Aqua Cloud Security Platform vs Qualys VMDR comparison

Aqua Security and Qualys are both solutions in the Container Security category. Aqua Security is ranked #18 with an average rating of 9.0, while Qualys is ranked #12 with an average rating of 8.3. Aqua Security holds a 3.7% mindshare in Container Security, compared to Qualys’s 2.5% mindshare. Additionally, 93% of Aqua Security users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of Qualys users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 6, 2025

Qualys VMDR and Aqua Cloud Security Platform are key competitors in the cybersecurity sector, both focusing on different security priorities. While Qualys VMDR excels in vulnerability management, Aqua Cloud Security Platform shines in container and cloud security, making each platform suitable for unique business requirements.

Features: Qualys VMDR is recognized for its robust vulnerability management, continuous monitoring, policy compliance, and web application scanning, offering a holistic security solution. Aqua Cloud Security Platform features strong container security, image scanning, and runtime protection; these capabilities are essential for cloud-native security environments. Both platforms have distinct advantages, making them leaders in their respective specializations.

Room for Improvement: Qualys VMDR could enhance its user experience with better reporting and integration, along with reducing false positives in vulnerability assessments. Aqua Cloud Security Platform can improve its reporting and user interface, with a need for broader server environment support outside Kubernetes. Customers of both solutions express desires for faster API responses and improvements in runtime security tools.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Qualys VMDR supports diverse deployment models across private, public, and hybrid clouds, generally receiving positive customer service reviews despite some reports of slow technical support. Aqua Cloud Security Platform is similarly versatile in deployment and praised for responsive tech support, although it faces some challenges with complex installation processes.

Pricing and ROI: Qualys VMDR offers a premium pricing model with a clear ROI through improved security and risk management, appealing to medium-to-large enterprises. Aqua Cloud Security Platform is competitively priced for cloud environments but may be costly for smaller businesses, with its value rooted in tailored licensing arrangements for client needs. Both deliver significant ROI through their specialized focus areas.

To learn more, read our detailed Aqua Cloud Security Platform vs. Qualys VMDR Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Aqua Cloud Security Platform vs. Qualys VMDR

April 2025

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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

SentinelOne Singularity Clo...

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Container Security category, the mindshare of SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security is 2.4%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Aqua Cloud Security Platform is 3.7%, down from 5.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Qualys VMDR is 2.5%, down from 3.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Container Security

Featured Reviews

Andrew W

VP - Information Technology at a financial services firm with 201-500 employees

Tells us about vulnerabilities as well as their impact and helps to focus on real issues

Looking at all the different pieces, it has got everything we need. Some of the pieces we do not even use. For example, we do not have Kubernetes Security. We are not running any K8 clusters, so it is good for us. Overall, we find the solution to be fantastic. There can be additional education components. This may not be truly fair to them because of what the product is going for, but it would be great to see additional education for compliance. It is not a criticism of the tool per se, but anything to help non-development resources understand some of the complexities of the cloud is always appreciated. Any additional educational resources are always helpful for security teams, especially those without a development background.

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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.

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Harold Jensen

Senior Cybersecurity Engineer at 3M Health Information Systems

Good visibility but expensive and needs better support

Support: It's often overseas and often following a script, basically asking us to redo what we opened the case with. Multiple APIs: There seems to be a lack of easy onboarding into Qualys. We had to use manual inputs and some API calls to get items in place. Dashboard: It is very rudimentary with very little customization. The Qualys Scripting Language (QSL) works differently in different Qualys modules, so when you get it working in one area you have to modify the syntax in others. User account management: We often have to give users more rights than needed just to give them what they need. Integration with the various Qualys Modules: You can tell the UI is different based on of the different teams that created them. QSL syntax same in all modules Responsiveness of some of the components: They time out, you get a blank screen, etc. Backend updates between the various modules: You update connectors and information takes a few minutes to show in VMDR or Global Asset View Connectors: Connectors have a throttling issue with AWS which causes them to frequently fail unless you manually run them again.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The remediation process is good."

"SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security's integration is smooth. They are highly customer-oriented, and the integration went well for us."

"The monitoring tool has comprehensive monitoring features."

"We really appreciate the Slack integration. When we have an incident, we get an instant notification. We also use Joe Sandbox, which Singularity can integrate with, so we can verify if a threat is legitimate."

"Cloud Native Security offers attack path analysis."

"It is scalable, stable, and can detect any threat on a machine. It uses artificial intelligence and can lock down any virus."

"We liked the search bar in SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security. It is a global search. We were able to get some insights from there."

"Overall, I would rate it a ten on ten for cloud security."

More SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security pros

"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 container security element of this product has been very valuable to our organization."

"The DTA, which stands for Dynamic Threat Analysis, allows me to analyze Docker images in a sandbox environment before deployment, helping me anticipate risks."

"The most valuable feature of Aqua Security is the scanner."

"Customers find it invaluable to have the ability to check for vulnerabilities in an image before deployment, similar to a sandbox environment."

"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."

"Aqua Security helps us to check the vulnerability of image assurance and check for malware."

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

More Aqua Cloud Security Platform pros

"Great web application security for scanning."

"We also like the flexibility in their licensing."

"It is quite easy to implement."

"The biggest benefit is from a security operations perspective, where we are able to drive our security posture upwards by remediating any discovered vulnerabilities."

"The initial setup was good. We didn't have any problems with it."

"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."

"Qualys VM's most valuable feature is automatic detection."

"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 if tags aren't made."

More Qualys VMDR pros

Cons

"A beneficial improvement for SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security would be integration with Jira, allowing for a more streamlined ticketing system."

"I personally use the SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security daily, and I have noticed that the dashboard occasionally gets stuck, potentially due to internet issues. It could benefit from enhancements to be more robust and smoother."

"While it is good, I think the solution's console could be improved."

"It is not a criticism of the tool per se, but anything to help non-development resources understand some of the complexities of the cloud is always appreciated. Any additional educational resources are always helpful for security teams, especially those without a development background."

"There can be a specific type of alert showing that a new type of risk has been identified."

"There is room for improvement in the current active licensing model for SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security."

"We are experiencing problems with Cloud Native Security reporting."

"Implementing single sign-on requires a pre-class account feature, which is currently not available."

More SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security cons

"Sometimes I got stressed with the UI."

"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."

"We would like to see an improvement in the overview visibility that this solution offers."

"The user interface could be improved, especially in terms of organization and clarity."

"Since we are working from home, we would like to have the proper training for Aqua."

"Aqua Security lacks a lot in reporting."

"They want to release improvements to their product to work with other servers because now there are more focused on the Kubernetes environment. They need to improve the normal servers. I would like to have more options."

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

More Aqua Cloud Security Platform cons

"I would like to see this solution more developed and competitive in the Cloud space."

"Improve the API speed."

"One of the biggest issues from the clients' perspective is that all Qualys computing is on the cloud."

"Qualys Container Security can improve the interface. It could be easier to navigate and be enriched."

"Endpoint stability and fault resolution could be improved."

"The user interface (UI) is quite complicated."

"The solution is a bit expensive if you do not have access to discounts."

"Improve the user interface."

More Qualys VMDR cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I am not involved in the pricing, but it is cost-effective."

"SentinelOne is relatively cheap. If ten is the most expensive, I would rate it a seven."

"Pricing is based on modules, which was ideal for us."

"As a partner, we receive a discount on the licenses."

"It is cost-effective compared to other solutions in the market."

"The licensing is easy to understand and implement, with some flexibility to accommodate dynamic environments."

"I would rate the cost a seven out of ten with ten being the most costly."

"We found it to be fine for us. Its price was competitive. It was something we were happy with. We are not a Fortune 500 company, so I do not know how pricing scales at the top end, but for our cloud environment, it works very well."

More SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security 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."

"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."

"When you want to cover yourself for scalability, you will be charged for the number you place on the scan itself."

"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."

"There are no additional fees in addition to the standard licensing fees."

