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Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) vs Calico Cloud comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
5.3
Qualys TotalCloud enhances efficiency, reduces costs by 30-40%, and increases ROI by 10-20%, significantly saving time and resources.
Sentiment score
7.0
Deploying more services on AKS reduces costs, offers OS-related savings, and improves ROI despite varying results across use cases.
Sentiment score
8.6
Calico Cloud offers ROI through enhanced security, cost savings, and efficiency, despite higher licensing costs than open-source alternatives.
It has saved about 90% of our time.
Senior Consultant at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
TotalCloud has generated overall savings of 30 to 40 percent across various departments.
Security Manager at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
CallStream helps us integrate and automate tasks.
Senior Security Consultant at CyberNxt Solutions LLP
We see a return on investment with Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), as we no longer manage the control plane ourselves, which saves us a lot of time and employee effort.
Senior DevOps Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
We are able to reduce the number of times needed for debugging through the service graph and the recommendations for the micro-segmentation of their security tool, helping us identify necessary network policies.
DevOps Engineer at Heckerbella
Calico Cloud not only secures our network infrastructure but also assures that we are not incurring costs due to breaches, which is a significant factor in the ROI.
DevOps Engineer at Exponential Craft
It has reduced the time spent troubleshooting network connectivity issues, improved visibility into Kubernetes traffic, and helped us enforce consistent security policies across clusters.
Senior Systems Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.0
Qualys TotalCloud's customer support is praised for expertise and responsiveness but occasionally faces response delays and inefficiencies.
Sentiment score
7.5
Azure Kubernetes Service support is often praised, but some users experience delays and mixed outcomes, with variable response times.
Sentiment score
7.7
Calico Cloud's customer service is effective with responsive support and good documentation, rarely necessitating direct assistance.
They are helpful, respond to my queries, and can answer any question.
Developer at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Qualys's tech support is highly responsive, providing multiple ways to interact with them.
Service Manager, Security Operations at CDA IT SOLUTIONS
Qualys' customer service provides quality answers, but the response time is long, even though it is within the SLA.
Works at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
They are very fast to respond and begin analysis to resolve problems.
IT Specialist | SRE | Cloud Public and Private at Parana Banco
Customer support for Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) is typically good, but in some instances where technical expertise is required, I sometimes feel I know more than the support personnel.
Senior DevOps Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Customer support is very good, and they have responded to us whenever we have encountered issues with the product.
Senior Systems Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Calico Cloud is quite a usable product.
DevOps Engineer at Heckerbella
I believe the relationship between vendors and our management team was effective.
DevOps Engineer at Exponential Craft
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
Qualys TotalCloud excels in scalability but may need skilled management, adaptable for varying environments and large-scale deployments.
Sentiment score
7.2
Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) offers robust scalability, efficient auto-scaling, and cost management, handling enterprise needs with few cost concerns.
Sentiment score
8.3
Calico Cloud is praised for its scalability, maintaining efficient operations and security across diverse Kubernetes environments without issues.
We started our organization about nine months back. We started with about 30 users, and we now have more than 100 users.
CIO at a venture capital & private equity firm with 11-50 employees
Our organization currently uses it to manage over 1200 web applications.
Analyst, Information Security at Infosys
It is absolutely scalable, and I would rate its scalability as nine out of ten.
retired at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
AKS offers excellent scalability due to its adaptation from Kubernetes.
Senior Software Developer at Simpson Strong-Tie
The scalability of Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) is one of the best I have experienced in the market.
Senior DevOps Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
We have not had issues with scalability.
DevOps Engineer at Heckerbella
It has over the years demonstrated its scalability and the adoption of products across the industry.
DevOps Engineer at Exponential Craft
Calico Cloud has scaled well with our Kubernetes environment and has many capabilities that make it easier to apply consistent security policies across multiple clusters.
Senior Systems Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.3
Qualys TotalCloud is praised for stability, boasting 99.9% uptime with minimal downtime and quickly resolved minor bugs.
Sentiment score
6.9
Azure Kubernetes Service is stable and highly rated, with minimal issues, occasional glitches, and praised self-healing capabilities.
Sentiment score
8.5
Calico Cloud is praised for its consistent stability and reliability, showing robust performance across diverse implementations.
Overall, the support provided has been excellent.
Analyst, Information Security at Infosys
It is a stable solution, which is why we chose it.
CIO at a venture capital & private equity firm with 11-50 employees
Continuous monitoring is crucial to ensure system stability and avoid vulnerabilities or threats.
Developer at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
From my usage, I would rate its stability as eight to nine out of ten.
Senior Software Developer at Simpson Strong-Tie
It's very stable, and the support is satisfactory.
IT Specialist | SRE | Cloud Public and Private at Parana Banco
 

