Aqua Cloud Security Platform vs Qualys VMDR comparison

Aqua Security and Qualys are both solutions in the Container Security category. Aqua Security is ranked #26, while Qualys is ranked #9 with an average rating of 8.6. Aqua Security holds a 2.9% mindshare in Container Security, compared to Qualys’s 2.2% mindshare. Additionally, 93% of Aqua Security users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of Qualys users who would recommend it.

Aqua Cloud Security Platform

Read 16 Aqua Cloud Security Platform reviews

4,760 Views
3,713 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

Qualys VMDR

Read 96 Qualys VMDR reviews

12,908 Views
2,582 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

Aqua Cloud Security Platform

Qualys VMDR

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 25, 2026

Qualys VMDR and Aqua Cloud Security Platform compete in the vulnerability management category. Aqua Cloud Security has the upper hand due to its focus on effective container security and runtime protection.

Features: Qualys VMDR is appreciated for seamless scanning capabilities, comprehensive vulnerability management, and automatic updates of vulnerability databases. It also supports policy compliance and asset management. Aqua Cloud Security excels in container security, image scanning, and runtime protection. It effectively secures Kubernetes workloads and Docker images and integrates seamlessly with cloud-native tools.

Room for Improvement: Qualys VMDR faces challenges with false positives, complicated reporting, and high costs of on-premise solutions for small firms. It also needs improvements in patch management for older systems. Aqua Cloud Security could enhance reporting intelligence, integration with CICD pipelines, and overall usability related to user roles and installation.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Qualys VMDR offers flexibility across different cloud environments, especially in public and hybrid clouds. Users report mixed experiences with customer service due to slow response times. Aqua Cloud Security is noted for its stable deployment in private clouds and prompt customer service and technical support.

Pricing and ROI: Qualys VMDR is more expensive, with pricing models based on asset numbers, providing positive ROI through enhanced vulnerability detection and risk reduction. Aqua Cloud Security is budget-friendly for large organizations, offering tailored pricing models and good ROI due to its container security focus and flexibility in meeting various requirements.

To learn more, read our detailed Aqua Cloud Security Platform vs. Qualys VMDR Report (Updated: March 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Aqua Cloud Security Platform vs. Qualys VMDR

March 2026

Download the complete report

Helped 884,976 peers since 2012

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

26th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Cloud and Data Center Security (19th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (21st), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (19th), Software Supply Chain Security (17th), DevSecOps (13th)

Qualys VMDR

Ranking in Container Security

9th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

IT Asset Management (3rd), Vulnerability Management (3rd), Configuration Management Databases (3rd), Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Container Security category, the mindshare of Aqua Cloud Security Platform is 2.9%, down from 3.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Qualys VMDR is 2.2%, down from 2.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Container Security Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Qualys VMDR	2.2%
Aqua Cloud Security Platform	2.9%
Other	94.9%

Container Security

Featured Reviews

Burak AKCAGUN

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.

Read full review

Vaibhav Ghule

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.

Read full review

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 features are that it's easy to use and manage."

"Their sandboxing service is also really good."

"We previously used Alcide; Aqua gives us more features and is more solid in terms of security, and Aqua is more of a market share leader with more of a technology advantage."

"We find the Docker and Kubernetes support for container security most valuable."

"The CSPM product is great at securing our cloud accounts and I really like the runtime protection for containers and functions too."

"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 container scanning is very helpful."

"The image security and image scanning were quite easy compared to Prisma, the solution was very user-friendly, easy to set up, stable, and the documentation was robust."

More Aqua Cloud Security Platform pros

"I found the solution quite intuitive and easy going."

"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."

"The Qualys Agent is most valuable for getting insight into what is happening on what device with all its metadata."

"The solution shows us classic categories, including high, medium, and low risks. It also shows critical items, and that gives us the advantage of prioritizing things."

"This is one of the best products I have worked with so far. I like the power of Qualys, and it's a better solution because you can scan a compact file, a BIT file, or batch files. The product already knows what's happening inside, and you don't need to expand the package. Tenable will do the same thing, but you need to have a package issuance claim. With Qualys, we can immediately understand the file, even a compact file. If there's some kind of discovery or incident, you will know what happened in the environment."

