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Amazon Inspector vs Qualys Exposure Management comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 13, 2026

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
10th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
41
Ranking in other categories
Container Security (11th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (7th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (7th), SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) (2nd), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (6th)
Amazon Inspector
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
26th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
IT Vendor Risk Management (7th)
Qualys Exposure Management
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
101
Ranking in other categories
IT Asset Management (3rd), Configuration Management Databases (3rd), Container Security (10th), Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 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 Amazon Inspector is 1.0%, down from 2.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Qualys Exposure Management is 3.8%, down from 7.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Vulnerability Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Qualys VMDR3.8%
Qualys TotalCloud1.2%
Amazon Inspector1.0%
Other94.0%
Vulnerability Management
 

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.
Abdalla Kenawy - PeerSpot reviewer
AWS DevOps SRE/Infrastructure Engineer at Capgemini
Automated insights streamline data security assessment
For Amazon Inspector, we have many EC2 or virtual machines deployed inside our AWS environment, and the problem is that the existing package deployed inside this EC2 instance has already outdated packages. As we progress with time, this package needs to be updated for security enhancement, which requires us to uninstall the package, install the new version, and then we should be fine. However, the challenge comes with how to scan all our EC2 instances for security vulnerabilities, which is currently managed by Amazon Inspector. Amazon Inspector can scan EC2 instances or ECR, which is the ECR registry where we can save artifacts Docker images. Amazon Inspector can also scan Docker images uploaded to ECR for Elastic Registry service, and it can scan databases and S3 based on the latest updates. I noticed this from a couple of months ago, and it provides huge benefits for security. Regarding the best features of Amazon Inspector, it gives us a list of all existing outdated packages as part of a deployed package on EC2 instances or specific Python packages that are part of the Docker file and the Docker image itself, which are causing security concerns. Amazon Inspector can list these security concerns and offer guidance on how we can remediate it by updating the package to a specific upper version or something similar.
Ajay Paul - PeerSpot reviewer
System Engineer at a outsourcing company with 10,001+ employees
Vulnerability management has prioritized high‑risk patching and simplified bulk system reporting
The primary issue is with the reporting functionality. Even though we fix vulnerabilities, the reports do not reflect the changes immediately. Sometimes we need to manually run a script to scan the systems before Qualys Enterprise TruRisk Management will update the scan results. The main issue is the reporting delay, and sometimes the Qualys Enterprise TruRisk Management agent will not scan the system, which means we do not receive accurate reports in a timely manner. Additionally, there are many metrics for calculating vulnerabilities, such as the Qualys ID, severity scores, CVSS scores, and other metrics. The abundance of information can be confusing. These two aspects are the most significant negatives I have experienced with this tool.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Vulnerability and threat detection and assessment of the criticality of the vulnerabilities exposed are most valuable."
"Qualys TotalCloud has positively impacted our bank's performance, and we have definitely seen benefits after implementing this solution."
"Qualys TotalCloud has significantly improved our organization by automating our reporting processes, reducing the time spent on report creation from two hours to less than fifteen to twenty minutes."
"One of the features I appreciate is the ability to generate daily reports without relying on anyone else."
"I would definitely recommend Qualys TotalCloud to other users."
"TotalCloud's best feature is the integration of cloud accounts. It helps with the risk and security posture management of our cloud infrastructure."
"Its dashboards are brilliant. It provides in-depth insights."
"The most valuable feature is extensibility."
"The scalability of the solution itself is unparalleled."
"The findings dashboards are neat and easy to understand, offering clear demarcations for different types of findings and detailed insights into specific vulnerabilities and their associated instances. It is not a place where everything is dumped together. It offers an easy-to-understand layout."
"It is scanning the whole repository for any sort of vulnerabilities, so it allows us to be more confident in our DevSecOps and not put a lot of folks or attention to it."
"I recommend Amazon Inspector because it allows the automation of processes and requires less manual monitoring."
"The automated vulnerability detection aspect is most valuable."
"The vulnerability discovery is valuable, and they also rank those vulnerabilities for you. So, you could rapidly attack some of the higher, severe vulnerabilities as they pop up, if they do pop up."
"The integration of Amazon Inspector with other AWS services has enhanced our security. Security Hub is a major asset because it allows us to centralize data from various AWS services. We can integrate third-party tools as well. It is just a single-click option."
"The assessment reports provided by Amazon Inspector have helped me in identifying security vulnerabilities in my cloud applications by giving us a nicely designed dashboard that provides all the security information we need to work on remediation."
"The most valuable feature is automation."
"Qualys has a continuous endpoint monitoring feature for agent-based scanning. Once you deploy the solution, it monitors everything that is happening every 30 minutes. Then, if there are any vulnerabilities, they are reported."
"Almost all of the features are great."
"It gives a very good overview of the inventory assessment process, and it can be accessed across our company because it's a global tool."
"I find Qualys VM very robust, and it's very useful for vulnerability management and patch management. The value that it brings to my environment is economies of scale. There is no limitation on adding any endpoints. You go by the rule, and it's added once another endpoint is added to our environment. It's automatically installed, and it's less work from our end. It frees up my license automatically if I don't need an endpoint or if my machine is decommissioned. I like the dashboard displays because I don't see any duplication. The most important part is vulnerability management and prioritization. Unlike Symantec, it shows the kind of vulnerability I would want to patch first. It provides a holistic view of the kind of vulnerabilities and the ones I should remediate first. I don't have to do a scan; it just brings up those critical kinds of vulnerabilities like zero-day vulnerabilities and tells me to prioritize them. You have to prioritize these vulnerabilities first and go on with the rest. The dashboard shows me the ones that have been fixed, so I don't have to complete an aging report. The user experience and the graphical interface are good. As it's user-friendly and understandable on an executive level, it brings real value. We also use this solution because it's robust and flexibile."
"I find most valuable to achieve a channel system and we can also use it to track when we actually close the ticketing of the sites, and in addition, it is quite easy to implement."
"The product's patch management is excellent for keeping our critical servers and third-party applications updated efficiently."
"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."
 