Room For Improvement

Users recommend enhancing compliance, UI, integration, and reporting, improving security features, and optimizing pricing and navigation for Qualys TotalCloud.
AKS requires enhanced technical support, better integration, simpler setup, improved UI, and cost management features to address user concerns.
Calico Cloud needs security, documentation, AI features, cost reductions, and real-time analysis improvements to boost user adoption.
Ideally, the scanner should automatically detect and scan all subdomains, even if not explicitly defined, ensuring comprehensive vulnerability assessment.
Analyst, Information Security at Infosys
Ideally, updates should be more immediate, enabling quicker implementation of solutions.
Project Lead at Persistent Systems
Our goal is to integrate all these functions into Qualys, creating a single dashboard for comprehensive security monitoring and management.
Senior Information Security Engineer at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
The costs are rising rapidly, and we have not seen any cost reductions by moving to Azure.
Product Owner at ABN AMRO Bank N.V.
It is costly compared to other solutions such as Canonical.
Senior System Specialist at General Directorate of Residence and Foreigners Affairs (GDRFA)
I do not see any specific areas for improvement in Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), except for the kind of support they provide.
Senior DevOps Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Adding a speech feature on top of it, such as a summarization of what has actually happened, would be useful for troubleshooting faster.
DevOps Engineer at Heckerbella
Having a searchable summary feature, such as a chatbot, could help users quickly resolve issues without having to read extensive documentation.
DevOps Engineer at Exponential Craft
The pricing, implementation cost, and licensing of Calico Cloud could be reduced.
Cloud Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Setup Cost

Qualys TotalCloud is costly but offers value and integration, ideal for enterprises despite higher pricing.
Azure Kubernetes Service costs can be high due to nodes, networking, and storage, with discounts for longer commitments.
Qualys TotalCloud's pricing is currently acceptable, it is becoming increasingly expensive.
Senior Manager at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Pricing is managed by our finance team; however, Qualys TotalCloud offers cost-effective licensing flexibility.
IT Manager at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Qualys TotalCloud is expensive, but it offers a premier solution with no headaches.
Vice President at Inspira Enterprise
Transitioning to Azure did not bring cost reductions; in fact, costs are rising rapidly.
Product Owner at ABN AMRO Bank N.V.
The solution is very expensive in my opinion.
IT Specialist | SRE | Cloud Public and Private at Parana Banco
My experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing for Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) involves booking quotas for commitments of three to five years to receive significant discounts.
Senior DevOps Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
They decided that the cost of implementing Calico Cloud outweighed the risk of not having it based on our industry needs.
DevOps Engineer at Exponential Craft
The licensing was payable with the best pricing based on what they are offering.
DevOps Engineer at Heckerbella
 

