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Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management vs Qualys VMDR comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 13, 2025

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

Zafran Security
Sponsored
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
16th
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) (1st)
Microsoft Defender Vulnerab...
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
11th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (16th), Microsoft Security Suite (20th), Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (5th)
Qualys VMDR
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
95
Ranking in other categories
IT Asset Management (4th), Configuration Management Databases (2nd), Container Security (9th), Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Vulnerability Management category, the mindshare of Zafran Security is 1.1%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management is 2.8%, down from 3.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Qualys VMDR is 6.7%, down from 11.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Vulnerability Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Qualys VMDR6.7%
Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management2.8%
Zafran Security1.1%
Other89.4%
Vulnerability Management
 

Featured Reviews

Israel Cavazos Landini - PeerSpot reviewer
Weekly insights and risk analysis facilitate informed security decisions
I appreciate the weekly insights Zafran provides, which include critical topics for networks and IT security, allowing us to evaluate which insights apply to our environment. The organization score feature is valuable to keep the leadership team updated on how our infrastructure fares security-wise. The applicable risk level versus base risk level feature is beneficial because prior to Zafran, we only used the base risk level, but now understand that risk depends on the asset itself. Zafran is an excellent tool.
NaySan @ Suraj Verma - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides actionable vulnerability insights and recommendations with notable efficiency
They may need to improve the portal refresh rate for Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management because it takes time for recommendations to disappear after mitigation; sometimes, it takes one week, when it should ideally take only one to two hours. Overall, everything is good with Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management, but the portal refresh rate can take up to seven days in some cases and three or four days in others to reflect changes.
Ankesh Raj - PeerSpot reviewer
Real-time responses and reporting streamline vulnerability management
Qualys VMDR provides a real-time response and reporting feature, which is excellent. It allows us to see real-time graphs and reports for every asset, server, and more, which is very user-friendly. Our clients have given good feedback, and they are satisfied with the tool. We use it daily to fix vulnerabilities by connecting with infrastructure to remediate. The feedback from the client side is very good.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Zafran has become an indispensable tool in our cybersecurity arsenal."
"We are able to see the real risk of a vulnerability on our environment with our security tools."
"Zafran is an excellent tool."
"Overall, we have seen about eighty-seven percent reduction of the number of vulnerabilities that require urgency to remediate, specifically the number of criticals."
"We saw benefits from Zafran Security almost immediately after deploying it."
"Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management is versatile and assesses vulnerabilities, providing detailed information on CVEs, their categories, and exploit statuses."
"The solution is up-to-date and helps prevent zero-day attacks."
"The recommendations, scores, and steps to remediate actions are highly useful."
"The product’s most valuable features are compliance, recommendations, and inventories."
"Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management is a good product, and I believe it deserves a positive recommendation."
"The most valuable aspect is the kind of assessment results I get, and the recommendations provided in Microsoft products really help in taking care of the resources."
"Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management provides regular advisories and recommendations that help improve our security posture."
"Overall, I would rate Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management a nine out of ten."
"It is a stable solution."
"I find the solution's dashboard interesting...The response time is fine. You can pull up reports without dragging or consuming bandwidth."
"Continuous monitoring is a crucial feature that we use more frequently."
"It is very easy to use and there are lots of options. We can usually easily go through it and all of the things we want to configure, and we can configure everything to our specifications very easily."
"What I like about Qualys VM is the dashboard presentation. It's very good."
"Intuitive and easy to use."
"Qualys VMDR provides a real-time response and reporting feature, which is excellent."
"I like that we have many scanners and channels that don't overload. It helps us scan and track easily. Also, the tagging system is good for tagging. We can still use QualysAgent task ID tools even if tags aren't made."
 

