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BMC Helix Cloud Security vs Sysdig Secure comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 17, 2024

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

Qualys TotalCloud
Sponsored
Ranking in Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)
8th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
43
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (11th), Container Security (12th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (8th), SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) (2nd), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (7th)
BMC Helix Cloud Security
Ranking in Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)
36th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (26th)
Sysdig Secure
Ranking in Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)
28th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Container Security (21st), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (18th), Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) (9th), AI Observability (28th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) category, the mindshare of Qualys TotalCloud is 1.9%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of BMC Helix Cloud Security is 0.9%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sysdig Secure is 1.8%, down from 2.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Qualys TotalCloud1.9%
Sysdig Secure1.8%
BMC Helix Cloud Security0.9%
Other95.4%
Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)
 

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.
DG
Portfolio Manager/ Helix Administrator at Frontier Communications
A highly scalable and straightforward solution with a knowledgeable support team
We work on a third-party shared environment. It wouldn’t have been feasible for a smaller company. My company was actually the first one to do it. Just like any cloud security, it pays to do your research and have complimentary security involved. The product can’t be the be-all and end-all tool for your security. Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.
MM
DevSecOps Engineer at a outsourcing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Runtime threat detection has improved and security teams prioritize real Kubernetes risks
The best feature Sysdig Secure offers is threat detection. The threat detection feature on Sysdig Secure stands out compared to other solutions I have seen or used because Sysdig sees the actual behavior inside the container or kernel and correlates it with Kubernetes infrastructure, which makes detection both earlier and more precise in a cloud-native environment. Sysdig Secure has positively impacted our organization by improving visibility into our Kubernetes environment and focusing on real risk, which has reduced alert noise, improved threat detection at runtime, and made vulnerability management more efficient by prioritizing issues that actually affect running workloads.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Qualys TotalCloud has helped us view our risk structure, vulnerabilities, and security posture."
"Qualys TotalCloud's most valuable features are its cloud security posture management, Kubernetes, and container security capabilities."
"TotalCloud has been excellent in providing us with immediate access to all the products and features we need, such as CSPM, TruRisk Insights, and compliance reports, including CIS and HIPAA."
"Qualys TotalCloud has positively impacted our bank's performance, and we have definitely seen benefits after implementing this solution."
"While automatic inventory detection upon connection is a helpful feature, a truly valuable capability would be assessing an environment's security posture against Azure and CIS best practices."
"The platform's unified view of the organization proves particularly valuable for leadership team meetings."
"The scalability is good as well. I would rate it ten out of ten."
"I found the initial setup user-friendly."
"It is a good tool to make sure that your containers are safe and sound."
"The best feature is time to value. With very minimal effort, you are able to have a cohesive view into your security posture on one or multiple cloud accounts, particularly if you are dealing with multicloud. If you have Azure and AWS deployments, you might have multiple subscriptions in Azure and usually multiple accounts in AWS. You may even be doing some GCP work (around Google Cloud Platform). It's very difficult to manage a common set of policies, even less reporting, across multiple subscriptions, accounts, and cloud environments. What BMC Helix Cloud Security does is provide a unified view or single pane of glass as to your baseline. Then, it also facilitates the ability for Level 1 or 2 operations support to take action and report on security vulnerabilities."
"The features that I've found most valuable are its container security aspect. I also like its vulnerability management tools."
"It's also multi-cloud. You can look at several cloud providers: AWS, Azure, or GCP."
"With very minimal effort, you are able to have a cohesive view into your security posture on one or multiple cloud accounts, particularly if you are dealing with multicloud."
"The most valuable aspects of BMC Helix Cloud Security are its security features and regulatory compliance capabilities."
"The cool feature of Helix Cloud Security is that you can do all that — understand and remediate issues — in one dashboard, based on the different policies that are available for security, out-of-the-box."
"Role-based security is a valuable feature."
"We appreciate this feature, especially when combined with CD monitoring. The implementation of requested features has been remarkable, such as scanning for compliance in CRM processes for the US government. We heavily rely on this feature to assess compliance with federal requirements."
"The proactiveness of the support has been fantastic. Every time we mention something in a meeting that we're trying to do, he proactively takes that as an investigation topic and looks into it. He'll provide the solution even though we might not have asked him to investigate it."
"I have not seen any stability issues so far."
"From a container-based standpoint, it offers excellent scalability to its users...I would tell those planning to use the solution that, from a container standpoint, it's excellent."
"The most valuable feature is the level of support that we get. Our solutions or customer success representative is very valuable. I see them as an extension of our security team."
"The log monitor is the most valuable feature."
"Sysdig Secure has positively impacted our organization by improving visibility into our Kubernetes environment and focusing on real risk, which has reduced alert noise, improved threat detection at runtime, and made vulnerability management more efficient by prioritizing issues that actually affect running workloads."
"Sysdig Secure has many strong foundational features like compliance and benchmark, security, network access management, and vulnerability management."
 

