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Sysdig Secure vs XM Cyber comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 17, 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 Security Posture Management (CSPM)
7th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
41
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (10th), Container Security (11th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (7th), SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) (2nd), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (6th)
Sysdig Secure
Ranking in Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)
28th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Container Security (21st), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (18th), Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) (9th), AI Observability (28th)
XM Cyber
Ranking in Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)
30th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Continuous Controls Monitoring (4th), Vulnerability Management (42nd), Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) category, the mindshare of Qualys TotalCloud is 1.9%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sysdig Secure is 1.8%, down from 2.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of XM Cyber is 1.0%, down from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Qualys TotalCloud1.9%
Sysdig Secure1.8%
XM Cyber1.0%
Other95.3%
Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)
 

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.
MM
DevSecOps Engineer at a outsourcing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Runtime threat detection has improved and security teams prioritize real Kubernetes risks
The best feature Sysdig Secure offers is threat detection. The threat detection feature on Sysdig Secure stands out compared to other solutions I have seen or used because Sysdig sees the actual behavior inside the container or kernel and correlates it with Kubernetes infrastructure, which makes detection both earlier and more precise in a cloud-native environment. Sysdig Secure has positively impacted our organization by improving visibility into our Kubernetes environment and focusing on real risk, which has reduced alert noise, improved threat detection at runtime, and made vulnerability management more efficient by prioritizing issues that actually affect running workloads.
Stephen Owen - PeerSpot reviewer
Group CISO at a insurance company with 51-200 employees
Has significantly improved risk visibility and optimized remediation efforts across dynamic environments
We tightly integrate with APIs, consuming feeds and open source data. We have integrated with XM Cyber, and we are elevating ourselves with AI and MCP tools as we view this as a forerunner to reducing the workload for our agents and IT staff. We're pushing all our security partners to provide AI and MCP tools. Our vision is for them to offer a chat interface where a junior IT or an experienced infrastructure engineer can ask for what needs to be patched next without using an interface. Their current interface is very usable and professional, ranking in the top tier of applications. Their reporting is good, offering custom reports, and their API integration is a new capability that serves us well. We have high expectations for the next generation, such as a chat interface to ask questions. However, everything has been very good. We push the boundaries with digital twins; I understand XM Cyber uses a similar concept of graph databases to map environments. I would like access to that and querying languages, enabling more informed business decisions. XM Cyber sees much of our estate, which is beneficial for making informed decisions, and we can harness those insights and data for business analytics. For instance, it could help us gain insights into change management—if a particular server impacts another and that server is supported by yet another server, we could glean significant insights for change management meetings.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"If someone were to ask me to review Qualys TotalCloud, I would summarize it as an end-to-end solution for cloud security with visibility and governance-grade controls without needing to manage multiple disconnected tools."
"Qualys TotalCloud provides unified vulnerability and threat assessment for IaaS and SaaS and a single prioritized view of risk, which helps reduce my workload by not having to combine multiple sources."
"One of the features I appreciate is the ability to generate daily reports without relying on anyone else."
"The scalability is good as well. I would rate it ten out of ten."
"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 rate Qualys TotalCloud ten out of ten."
"The agent and agentless scanning in TotalCloud, particularly the FlexScan method, is incredibly valuable. With traditional scanning approaches, we had to give IP ranges and whitelist IPs. All that is now simplified. FlexScan requires minimal intervention, and after configuration, it automatically collects data and performs necessary scans."
"TruRisk Insights is the most important innovation they've released this year."
"I see Sysdig as the most comprehensive solution in comparison to its competitors."
"The tool has the capability to conduct scans initially. It can perform scans on your virtual machines, physical machines, containers, and container images. A standout feature is its ability to scan offline container images stored in your container registry. Additionally, it can scan runtime images in your cluster or on your host machine. This allows for the detection of vulnerabilities in running containers, including loaded libraries. Notably, the tool can identify which library vulnerabilities are already present in your system. An added advantage is its capacity to take action beyond threat detection. It has the ability to block access and respond to encountered threats."
"I have not seen any stability issues so far."
"The most valuable feature is the level of support that we get. Our solutions or customer success representative is very valuable. I see them as an extension of our security team."
"Sysdig Secure has positively impacted our organization by improving visibility into our Kubernetes environment and focusing on real risk, which has reduced alert noise, improved threat detection at runtime, and made vulnerability management more efficient by prioritizing issues that actually affect running workloads."
"The log monitor is the most valuable feature."
"From a container-based standpoint, it offers excellent scalability to its users...I would tell those planning to use the solution that, from a container standpoint, it's excellent."
"Sysdig Secure has many strong foundational features like compliance and benchmark, security, network access management, and vulnerability management."
"The platform's most valuable feature is attack simulation."
"It saves you money while making you more secure."
"XM Cyber made it clear that browser vulnerabilities were the top priority because the platform was able to examine how vulnerabilities within our estate could be exploited and what the path would be from some bad actor in order to exploit those vulnerabilities."
"Six weeks into using XM Cyber, we saw a compelling return on investment—primarily in risk reduction, with a specific issue our other security tooling did not pick up but XM Cyber did, reducing IT remediation time and saving over 60,000 US dollars per year while significantly lowering our loss exposure amount."
"What I personally like very much, from my experience, is that it is very reliable."
"XM Cyber permits us to identify if a zero-day vulnerability can affect our infrastructure; it helps me understand the company's total risk that we have in our infrastructure and workstation vulnerability, and it permits us to identify the real impact when we have a vulnerability."
"Since implementing XM Cyber, we have improved the way we are doing patching, focusing on the choke points in our patching cycle, and it improves the way we assess the risk."
 