"The tool's pricing is expensive and I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten."

"The license is on a yearly basis."

"Qualys is a pay-as-you-go model, so there's flexibility to the pricing."

"They have recently changed the pricing model, which is now better than it was before."

"Qualys VM is reasonably priced."

More Qualys VMDR pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

15%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

25%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Educational Organization

31%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about PingSafe?

The dashboard gives me an overview of all the things happening in the product, making it one of the tool's best featu...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for PingSafe?

It is cost-effective compared to other solutions in the market.

See all answers

What needs improvement with PingSafe?

SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security is an excellent CSPM tool, but its CWPP features need improvement, and there i...

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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 valu...

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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 ...

See all answers

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.

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 tagg...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Qualys VMDR?

Qualys offers better pricing and is feature-packed compared to other tools.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Qualys VMDR?

They can tweak their UI since the new version seems a bit jumbled up, and the old UI was more user-friendly.

See all answers

Comparisons

Wiz vs SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security

Compared 23% of the time

Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks vs SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security

Compared 18% of the time

AWS GuardDuty vs SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security

Compared 7% of the time

Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security

Compared 7% of the time

CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security vs SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security

Compared 2% of the time

More SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security Competitors

Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks vs Aqua Cloud Security Platform

Compared 22% of the time

Wiz vs Aqua Cloud Security Platform

Compared 21% of the time

SUSE NeuVector vs Aqua Cloud Security Platform

Compared 7% of the time

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

Compared 6% of the time

Ox Security vs Aqua Cloud Security Platform

Compared 3% of the time

More Aqua Cloud Security Platform Competitors

Tenable Nessus vs Qualys VMDR

Compared 13% of the time

Rapid7 InsightVM vs Qualys VMDR

Compared 9% of the time

Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management vs Qualys VMDR

Compared 9% of the time

Tenable Security Center vs Qualys VMDR

Compared 6% of the time

Wiz vs Qualys VMDR

Compared 5% of the time

More Qualys VMDR Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security

April 2025

SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security report

Download SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security product report

Buyer's Guide

Aqua Cloud Security Platform

May 2025

Download Aqua Cloud Security Platform product report

Buyer's Guide

Qualys VMDR

April 2025

Download Qualys VMDR product report

Also Known As

PingSafe

Aqua Security Platform, CloudSploit, Argon

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

Overview

SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security protects cloud workloads, offering advanced threat detection and automated response. It integrates seamlessly with cloud environments and secures containerized applications and virtual machines against vulnerabilities.

SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security is renowned for its efficiency in mitigating threats in real-time. The platform integrates effortlessly with existing cloud environments, ensuring robust cloud security management with minimal manual intervention. Securing containerized applications and virtual machines, it excels in threat intelligence and endpoint protection. However, improvements are needed in performance during high workload periods, and more integrations with third-party tools and better documentation would be beneficial. Users often find the installation process complex, support response times slow, and the dashboard's navigation unintuitive.

What are the key features of SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security?

Real-time Threat Detection: Identifies and mitigates threats as they occur.
Automated Response: Automatically responds to threats to minimize impact.
Ease of Deployment: Simple setup process with scalable options.
Machine Learning Insights: AI-driven insights enhance threat prevention.
Seamless Integration: Integrates with cloud environments for unified security management.

What are the primary benefits or ROI to expect from SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security?

Enhanced Threat Mitigation: Improved security against real-time threats.
Reduced Manual Intervention: Automated processes save time and resources.
Scalability: Easily adapts to growing security requirements.
Centralized Management: Manage security across platforms from a single console.
Advanced Threat Intelligence: Provides in-depth analysis and protection.

In specific industries, SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security is implemented to safeguard critical data and infrastructure. Organizations in finance, healthcare, and technology depend on its real-time threat detection and automated response to protect sensitive information. Its ability to secure containerized applications and virtual machines is particularly valuable in dynamic environments where rapid scaling is necessary.

SentinelOne

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

Information Not Available

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

April 2025

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: April 2025.

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