Cons

"The main area needing improvement is integration. Although the team is strengthening TotalCloud, integration can be enhanced with SIEM, SOAR, ITSM, and other sources."
"Regarding technical support from Qualys, they respond, but the response time can be too long. Sometimes we need to wait weeks for solutions to simple questions."
"Qualys' customer service provides quality answers, but the response time is long, even though it is within the SLA."
"In TotalCloud, I would suggest improvements in policy checks to cater to various inventory types like VPCs, subnets, S3 buckets, or IAMs. There is a lack of data segregation according to criticality or inventory."
"We would like to see Windows-based sensors available in Qualys, as this would make the platform more versatile and support a broader range of environments."
"Overall, we are satisfied with it. However, the response part of the Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) module can be improved. It is not yet in place according to requirements; it is not completely available even though the module has been released."
"There should be improvement from a dashboard perspective when collecting and showcasing data to lead management."
"There is room for improvement in the support."
"I want the role-based security feature to be improved."
"We've had some issues with connectors; the connectors have seemed to cause a little bit of trouble, perhaps with the APIs trying to scan the environment."
"The biggest challenge now, which is a good problem to have, with BMC Helix is content."
"BMC Helix Cloud Security has room for improvement in terms of integrating its various features."
"Every organization out there doesn't rely on just one control body. They use FISMA control. They may use HIPAA, CIS, PCI, or SOX, then blend them. One of the things that is now in big demand for BMC Helix Cloud Security is content. That's the next journey in its lifespan, making it easier for the community to share and collaborate on content for security controls that can be measured and remediated."
"We've had some with issues connectors. The connectors have seemed to have caused a little bit of trouble, perhaps with the APIs trying to scan the environment. The only time I've had to reach out to tech support was for that. It seems it may not have been scanning correctly or I wasn't seeing data within a specific time. But we've set up a couple of connectors in the past couple of weeks and they actually scanned the AWS environment and we had data within about 10 minutes. It's working a lot faster and I think they're making improvements as they go."
"The UI could be more user-friendly."
"I think its TOA interfaces are still not that comfortable. The UI could be more user-friendly, easier to use."
"The dashboard could be more simple and show the more important issues that are detected first. We'd like to be able to set it up so more important issues show up more prominently in the dashboard."
"Reporting can definitely be better. Live dashboards should be configurable for a longer period of time rather than 30 days. Being able to go back in time to compare six months ago to today would be valuable."
"Sysdig's biggest weakness is dashboarding and reporting. You have access to the data and can get everything you need, but we need the ability to summarize the information quickly in a format that senior leaders can understand. We report to the executive level and global board. I need to roll all that in-depth information into a quick summary, and their maturity level isn't there. I'm seeing that on the future road map, but it isn't there now."
"Sysdig Secure works well for us, but there are a few areas for improvement, such as the alerting and notification system being more flexible for complex workflows, and some dashboard and reporting features could be more customizable to match specific team needs."
"Banks and financial institutions cannot use Sysdig Secure because it doesn't sell SaaS-hosted versions for under two hundred working nodes."
"Perhaps, it could support more custom implementations, as our company utilizes custom implementations rather than standard ones. Configuring it requires a deep understanding and adjustment to our specific needs, which took some time. Other than that, I'm unsure about potential improvements. We were considering the possibility of compartmentalizing their tools. Currently, in Sysdig Secure, they bundle multiple features, and we are unable to use them individually. For instance, if we only need compliance scanning, we have to deploy the entire secure package. This is because of the way their agent functions, but I can't delve into more details."
