus resources on the vulnerabilities that are most likely to be exploited."
"The valauble feature is compliance reporting system."
"One of the most valuable features is their distributed scan model for allotting engines to work together as a pool and handle multiple scans at once, across multiple environments. Automatic scanning distribution is a distinguishing feature of their toolset."
"It basically reviews our threat landscape vulnerability."
 

Cons

"Areas that need improvement in every solution include the remediation part. The remediation steps should be simple enough for everyone to understand."
"I think Qualys TotalCloud needs to improve its handling of zero-day vulnerabilities and supply chain management because modern ransomware attacks not only target prime critical infrastructures but also the supply chain system."
"The downside is only in container security, but it has not been a long time since they introduced these models."
"The support process is inefficient due to the excessive number of replies required when submitting tickets."
"I didn't give it a ten because I would like to see simpler configuration, more customizable dashboards, and better automation and integration options."
"Their support could 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."
"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."
"We need something to notify the team responsible for a product when vulnerabilities are found."
"We are facing some challenges related to our channel."
"They are not currently handling call flows properly. Some call flows are being deleted from the registry but still show as active."
"The solution's user interface has some issues."
"The solution is expensive."
"The product should provide risk-based vulnerability management."
"At times we have had the typical bugs."
"The tool's initial configuration is not so easy."
"Though the solution's technical support is responsive, they do take a lot of time, making it one of the solution's shortcomings that needs improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"It isn't cheap, but it's reasonable. It helps us to manage things with very few resources."
"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."
"Qualys TotalCloud is expensive, but it offers a premier solution with no headaches."
"Qualys TotalCloud offers cost-effective licensing flexibility."
"Qualys TotalCloud is expensive."
Information not available
"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."
"Costing is pretty reasonable compared to the competition."
"Tenable.sc is more expensive than its competitors."
"I rate the solution's price as seven on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive. The tool is quite expensive."
"It is slightly more expensive than other solutions in the same sphere."
"Compared to other companies or other products it could maybe be a little bit less, but the price is okay. I would say it's not very expensive."
"The licensing costs for this solution are approximately $100,000 US, and I think that covers everything."
"We're happy with the licensing cost and find it affordable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
18%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
14%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Construction Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise38
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise27
 

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...
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...
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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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
No data available
Tenable.sc, Tenable Unified Security, Tenable SecurityCenter
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Information Not Available
IBM, Sempra Energy, Microsoft, Apple, Adidas, Union Pacific
Find out what your peers are saying about Wiz, Qualys, Tenable and others in Vulnerability Management. Updated: October 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.