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Qualys VMDR vs The NodeZero Platform by Horizon3.ai comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 3, 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
18th
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) (3rd)
Qualys VMDR
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
96
Ranking in other categories
IT Asset Management (3rd), Configuration Management Databases (2nd), Container Security (9th), Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (1st)
The NodeZero Platform by Ho...
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
9th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.7
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (13th), Penetration Testing Services (1st), Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS) (2nd), Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Vulnerability Management category, the mindshare of Zafran Security is 1.1%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Qualys VMDR is 5.0%, down from 9.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of The NodeZero Platform by Horizon3.ai is 1.5%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Vulnerability Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Qualys VMDR5.0%
The NodeZero Platform by Horizon3.ai1.5%
Zafran Security1.1%
Other92.4%
Vulnerability Management
 

Featured Reviews

Reviewer6233 - PeerSpot reviewer
Works at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees
Has become an indispensable tool in our cybersecurity arsenal
While Zafran Security is already a powerful tool, there are areas where it could be further improved to provide even greater value. One key area for enhancement is the searching capabilities within its vulnerabilities module. By incorporating the ability to create Boolean searches, users would gain the ability to apply more complex filters and customize their search criteria. This would greatly enhance the precision and efficiency with which security teams can identify and prioritize vulnerabilities. Having such tailored search capabilities would save time and resources by narrowing down vast lists of vulnerabilities to those that meet specific parameters relevant to our unique risk environment. Additionally, integrating more robust reporting and visualization tools would be advantageous. Enhanced dashboards that offer customizable visual representations of risk configurations and threat landscapes would facilitate better communication with stakeholders, making it easier to explain vulnerabilities and the rationale behind certain security measures. This would also aid in demonstrating the improvements and value derived from existing security investments to leadership and non-technical team members.
Vaibhav Ghule - PeerSpot reviewer
Soc Lead & Edr Administration at Persistent Systems
Continuous risk-based monitoring has strengthened incident response and vulnerability prioritization
I haven't explored Qualys VMDR's vulnerability lifecycle automation yet. One of my analysts mentioned that queries lack grouping operators in Qualys VMDR. From my experience, I would appreciate improvements in the query options in Qualys VMDR, specifically in the query-building process where I would need more features and operators. Additionally, we have been facing issues with Qualys on the cloud level. We cannot download the configuration profile from the cloud agent, and it is showing a pending action for download. During 2025, we noticed outages of Qualys a couple of times. I want to mention that there is an issue with receiving timely RCA deliveries. While this is not necessarily about the tool, it relates to support. The support has not been very responsive, and we are receiving RCAs a little delayed whenever we raise support cases or communicate with the TAMs. Additionally, the UI has a slight latency, which I and my team have experienced. They have also reported this latency issue when navigating through different pages.
SH
Chief Information Officer at a construction company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Has unified our IT teams by providing clear visibility into network vulnerabilities and accelerated remediation with real-world attack testing
One of the things that we've shared with Horizon is just the reporting. They've made a lot of changes over time, but when examining computers, most average normal people don't look at a computer and identify it as 114.82.117.180. They identify it as 'the printer for accounting.' When many of the reports give the very detailed technical IP address or serial number, that's really not helpful for anyone other than the person, the hands-on person that's trying to remediate it. All the managers, all the leaders, having information in that format isn't helpful. Being able to have information about what those devices are would be very helpful. There's a technical reason they can't just have an easy button because some people have really complicated networks. When examining things for the average company, the average executive, that 114 number, there's only one of those. But if examining an AT&T or a Walmart, it isn't unique. They haven't solved that problem. But for the 90% of companies, being able to have just a human readable name for all devices on your network in all of the reports all of the time would be the most beneficial.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We are able to see the real risk of a vulnerability on our environment with our security tools."
"Zafran has become an indispensable tool in our cybersecurity arsenal."
"Overall, we have seen about eighty-seven percent reduction of the number of vulnerabilities that require urgency to remediate, specifically the number of criticals."
"With Zafran Security, it integrates with your security controls, allowing you to take that risk score and reduce it based on the controls in place or increase the risk based on different factors, such as if the issue is internet reachable or if there's an exploit in the wild."
"Zafran is an excellent tool."
"We saw benefits from Zafran Security almost immediately after deploying it."
"There are fewer false positives when using this solution."
"It's stable and quite reliable."
"The initial setup and onboarding process of Qualys VMDR was quite smooth, as we were able to draft the SOPs from the documentation portal itself and everything was available in the documentation, so it was not a hassle for us to get the integrations done on time."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to run different capabilities with the same agent. With only one agent, we can have EDR, vulnerability management, compliance and some basic SaaS security capabilities."
"It is a stable solution."
"Overall, the solution is highly rated because of its simplicity and efficiency."
"Qualys VM's best feature is vulnerability management."
"Overall, I'd rate NodeZero at nine to 9.5 out of ten."
"The NodeZero Platform's real attack capabilities help identify vulnerabilities on my on-premise systems by adding an element of validation and offensive security testing on top of known vulnerabilities. The feature that allows security teams to fix and retest vulnerabilities instantly is very useful, even though it may not happen literally 'instantly.' It's a necessary tool for any organization to understand whether vulnerabilities are genuinely exploitable by attackers. With its near-real-time testing capabilities, it's an essential part of any security portfolio."
"I rate the stability of the NodeZero Platform a ten out of ten."
"For us, The NodeZero Platform is literally the single best security solution we have because the way that it works is we're able to scan every part of our network, both internally and externally, and then get completely actionable feedback that doesn't matter if it's for an application developer or a network admin."
"After the third party conducts the pen test, The NodeZero Platform is run, and it finds the same things they found and sometimes a few other things that they did not even identify."
"Honestly, it's one of the most transformational technologies we've implemented in our company."
"The NodeZero Platform is amazing; what I love most about it is that it's automated and comparable to the manual pen testing we did with a third-party company, but with the added benefit of unlimited retesting to validate fixes."
"Penetration testing and scans are useful features."
 