"The solution needs to improve overall from a CSPM standpoint since they can't compete with Wiz or Orca."
"I give it an eight because of the bugs, specifically the fix version bug where sometimes there is no fix version shown, and I wish Sysdig Secure would create a customizable UI that orders features by importance to enhance user experience."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"As a middle management member, I do not have direct pricing knowledge, but based on the knowledge from our meetings, its pricing is competitive."
"The pricing for TotalCloud is attractive and competitive in the market. Given the features, especially the dashboard, I have no concerns regarding pricing."
"The pricing is comparable. It is built into our other product, so I cannot piecemeal it. It is a part of our subscription."
"TotalCloud's price is about right where I would expect it to be."
"It isn't cheap, but it's reasonable. It helps us to manage things with very few resources."
"I am not sure about the pricing. From what I understand, it is a bit on the higher side, but I do not have the exact numbers."
"Qualys TotalCloud offers good pricing that is affordable and competitive with the market. Our partnership also provides us with additional benefits."
"Qualys TotalCloud is expensive."
"The pricing is based on an annual subscription, upfront, and it's based on cloud assets. Whether your assets are in Azure and AWS combined, the tool tells you how many assets are being scanned and that's the number used for pricing."
"It is a subscription model with term licensing that is usually yearly. This includes, not only the product, but support and maintenance. It is based on cloud assets. Therefore, if you have 100 cloud assets, those cloud assets are measured based on evaluation or transactions. For example, if I'm evaluating that cloud asset for CIS compliance, PCI compliance, and AWS best practices, that asset gets evaluated three times, as those are three transactions. However, the license model is based on peak asset usage. So, over a year, if you deploy 100, 1000, 500, and then 2000 assets, you will be charged for the 2000 peak of assets managed by Helix Cloud Security."
"In comparison to other cloud solutions, it's reasonably priced. However, when compared to in-house built open-source projects, it might be considered somewhat costly. The cost depends on whether someone sees the support provided by Sysdig as an advantage or if it's deemed unnecessary. Personally, I find the support to be excellent and consider it a good value."
"I am always going to say that it could be a little bit cheaper. I do feel that it is a little bit on the expensive side."
"It is quite costly compared to other tools."
"The solution's pricing depends on the agents...In short, the price depends on the environment of its user."
"Sysdig is competitive. The quality matches the pricing. Obviously, everyone wants things to be cheaper, but if you're realistic, you acknowledge that quality service comes with a price. Sysdig is the gold standard for Kubernetes, and I wouldn't choose anything else. We live in Kubernetes. Everything is containerized, so that means a lot to us, and we're willing to make an investment."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Construction Company
20%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Transportation Company
8%
Performing Arts
8%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise31
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise5
 

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...
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What needs improvement with Sysdig Secure?
Sysdig Secure works well for us, but there are a few areas for improvement, such as the alerting and notification sys...
What is your primary use case for Sysdig Secure?
Our primary use case for Sysdig Secure is runtime threat detection and vulnerability management.
What advice do you have for others considering Sysdig Secure?
My advice for others looking into using Sysdig Secure is to clearly define your primary use case before getting start...
 

Also Known As

Qualys TotalCloud with FlexScan
TrueSight Cloud Security, SecOps Policy Service
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
NHS, Vodafone, Kansas City Life, SKY Italia, Cybera
SAP Concur, Goldman Sachs, Worldpay, Experian, BigCommerce, Arkose Labs, Calendly, Noteable, Bloomreach. More here: https://sysdig.com/customers/
Find out what your peers are saying about BMC Helix Cloud Security vs. Sysdig Secure and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.