"QualysGuard has provided us with a valuable insight into vulnerabilities across our environment."

"The most valuable features of Qualys VM are its ability to do proper vulnerability assessment, it has a lot of updates for all the vulnerability databases from all over the globe, it's an amazing solution when it comes to the versatility of the features it has, and the reports are very good, generating very detailed reports about the vulnerabilities inside the environment."

"Using the policy compliance module allowed this to be automated and saved time as well as generated more complete coverage of assets leading to greater assurance."

More Qualys VMDR pros

Cons

"Sometimes I got stressed with the UI."

"They want to release improvements to their product to work with other servers because now they are more focused on the Kubernetes environment."

"Aqua Security could improve the forwarding of logging into Splunk and into other tools, it should be easier."

"In the next release, Aqua Security should add the ability to automatically send reports to customers."

"The solution could improve user-friendliness."

"I would like Aqua Security to look into is the development of a web security portal."

"In the next release, Aqua Security should add the ability to automatically send reports to customers."

"I would like Aqua Security to look into the development of a web security portal."

More Aqua Cloud Security Platform cons

"The reporting needs improvement. It should generate much more stuff like field reports."

"For a company with over 100,000 assets, there are challenges with scalability."

"Qualys VMDR should improve authenticated scanning capabilities."

"Reports were lacking somewhat on the customization side."

"Endpoint stability and fault resolution could be improved."

"The tool needs to improve the adding assets and report generation features. I would like to see the policy scan of offline appliances in the product's future releases."

"The reporting capabilities are good but I would like to be able to make more customized reports."

"Qualys VM's scanner doesn't pick up every vulnerability, so we have to use multiple scanners to cover that gap."

More Qualys VMDR cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing of this solution could be improved."

"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."

"It comes at a reasonable cost."

"Aqua Security is not cheap, and it's not very expensive, such as Splunk, they are in the middle."

"The product is more expensive than that of any other vendor."

"The solution is reasonably priced for the value it provides."

"The pricing and licensing for Qualys could be improved."

"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 VM is reasonably priced."

"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 is different for every company, but for us, it's every three years."

"It's very expensive, especially if you want to use multiple modules of Qualys."

More Qualys VMDR pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Container Security solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

884,976 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

21%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	6
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	10

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	20
Midsize Enterprise	12
Large Enterprise	70

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 ...

See all answers

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 ...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Qualys VMDR?

See all answers

Comparisons

Sysdig Secure vs Aqua Cloud Security Platform

Compared 10% of the time

Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks vs Aqua Cloud Security Platform

Compared 10% of the time

Wiz vs Aqua Cloud Security Platform

Compared 7% of the time

TrendAI Deep Security vs Aqua Cloud Security Platform

Compared 4% of the time

Red Hat Advanced Cluster Security for Kubernetes vs Aqua Cloud Security Platform

Compared 4% of the time

More Aqua Cloud Security Platform Competitors

Rapid7 InsightVM vs Qualys VMDR

Compared 8% of the time

Tenable Nessus vs Qualys VMDR

Compared 7% of the time

Tenable Security Center vs Qualys VMDR

Compared 5% of the time

Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management vs Qualys VMDR

Compared 4% of the time

Wiz vs Qualys VMDR

Compared 3% of the time

More Qualys VMDR Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Aqua Cloud Security Platform

March 2026

Download Aqua Cloud Security Platform product report

Buyer's Guide

Qualys VMDR

March 2026

Download Qualys VMDR product report

Also Known As

Aqua Security Platform, CloudSploit, Argon

Qualys VM, QualysGuard VM, Qualys Asset Inventory, Qualys Container Security

Overview

Aqua Security stops cloud native attacks, preventing them before they happen and stopping them when they happen. Dedicated cloud native threat research and the most loved cloud native security open source community in the world put innovation at your fingertips so you can transform your business. Born cloud native, The Aqua Platform is the most integrated Cloud Native Application Protection Platform (CNAPP), securing from day one and protecting in real-time. Aqua has been stopping real cloud native attacks on hundreds of thousands of production nodes across the world since 2015.