Cons

"The dashboarding and reporting functionality of Zafran Security is an area that definitely could use some improvements."
"I think the ability to have some enhanced reporting capabilities is something they can improve on, as they have good reports but we have asked for some specific reporting enhancements."
"Initially, we were somewhat concerned about the scalability of Zafran due to our large asset count and the substantial amount of information we needed to process."
"There should be risk scoring added to Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management; specifically, they call it quantification of the risk."
"They may need to improve the portal refresh rate for Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management because it takes time for recommendations to disappear after mitigation; sometimes, it takes one week, when it should ideally take only one to two hours."
"Regarding Microsoft's technical support, I would rate it a three out of ten; they could be more responsive and knowledgeable."
"Integration can be improved."
"The automated remediations can be more specific."
"The product is not stable; it is very resource-intensive, consuming a lot of memory and CPU, which makes it slow."
"The technical support takes too much time to resolve tickets."
"The setup phase of the product is not that easy and needs a person to have a certain level of expertise."
"Qualys VMDR could improve in reducing the occurrences of false positive vulnerabilities."
"Make some minimal dashboard improvements."
"Integration could be better. When you think about scanning, it's not used just with this product alone but with other Qualys products. If you think about the bundle, the product itself is good. But integration with other products and packages has space for improvement. They should also offer a better price for bundles."
"The ability to manage user accounts and give rights to the operator to know about abnormalities of applications is something that needs improvement."
"Qualys VM could improve by having more skilled support personnel."
"Qualys could improve the inbuilt dashboards."
"Qualys VM's machine learning and artificial intelligence features could be improved."
"Qualys doesn't have its own tool to deploy the agents all at once, so we need to use third-party tools such as BigFix or something else to deploy the agents, which is my main concern and should be fixed by the Qualys team."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The licensing costs are reasonable."
"The tool is a bit costly."
"The product’s pricing is medium."
"The licensing model follows a per-user per-month structure."
"I rate the product's price a three on a scale of one to ten, where one is a low price, and ten is a high price."
"Qualys VM is better suited for medium to large companies because the price can be too much for smaller customers."
"It is a high cost product. Compared to the other solutions, it is around 15 to 20% higher in cost."
"It is more expensive than other products on the market."
"The tool's pricing is expensive and I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten."
"The pricing is very competitive."
"In Nigerian Naira, we spend about roughly four to five million to use this solution and this is expensive compared to solutions like Nessus."
"Qualys VM is quite expensive. It's a subscription-based license, and it's yearly. Right now, it's open for me, and I don't have any limitations or caps on the licenses. They are seeing if the product is viable for 4500 users. I can add as much as I want, and at the end of the subscription, they'll let me know how many licenses were actually used and bill me accordingly. On a scale from one to five, I would give their pricing a three. It's still expensive."
"Qualys VM is reasonably priced."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise69
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zafran Security?
Since we stood Zafran Security up in our private cloud, we handle the maintenance on our side. As we opted not to use...
What needs improvement with Zafran Security?
In terms of areas for improvement, Zafran Security is doing a really great job as a new and emerging company. Oftenti...
What is your primary use case for Zafran Security?
My use cases for Zafran Security revolve around two primary areas. One is around vulnerability management and priorit...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management?
I would rate the price as a three for us due to the partnership discounts. For non-partners, however, the cost could ...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management?
I have not thought about improvements for Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management as of now, but this is typicall...
What do you like most about Qualys VMDR?
I like that we have many scanners and channels that don't overload. It helps us scan and track easily. Also, the tagg...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Qualys VMDR?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing shows that we can consider both time and money saved.
What needs improvement with Qualys VMDR?
One area where Qualys VMDR can be improved is the missing feature for deploying agents for over 1,000 assets, as we n...
 

Also Known As

No data available
No data available
Qualys VM, QualysGuard VM, Qualys Asset Inventory, Qualys Container Security
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Information Not Available
Agrokor Group, American Specialty Health, American State Bank, Arval, Life:), Axway, Bank of the West, Blueport Commerce, BSkyB, Brinks, CaixaBank, Cartagena, Catholic Health System, CEC Bank, Cegedim, CIGNA, Clickability, Colby-Sawyer College, Commercial Bank of Dubai, University of Utah, eBay Inc., ING Singapore, National Theatre, OTP Bank, Sodexo, WebEx
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management vs. Qualys VMDR and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
868,706 professionals have used our research since 2012.