Cons

"A feature improvement could be the inclusion of Windows OS support for container security, as it is currently only supported for Linux."
"From a downside perspective, the UI is not user-friendly and feels dated compared to other tools like Prisma Cloud."
"Qualys TotalCloud needs to enhance its scanning capabilities in the IP domain, as it currently lacks the functionality to resolve IPs to their corresponding domain names."
"TotalCloud could improve its scanning of niche devices like Wi-Fi dongles and USB modems because they are often untested. It covers everything else, like laptops, mobile devices, and Bluetooth IoT devices. They can improve on the small IoT devices because hackers and testers use these."
"The areas in the solution that have room for improvement include the UI/UX design, which should be improved, and they should integrate more artificial intelligence into the product."
"The cloud licensing unit system is unclear, especially since "units" aren't well-defined."
"Some major banks and insurance companies require an on-premises solution for comprehensive vulnerability management, which TotalCloud does not offer."
"The vulnerability part is good, but the policy compliance module needs improvement because it involves a lot of manual work. Specifically, the remediation part of the controls requires enhancements."
"Banks and financial institutions cannot use Sysdig Secure because it doesn't sell SaaS-hosted versions for under two hundred working nodes."
"Perhaps, it could support more custom implementations, as our company utilizes custom implementations rather than standard ones. Configuring it requires a deep understanding and adjustment to our specific needs, which took some time. Other than that, I'm unsure about potential improvements. We were considering the possibility of compartmentalizing their tools. Currently, in Sysdig Secure, they bundle multiple features, and we are unable to use them individually. For instance, if we only need compliance scanning, we have to deploy the entire secure package. This is because of the way their agent functions, but I can't delve into more details."
"There was a security concern related to a specific feature. While the feature itself was promising, it posed a challenge. The situation revolved around code scanning. If your source code is hosted within your own premises, say on Bitbucket, you naturally wouldn't want your code to be accessible to external parties beyond your company. Keeping your code base private is a standard practice. However, in the case of code scanning using Sysdig Secure, they copy your code to their SaaS platform. This posed an issue for us. When we inquired about this, their response acknowledged the concern. In an upcoming release, they plan to enable code scanning within your on-premises environment through the assistance of an agent. This change is already in progress. While this tool stands out compared to existing solutions in the market, it's important to note that there are still some limitations to consider. Another drawback we encountered relates to our expertise with Kubernetes. The tool can monitor Kubernetes audit logs, triggering alerts and notifications. However, it falls short in terms of taking direct action based on these alerts. There are different methods of event capture, including through system labels and system calls, as well as via Kubernetes audit events. Notably, at the system level, Sysdig Secure can both detect and respond to events, allowing actions like blocking and warning. This proactive approach is effective at the system call level. However, when it comes to monitoring Kubernetes audit events, Sysdig Secure can only notify without being able to execute any further actions. It can't block access or containers. The vendor likened their role to that of a monitoring camera, observing events and sending notifications without the capacity to intervene. This limitation applies to Kubernetes audit events. Given that everything operates within our system, there is a workaround available: configuring system-level policies to block containers as necessary."
"Reporting can definitely be better. Live dashboards should be configurable for a longer period of time rather than 30 days. Being able to go back in time to compare six months ago to today would be valuable."
"Sysdig Secure works well for us, but there are a few areas for improvement, such as the alerting and notification system being more flexible for complex workflows, and some dashboard and reporting features could be more customizable to match specific team needs."
"Sysdig's biggest weakness is dashboarding and reporting. You have access to the data and can get everything you need, but we need the ability to summarize the information quickly in a format that senior leaders can understand. We report to the executive level and global board. I need to roll all that in-depth information into a quick summary, and their maturity level isn't there. I'm seeing that on the future road map, but it isn't there now."
