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Aqua Cloud Security Platform vs Qualys VMDR comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 13, 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
14th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
Cloud and Data Center Security (12th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (16th), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (13th), Software Supply Chain Security (9th), DevSecOps (8th)
Qualys VMDR
Ranking in Container Security
10th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
94
Ranking in other categories
IT Asset Management (6th), Vulnerability Management (1st), Configuration Management Databases (2nd), Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Container Security category, the mindshare of Aqua Cloud Security Platform is 3.3%, down from 5.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Qualys VMDR is 2.4%, down from 2.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Container Security
 

Featured Reviews

Burak AKCAGUN - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Ankesh Raj - PeerSpot reviewer
Real-time responses and reporting streamline vulnerability management
Qualys VMDR provides a real-time response and reporting feature, which is excellent. It allows us to see real-time graphs and reports for every asset, server, and more, which is very user-friendly. Our clients have given good feedback, and they are satisfied with the tool. We use it daily to fix vulnerabilities by connecting with infrastructure to remediate. The feedback from the client side is very good.

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."
"Aqua Security helps us to check the vulnerability of image assurance and check for malware."
"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."
"From what I understand, the initial setup is simple."
"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 DTA, which stands for Dynamic Threat Analysis, allows me to analyze Docker images in a sandbox environment before deployment, helping me anticipate risks."
"Aqua Security allowed us to gain visibility into the vulnerabilities that were present in the container images, that were being rolled out, the amount of risk that we were introducing to the platform, and provided us a look into the container environment by introducing access control mechanisms. In addition, when it came to runtime-level policies, we could restrict container access to resources in our environment, such as network-level or other application-level access."
"The solution was very user-friendly."
"I am impressed with the VMDR feature."
"It is a simple solution that makes scanning easy. You just give it a scheduled task, and it will do everything for you."
"The reporting functionality is great."
"The most valuable feature of Qualys Container Security is the detailed information in the reports and the remediation. This is done to make sure there are no vulnerabilities."
"Continuous monitoring is a crucial feature that we use more frequently."
"It is very easy to use and there are lots of options. We can usually easily go through it and all of the things we want to configure, and we can configure everything to our specifications very easily."
"The prioritization of vulnerabilities has improved our remediation efforts by around thirty to thirty-five percent."
"Technical support is fantastic."
 

Cons

"Aqua Security lacks a lot in reporting."
"The integrations on CICD could be improved. If Aqua had more plugins or container images to integrate and automate more easily on CICD, it would be better."
"It's a bit hard to use the user roles. That was a bit confusing."
"Since we are working from home, we would like to have the proper training for Aqua."
"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."
"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."
"Sometimes I got stressed with the UI."
"The solution could improve user-friendliness."
"It is a struggle to be able to pull our report and to be able to do onboarding using automated tools."
"This solution could be improved by extending the agent capabilities to different operating systems including Mac and Linux. We would also like the capability to easily check for vulnerability in assets in the IOTs."
"Improve the user interface."
"In terms of improvement for the web application console, in the older version, things were more segregated and presented in a brief format."
"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 reporting and dashboards could improve in Qualys VM. However, they have improved since the previous versions."
"The disadvantage of working with Qualys is that the graphical interface is quite outdated."
"I would like to see this solution simplified to work more easily in a multi-cloud environment."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing of this solution could be improved."
"Aqua Security is not cheap, and it's not very expensive, such as Splunk, they are in the middle."
"It comes at a reasonable cost."
"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."
"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."
"The solution is reasonably priced for the value it provides."
"The license is on a yearly basis."
"The product is more expensive than that of any other vendor."
"We have an annual contract for Qualys VMDR. I believe it's for either two years or five years."
"An annual license for a single scanner costs around $3,000."
"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."
"It's very expensive, especially if you want to use multiple modules of Qualys."
"The solution is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
22%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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 Aqua Security?
Customers find it invaluable to have the ability to check for vulnerabilities in an image before deployment, similar to a sandbox environment.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Aqua Security?
It comes at a reasonable cost. When compared to Prisma Cloud, it is more budget-friendly.
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?
Qualys offers better pricing and is feature-packed compared to other tools.
What needs improvement with Qualys VMDR?
There were some issues later with Qualys VMDR regarding security, specifically with numerous false positive reports.
 

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: July 2025.
863,641 professionals have used our research since 2012.