Aqua Security Features

Aqua Security has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

Vulnerability scanning
Dynamic threat analysis
Automates DevSecOps
CI/CD integrations
Cloud security posture management
Kubernetes security
Hybrid and multi-cloud
Container security
Serverless security
VM security
Cloud workloads protection

Aqua Security Benefits

There are many benefits to implementing Aqua Security. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

Designed for scale and performance: The Aqua Security platform was designed to scale to the largest environments in order to protect huge clusters and massive DevOps pipelines.

Empowers DevOps to detect issues early and fix them fast: The solution was designed to help you solve issues immediately - before they cause greater damage to your organization. It helps you gain insight into your vulnerability posture and prioritize remediation and mitigation according to contextual risk.

Automated compliance and security posture: Aqua Security checks your cloud services, Infrastructure-as-code templates, and Kubernetes setup against best practices and standards. This way, you can ensure the infrastructure you run your applications on is securely configured and in compliance.

Artifact scanning: The Aqua Security platform scans artifacts for vulnerabilities, malware, and other risks during development and staging. It allows you to set flexible and dynamic policies to control deployment into your runtime environments.

Minimizes false positives: Aqua Security relies on a variety of sources and proprietary research to curate and present vulnerabilities in the most accurate way, which helps to minimize false positives and unnecessary noise in the pipeline.

Automated security testing: The Aqua Security platform automates security testing in your CI/CD pipeline, and continuously scans registries and serverless function stores to detect emerging risks. By implementing the platform, you can get actionable feedback within your CI environments to empower your organization’s developers to fix issues rapidly.

Granular controls: The solution provides protection for your VM, container, and serverless workloads using granular controls with instant visibility and real-time detection and response.

Sandboxed environment: With Aqua Security, you can run images in a secure sandboxed environment that traces indicators of compromise (IOCs) such as container escapes, reverse shell backdoors, malware drops, code injection backdoors, and network anomalies.

Reviews from Real Users

Lizeth Z., Cloud Security Specialist at Telstra, says, “Aqua Security is the most advanced solution in the market for container security. Aqua Security allows us to check for vulnerabilities in the CI/CD pipeline, so application teams can remediate issues before going into production. Aqua Security helps us to check the vulnerability of image assurance and check for malware.”

Aqua Security

Vulnerability Management, Detection, and Response (VMDR) is a cornerstone product of the Qualys TruRisk Platform and a global leader in the enterprise-grade vulnerability management (VM) vendor space. With VMDR, enterprises are empowered with visibility and insight into cyber risk exposure - making it easy to prioritize vulnerabilities, assets, or groups of assets based on business risk. Security teams can take action to mitigate risk, helping the business measure their actual risk exposure over time.

Qualys VMDR offers an all-inclusive risk-based vulnerability management solution to prioritize vulnerabilities and assets based on risk and business criticality. VMDR seamlessly integrates with configuration management databases (CMDB), Qualys Patch Management, Custom Assessment and Remediation (CAR), Qualys TotalCloud and other Qualys and non-Qualys solutions to facilitate vulnerability detection and remediation across the entire enterprise.

With VMDR, users are empowered with actionable risk insights that translate vulnerabilities and exploits into optimized remediation actions based on business impact. Qualys customers can now aggregate and orchestrate data from the Qualys Threat Library, 25+ threat intelligence feeds, and third-party security and IT solutions, empowering organizations to measure, communicate, and eliminate risk across on-premises, hybrid, and cloud environments.

Qualys

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

Buyer's Guide

Aqua Cloud Security Platform vs. Qualys VMDR

March 2026

Free Report: Aqua Cloud Security Platform vs. Qualys VMDR

Find out what your peers are saying about Aqua Cloud Security Platform vs. Qualys VMDR and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.

DOWNLOAD NOW

884,976 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Aqua Cloud Security Platform vs. Qualys VMDR report.

See our list of best Container Security vendors.

We monitor all Container Security reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.