"Sysdig Secure needs to scale more for complete cloud-native coverage."
"The dashboard could be more simple and show the more important issues that are detected first. We'd like to be able to set it up so more important issues show up more prominently in the dashboard."
"We have not saved any time or effort, but we can prove that the effort involved around vulnerability management has been better spent to greater effect, and we've been able to demonstrate that vulnerabilities that do represent a high risk have been remediated more rapidly and more effectively."
"We have high expectations for the next generation, such as a chat interface to ask questions."
"There are many interesting things about XM Cyber, but the part that can be improved is the mobile exposure and the IBM i specific equipment."
"They could improve support because when we need to create a super case and escalate to resolve with technical support, they resolve our ticket in approximately two weeks."
"XM Cyber could identify all areas of vulnerability. They could expand the identification span for different areas."
"We'd like to see a cheaper price."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Qualys TotalCloud is expensive, but it offers a premier solution with no headaches."
"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."
"Qualys TotalCloud offers good pricing that is affordable and competitive with the market. Our partnership also provides us with additional benefits."
"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 is cost-efficient and was selected for its value compared to other products."
"The pricing for TotalCloud is attractive and competitive in the market. Given the features, especially the dashboard, I have no concerns regarding pricing."
"The pricing is comparable. It is built into our other product, so I cannot piecemeal it. It is a part of our subscription."
"The cost is high, but it meets our organizational needs."
"It is quite costly compared to other tools."
"Sysdig is competitive. The quality matches the pricing. Obviously, everyone wants things to be cheaper, but if you're realistic, you acknowledge that quality service comes with a price. Sysdig is the gold standard for Kubernetes, and I wouldn't choose anything else. We live in Kubernetes. Everything is containerized, so that means a lot to us, and we're willing to make an investment."
"In comparison to other cloud solutions, it's reasonably priced. However, when compared to in-house built open-source projects, it might be considered somewhat costly. The cost depends on whether someone sees the support provided by Sysdig as an advantage or if it's deemed unnecessary. Personally, I find the support to be excellent and consider it a good value."
"I am always going to say that it could be a little bit cheaper. I do feel that it is a little bit on the expensive side."
"The solution's pricing depends on the agents...In short, the price depends on the environment of its user."
"We have to pay standard licensing fees."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Retailer
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise30
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise5
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Qualys TotalCloud?
To be totally honest, I do not have any best features because I have had a bad experience using this tool, especially...
What is your primary use case for Qualys TotalCloud?
My main use case for Qualys TotalCloud is vulnerability management and exposure management. I use this tool to evalua...
What needs improvement with Sysdig Secure?
Sysdig Secure works well for us, but there are a few areas for improvement, such as the alerting and notification sys...
What is your primary use case for Sysdig Secure?
Our primary use case for Sysdig Secure is runtime threat detection and vulnerability management.
What advice do you have for others considering Sysdig Secure?
My advice for others looking into using Sysdig Secure is to clearly define your primary use case before getting start...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for XM Cyber?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing was that we have a large, complicated estate, and in the licens...
What needs improvement with XM Cyber?
The roadmap is a disadvantage because this kind of technology should incorporate AI. At the moment, we don't have any...
What is your primary use case for XM Cyber?
My major use case for XM Cyber is managing the services in our company, Prosegur Iberia, for Spain and Portugal. We d...
 

Also Known As

Qualys TotalCloud with FlexScan
No data available
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
SAP Concur, Goldman Sachs, Worldpay, Experian, BigCommerce, Arkose Labs, Calendly, Noteable, Bloomreach. More here: https://sysdig.com/customers/
Hamburg Port Authority, Plymouth Rock Corporation
Find out what your peers are saying about Sysdig Secure vs. XM Cyber and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
908,800 professionals have used our research since 2012.