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Amazon Inspector vs Qualys VMDR comparison

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 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
11th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
Container Security (11th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (8th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (8th), SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) (1st), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (6th)
Amazon Inspector
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
25th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
IT Vendor Risk Management (6th)
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 (3rd), Container Security (9th), Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Vulnerability Management category, the mindshare of Qualys TotalCloud is 1.0%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Amazon Inspector is 1.2%, down from 2.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Qualys VMDR is 3.9%, down from 7.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Vulnerability Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Qualys VMDR3.9%
Qualys TotalCloud1.0%
Amazon Inspector1.2%
Other93.9%
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.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature is extensibility."
"It is a cloud-native app that integrates with both IaaS and SaaS. It seamlessly integrates with other platforms."
"Once you have your vulnerabilities fixed and your patches pushed out using Qualys TotalCloud, then you are able to eliminate threats and cyber risk."
"In my opinion, this is the best tool."
"The best feature would be the ability to create policies. It is easy to control and update policies as required."
"Qualys TotalCloud's most valuable features are its security capabilities that help identify and mitigate risk factors."
"Its dashboards are brilliant. It provides in-depth insights."
"One of Qualys' best features is its categorization, which allows us to see the types of assets, their security postures, and the AI-powered version of the tool."
"Amazon Inspector is highly stable, rated ten out of ten, and this stability impacts business security and administration positively."
"The automated vulnerability detection aspect is most valuable."
"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."
"I recommend Amazon Inspector because it allows the automation of processes and requires less manual monitoring."
"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."
"It operates continuously, so as soon as resources are created, it scans them for vulnerabilities."
"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."
"What I like best about this product is that it does what it is supposed to do, which is vulnerability scanning."
"Almost all of the features are great."
"Overall, this is a good product and I recommend it, mainly because of the capabilities and the management using a single console."
"There are many features. Its reliability, ease of installation, ease of use, and the richness of the information provided are the most valuable features."
"The most valuable features of Qualys VMDR include patch management and the use of virtual scanners to scan appliances and devices, especially those provided by vendors where we cannot manage them ourselves."
"The biggest benefit is from a security operations perspective, where we are able to drive our security posture upwards by remediating any discovered vulnerabilities."
"Technical support is great and we've never really had a problem."
"I find the solution's dashboard interesting...The response time is fine. You can pull up reports without dragging or consuming bandwidth."
 

Cons

"I would appreciate additional integration options to connect Qualys TotalCloud with our other vulnerability management tools."
"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 cloud licensing unit system is unclear, especially since "units" aren't well-defined."
"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."
"Although TotalCloud is a helpful tool, some of its advanced features are still under development."
"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 should be improvement from a dashboard perspective when collecting and showcasing data to lead management."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"The most challenging aspect I faced with Amazon Inspector during integration was automating the remediation process."
"One area for improvement in Amazon Inspector is the automation aspect."
"There are challenges associated with the interdependencies in AWS services, like requiring an Active Directory for other services, resulting in additional charges."
"There is room for improvement in the scanning capabilities. I'd like to see broader coverage in terms of the vulnerabilities detected."
"The response time of technical support takes a while."
"Qualys does have an on-prem solution, but it is very expensive."
"Representation of the total number of vulnerabilities (with name) vs. the number of patches (with name)."
"Qualys could improve the inbuilt dashboards."
"The IT infrastructure, especially server administration, needs to be improved."
"They're still evolving their platform in terms of reporting capabilities."
"Improve the user interface."
"Qualys Container Security can improve the interface. It could be easier to navigate and be enriched."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"As a middle management member, I do not have direct pricing knowledge, but based on the knowledge from our meetings, its pricing is competitive."
"It isn't cheap, but it's reasonable. It helps us to manage things with very few resources."
"Qualys TotalCloud offers competitive pricing given its comprehensive suite of features, including integration, assessment, remediation, and detection capabilities, all within a single platform."
"Qualys TotalCloud is expensive, but it offers a premier solution with no headaches."
"Qualys TotalCloud is cost-efficient and was selected for its value compared to other products."
"TotalCloud's price is about right where I would expect it to be."
"The cost is high, but it meets our organizational needs."
"Qualys TotalCloud is expensive."
"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 pricing is very transparent and clear."
"It's priced according to market standards for its services."
"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."
"They have recently changed the pricing model, which is now better than it was before."
"An annual license for a single scanner costs around $3,000."
"It is different for every company, but for us, it's every three years."
"The solution is costly."
"We have an annual contract for Qualys VMDR. I believe it's for either two years or five years."
"There is a license for the use of this solution. We pay annually instead of monthly to receive a better discount on the price."
"Usually every implementation is different and the quote is in function of number of assets."
"In Nigerian Naira, we spend about roughly four to five million to use this solution and this is expensive compared to solutions like Nessus."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Construction Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
7%
Construction Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise29
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise70
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Qualys TotalCloud?
Areas that need improvement in every solution include the remediation part. The remediation steps should be simple en...
What is your primary use case for Qualys TotalCloud?
Our use case involves the assets that we have under cloud, the assets exposed to the internet, and the internal appli...
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 VMDR and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,417 professionals have used our research since 2012.