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Aqua Cloud Security Platform vs Qualys VMDR comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 19, 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

Aqua Cloud Security Platform
Ranking in Container Security
24th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
Cloud and Data Center Security (19th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (22nd), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (19th), Software Supply Chain Security (17th), DevSecOps (12th)
Qualys VMDR
Ranking in Container Security
9th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
96
Ranking in other categories
IT Asset Management (3rd), Vulnerability Management (3rd), Configuration Management Databases (2nd), Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Container Security category, the mindshare of Aqua Cloud Security Platform is 2.9%, down from 3.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Qualys VMDR is 2.4%, down from 2.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Container Security Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Qualys VMDR2.4%
Aqua Cloud Security Platform2.9%
Other94.7%
Container Security
 

Featured Reviews

Burak AKCAGUN - PeerSpot reviewer
Business Development Manager at Axoft Ukraine
A robust and cost-effective solution, excelling in scalability, on-premises support, and responsive technical support, making it well-suited for enterprises navigating stringent regulatory environment
The most crucial aspect is runtime protection, specifically image scanning before preproduction and deployment. Customers find it invaluable to have the ability to check for vulnerabilities in an image before deployment, similar to a sandbox environment. This feature ensures that customers can identify any potential issues with the image, such as misconfigurations or vulnerabilities, before integrating it into their workloads and infrastructure. In their source pipeline, companies can identify issues before deploying changes. This is crucial because customers prefer resolving any problems or misconfigurations before the deployment process. Software change security, including GSPM Cloud, is a key feature customers seek in their infrastructure.
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

"Their sandboxing service is also really good."
"We use Aqua Security for the container security features."
"The container security element of this product has been very valuable to our organization."
"Valuable features include the ability to connect it to our Docker Hub where our images are stored, good integration with Slack, and the connection to the CV, to easily see which CVs are on each image."
"The most valuable feature is the security."
"The most helpful feature of Aqua Security is Drift Prevention, which is a feature that allows images to be immutable. In addition, one of the main reasons we went with Aqua Security is because it provides strong protection when it comes to runtime security."
"The solution was very user-friendly."
"The CSPM product is great at securing our cloud accounts and I really like the runtime protection for containers and functions too."
"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."
"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."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the external channel."
"The most valuable feature is the vulnerability assessment."
"The prioritization of vulnerabilities has improved our remediation efforts by around thirty to thirty-five percent."
"Qualys VM had a recent upgrade and the newer version is supporting the cloud."
"The integrations for this solution are very good. I use a different product for virtual patching of vulnerabilities and Qualys integrates well with that product."
 

Cons

"I would like Aqua Security to look into is the development of a web security portal."
"Aqua Security could provide more open documentation so that their learning resources can be more easily accessed and searched through online. Right now, a lot of the documentation is closed and not available to the public."
"In the next release, Aqua Security should add the ability to automatically send reports to customers."
"There's room for improvement, particularly in management capabilities as it may not be comprehensive enough for all customers, and it has been lacking in the realm of cloud security posture management."
"Since we are working from home, we would like to have the proper training for Aqua."
"Sometimes I got stressed with the UI."
"We would like to see an improvement in the overview visibility that this solution offers."
"It's a bit hard to use the user roles. That was a bit confusing."
"When you want to cover yourself for scalability, you will be charged for the number you place on the scan itself."
"Qualys VMDR could improve in reducing the occurrences of false positive vulnerabilities."
"Certain integration factors between different options could be improved."
"Qualys does have an on-prem solution, but it is very expensive."
"They can tweak their UI since the new version seems a bit jumbled up, and the old UI was more user-friendly."
"Some of the older features could be polished instead of focusing on releasing new features."
"The reporting needs improvement. It should generate much more stuff like field reports."
"The price could be better. Asset view is still a legacy feature. I'm not able to extract the information about the asset with complete details. It would be better if they fixed that in the next release. I know Qualys is already working on it, so I'm hopeful it will be available in the next five or six months. That would be something that's changed where I seek improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Aqua Security is not cheap, and it's not very expensive, such as Splunk, they are in the middle."
"They were reasonable with their pricing. They were pretty down-to-earth about the way they pitched their product and the way they tried to close the deal. They were one of the rare companies that approached the whole valuation in a way that made sense for our company, for our needs, and for their own requirements as well... They will accommodate your needs if they are able to understand them and they're stated clearly."
"The pricing of this solution could be improved."
"Dealing with licensing costs isn't my responsibility, but I know that the licenses don't depend on the number of users, but instead are priced according to your workload."
"It comes at a reasonable 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."
"The license is on a yearly basis."
"It is a high cost product. Compared to the other solutions, it is around 15 to 20% higher in cost."
"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 is a pay-as-you-go model, so there's flexibility to the pricing."
"It's very expensive, especially if you want to use multiple modules of Qualys."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
24%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise10
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise70
 

Questions from the Community

What do you think of Aqua Security vs Prisma Cloud?
Aqua Security is easy to use and very manageable. Its main focus is on Kubernetes and Docker. Security is a very valuable feature and their speed of integration is very good. The initial setup was ...
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 tagging system is good for tagging. We can still use QualysAgent task ID tools even ...
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 need to do it manually. Qualys doesn't have its own tool to deploy the agents all...
 

Also Known As

Aqua Security Platform, CloudSploit, Argon
Qualys VM, QualysGuard VM, Qualys Asset Inventory, Qualys Container Security
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

HPE Salesforce Telstra Ellie Mae Cathay Pacific HomeAway
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 Aqua Cloud Security Platform vs. Qualys VMDR and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
880,745 professionals have used our research since 2012.