Cons

"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."
"The dashboarding and reporting functionality of Zafran Security is an area that definitely could use some improvements."
"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."
"They should make it accessible for more operating systems."
"It would be helpful to have features for better tracking, including options for adding relevant owners or supporting groups for each asset."
"The reporting needs improvement. It should generate much more stuff like field reports."
"The tool needs to improve the adding assets and report generation features. I would like to see the policy scan of offline appliances in the product's future releases."
"Qualys VM's vulnerability scan could be improved, especially the number of CVE numbers it can manage at a time."
"The reporting section needs improvement as running reports can take several hours."
"Qualys could improve the inbuilt dashboards."
"The IoT scan is not great."
"I think The NodeZero Platform could improve by leveraging GPUs for password cracking, which would be pretty good."
"You need to be cautious about what it scans, as it could potentially cause issues."
"I encountered challenges with patch management, as we struggled to test and implement patches due to time constraints. This led to our patch management process being ineffective."
"The areas for improvement for The NodeZero Platform involve integration and automation. It would be beneficial if it could integrate directly with vulnerability management tools that would allow the platform to automatically import data, identify vulnerable systems, and test targets immediately, potentially even enabling automated feedback loops for rescanning since the process is currently manual."
"The reports are quite useless."
"One of the areas where improvement is needed is in the visibility and reporting for large enterprises."
"The only issue we’ve encountered is that sometimes the scans take a long time to complete."
"The speed of the scans takes some time, but in my opinion, it is not surprising for what it is doing."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"It is a high cost product. Compared to the other solutions, it is around 15 to 20% higher in cost."
"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."
"The product is more expensive than that of any other vendor."
"Qualys is a pay-as-you-go model, so there's flexibility to the pricing."
"The solution is reasonably priced for the value it provides."
"I used to work there, so I never paid for the product. As an employee, we get a lifetime license for personal use, and that's what I'm using. It is a comprehensive platform, so there is a lot more to it. There could be other solutions that are probably a little bit cheaper, but it depends on what people need. Different people have different needs. It offers many things on the same platform. If you add all the things up, it should be cheaper, but I have not done any analysis specifically."
"Qualys VM is reasonably priced."
"The tool's pricing is expensive and I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Educational Organization
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise70
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise4
 

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 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?
I haven't explored Qualys VMDR's vulnerability lifecycle automation yet. One of my analysts mentioned that queries la...
What do you like most about Horizon3.ai?
Penetration testing and scans are useful features.
What needs improvement with Horizon3.ai?
I think The NodeZero Platform could improve by leveraging GPUs for password cracking, which would be pretty good.
What is your primary use case for Horizon3.ai?
We use The NodeZero Platform for control validation and we are also looking for the likelihood of vulnerabilities.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Qualys VM, QualysGuard VM, Qualys Asset Inventory, Qualys Container Security
Horizon3.ai
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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
Government agencies, Defense Industrial Base organizations, and enterprises in regulated industries such as finance, healthcare, manufacturing, and criticalinfrastructure rely on NodeZero to meet rigorous security and compliance requirements with continuous, scheduled, and on-demand testing.
Find out what your peers are saying about Qualys VMDR vs. The NodeZero Platform by Horizon3.ai and other solutions. Updated: January 2026.
881,114 professionals have used our research since 2012.