Cons

"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."
"Enhancing clarity regarding its compliance capabilities would be beneficial, as the current scope is limited in geographic coverage."
"To improve the user experience, reporting could be simplified for better comprehension by end users and project managers, facilitating issue resolution."
"TotalCloud could improve the classification of vulnerabilities. Specifically, it could enhance the categorization of what aspects fall under patches resolved by OS or software updates and what pertains to configuration adjustments."
"Qualys TotalCloud needs to improve its accuracy for non-Windows operating systems."
"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."
"Areas that need improvement in every solution include the remediation part. The remediation steps should be simple enough for everyone to understand."
"It is already perfect, but they can bring some newer dashboards and customization options for the dashboard. It would be great to be able to include on-prem assets on the dashboard."
"There are challenges associated with the interdependencies in AWS services, like requiring an Active Directory for other services, resulting in additional charges."
"It has a limited scope. So, AWS Inspector primarily focuses on the security of the EC2 instance. So, if your architecture includes other AWS services, then you may need to use additional tools for your comprehensive security assessment. So that is one con. Another is, like, we have a dependency on agents."
"The false positive rate of Amazon Inspector is a little high, and it is not covering all different applications and scanning."
"The most challenging aspect I faced with Amazon Inspector during integration was automating the remediation process."
"There isn't too much to improve right now. Scanning on demand or as a part of the pipeline versus a post pipeline solution would be good, but it is not a deal breaker by any means."
"One major area for improvement is remediation. My team works on remediating findings over time, likely using available patches. However, easier integration with Amazon's patching services would be very helpful."
"It has automated vulnerability assessment, yet I seek more flexibility in defining custom vulnerability checks tailored to my needs, which is more difficult."
"The other point is that the reporting features of Inspector need improvement. For example, I am in an organization with millions of CVEs, and getting an overview of all this is challenging."
"There's a need to upgrade or fix the potential vulnerability rate. Around 20,000 potential vulnerabilities were showing in Qualys VMDR, but none of the other tools showed them. When we checked, it wasn't the case. Support explained that even small issues were being counted as vulnerabilities, causing issues in our audit. So, the security features could be improved to identify vulnerabilities accurately."
"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."
"The reporting needs improvement. It should generate much more stuff like field reports."
"Maybe the reporting features. It is too granular, so that if someone new wants to get familiar with it, they will have a hard time."
"Web application security model needs some work."
"There were some issues later with Qualys VMDR regarding security, specifically with numerous false positive reports."
"Support could be a little bit faster."
"The feature where the solutions to issues are mentioned in the reports could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Qualys TotalCloud is cost-efficient and was selected for its value compared to other products."
"While Qualys TotalCloud's pricing is currently acceptable, it is becoming increasingly expensive and may soon be considered overpriced."
"The pricing for TotalCloud is attractive and competitive in the market. Given the features, especially the dashboard, I have no concerns regarding pricing."
"Qualys TotalCloud offers good pricing that is affordable and competitive with the market. Our partnership also provides us with additional benefits."
"Qualys TotalCloud offers cost-effective licensing flexibility."
"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."
"It isn't cheap, but it's reasonable. It helps us to manage things with very few resources."
"It's priced according to market standards for its services."
"The pricing is very transparent and clear."
"It is scaled as you go. There are probably a certain number of scans per month, and there are tiers. If you're under a certain tier, it is free. The second level is pennies, and then all the way up to like a million. So, it has a tiered pricing program. They're pretty good with your initial scanning, and there is room to scale based on being affordable, but it is fairly cheap. There are no additional costs. They pretty much think about it as a pay-per-scan type model."
"The lowest cost would be around $10 for a few small accounts, however, for thousands of accounts, it could be around $5000 to $6000 dollars per month."
"The price is very reasonable."
"It is different for every company, but for us, it's every three years."
"We do see over $100,000 in terms of price, for mid-size programs. You likely will pay more than $100,000 without any discount. It is a bit pricey."
"Qualys is cheaper and more affordable than other solutions."
"There is a license for the use of this solution. We pay annually instead of monthly to receive a better discount on the price."
"There are no additional fees in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"The solution is reasonably priced for the value it provides."
"We have an annual contract for Qualys VMDR. I believe it's for either two years or five years."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Computer Software Company
7%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Construction Company
6%
Outsourcing Company
6%
 

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 Business2
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business21
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise74
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon Inspector?
I am not honestly sure about the pricing side of Amazon Inspector, but that is taken care of by a separate team. I be...
What needs improvement with Amazon Inspector?
They might launch support for third-party environments in the next version regarding the best features in Amazon Insp...
What is your primary use case for Amazon Inspector?
I mostly use Amazon Inspector for vulnerability scanning on AWS native applications. For hybrid applications, we have...
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 advice do you have for others considering Qualys VMDR?
I have some understanding about PeerSpot, and I have visited the website. PeerSpot is similar to TrustRadius. It take...
 

Also Known As

Qualys TotalCloud with FlexScan
No data available
Qualys VM, QualysGuard VM, Qualys Asset Inventory, Qualys Container Security
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
betterment, caplinked, flatiron, university of nutri dame
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 Amazon Inspector vs. Qualys Exposure Management and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,563 professionals have used our research since 2012.