Valuable Features

Qualys TotalCloud enhances risk management with misconfiguration detection, TruRisk integration, continuous monitoring, automation, and seamless integration for IaaS and SaaS.
Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) provides secure, scalable container orchestration with seamless Azure integration, enhancing application management and CI/CD.
Calico Cloud offers zero-trust micro-segmentation, enhanced security, and ease of use for Kubernetes clusters, improving operational efficiency.
This view of risk helps reduce the work we would have to do to combine multiple sources to prioritize risk.
Works at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
It will help cybersecurity professionals monitor the cloud and find vulnerabilities.
Developer at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
We are enjoying the new feature, FlexScan, which is valuable for Internet-facing VMs.
Senior Consultant at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
The most valuable features of Azure Kubernetes Service are its integration with Kubernetes, offering similar features for a seamless experience.
Senior Software Developer at Simpson Strong-Tie
Since pricing is not a major concern, we chose the best fit for our application, which was specifically designed for this particular platform.
Senior System Specialist at General Directorate of Residence and Foreigners Affairs (GDRFA)
The integration with Azure Active Directory helped with the security of our applications.
IT Specialist | SRE | Cloud Public and Private at Parana Banco
You create policies to prevent someone from logging into a particular container, and since it has its native container security interface, this helps protect against unauthorized access or damage in the cloud.
DevOps Engineer at Exponential Craft
Calico Cloud is a portable tool that can work with different types of Kubernetes clusters, it greatly facilitates deployment in different projects.
Cloud Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Overall, it has helped our platform and DevOps team deploy changes with greater confidence, respond to incidents more quickly, and maintain a more secure and reliable Kubernetes environment.
Senior Systems Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Categories and Ranking

Qualys TotalCloud
Sponsored
Ranking in Container Security
11th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
41
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (10th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (7th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (7th), SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) (2nd), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (6th)
Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
Ranking in Container Security
24th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Calico Cloud
Ranking in Container Security
35th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (21st), AI Observability (29th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Container Security category, the mindshare of Qualys TotalCloud is 1.7%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) is 0.9%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Calico Cloud is 0.5%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Container Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Qualys TotalCloud1.7%
Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)0.9%
Calico Cloud0.5%
Other96.9%
Container Security
 

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.
Daniel Wichinescki - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Specialist | SRE | Cloud Public and Private at Parana Banco
Has supported production deployments and simplified permission management though could reduce monitoring costs
For Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), we only used it to orchestrate the Kubernetes pods. We didn't use the other features. We only used the environment to start our application. I utilized the automatic scaling capabilities. The integration with Azure Active Directory helped with the security of our applications. I think Amazon EKS is better. EKS is the best because there are many features to use for scaling and to control the environments.
Olakunle Obasoro - PeerSpot reviewer
DevOps Engineer at Exponential Craft
Security posture has become visible and container risks are managed proactively
Regarding improvements for Calico Cloud, there is a need to build agentic security systems. I believe Calico Cloud is progressing towards this, and I believe they can enhance their teaching methods to facilitate adoption. Documentation needs continuous improvement. It is good and easy to read, but it can get better. Having a searchable summary feature, such as a chatbot, could help users quickly resolve issues without having to read extensive documentation. At the moment, I do not believe there are more improvements needed, but as mentioned earlier, there should be a focus on better documentation, possibly by embedding chatbot features that could respond to user prompts effectively.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
9%
Construction Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise30
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise23
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Qualys TotalCloud?
To be totally honest, I do not have any best features because I have had a bad experience using this tool, especially...
What is your primary use case for Qualys TotalCloud?
My main use case for Qualys TotalCloud is vulnerability management and exposure management. I use this tool to evalua...
What needs improvement with Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)?
I do not see any specific areas for improvement in Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), except for the kind of support the...
What is your primary use case for Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)?
My main use case for Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) is hosting a Comark website on it. In addition to hosting a Comar...
What advice do you have for others considering Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)?
I would rate Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) at a nine out of ten. I deduct one point for customer support, as seventy...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Calico Cloud?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Calico Cloud was determined by management who evaluated the...
What needs improvement with Calico Cloud?
Regarding improvements for Calico Cloud, there is a need to build agentic security systems. I believe Calico Cloud is...
What is your primary use case for Calico Cloud?
I have been using Calico Cloud between 2022 to 2024. I worked on a project focused on security and vulnerability scan...
 

Also Known As

Qualys TotalCloud with FlexScan
No data available
No data available
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) vs. Calico Cloud and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
909,153 professionals have used our research since 2012.