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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 25, 2026

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 Container Security
11th
Ranking in Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP)
6th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (11th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (8th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (8th), SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) (1st)
Calico Cloud
Ranking in Container Security
51st
Ranking in Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP)
38th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
AI Observability (94th)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Ranking in Container Security
4th
Ranking in Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP)
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
89
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (5th), Container Management (7th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (4th), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (4th), Microsoft Security Suite (7th), Compliance Management (4th), Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Container Security category, the mindshare of Qualys TotalCloud is 1.4%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Calico Cloud is 0.4%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is 5.3%, down from 6.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Container Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud5.3%
Qualys TotalCloud1.4%
Calico Cloud0.4%
Other92.9%
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.
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.
RW
Head Of IT at Cirrus Response
Cloud security has cut investigation time and now reveals threats faster but needs simpler oversight
When deploying AI applications, my key security concerns with Microsoft Defender for Cloud are data loss, leakage of data, and guardrails around the actual AI, and I am hoping that this is going to help me put those guardrails in place and identify data exfiltration. Microsoft Defender for Cloud has not helped me manage and secure multi-cloud environments, as we are 100 percent Microsoft and have not really got it in any other environment at all. I am not yet using the unified AI-powered security feature offered by Microsoft Defender for Cloud, but that is coming. I am not yet using the integrated XDR feature of Microsoft Defender for Cloud, but that is coming. I am not yet utilizing the GenAI threat protection features of Microsoft Defender for Cloud. That is also coming and a lot of that will come from learning it here. I have enabled the agentless scanning in my cloud environment with Microsoft Defender for Cloud. Assessing the impact on my workload protection without needing to install agents with Microsoft Defender for Cloud makes it a lot easier, but it also identifies a lot more, which puts more load on me sometimes. I would advise another organization considering Microsoft Defender for Cloud that it is the most logical route to follow if their whole ecosystem is Microsoft. It is easy to implement and it is very self-explanatory when doing it, making sense to just follow the steps as it is too simple, really. I would rate this review a 7.5 out of 10.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Qualys TotalCloud's most valuable features are its security capabilities that help identify and mitigate risk factors."
"We were able to realize its benefits within 24 to 48 hours."
"TotalCloud's best feature is the integration of cloud accounts. It helps with the risk and security posture management of our cloud infrastructure."
"The agent and agentless scanning in TotalCloud, particularly the FlexScan method, is incredibly valuable. With traditional scanning approaches, we had to give IP ranges and whitelist IPs. All that is now simplified. FlexScan requires minimal intervention, and after configuration, it automatically collects data and performs necessary scans."
"TotalCloud provides the easiest and the best approach for cloud infrastructure management."
"Its excellent graphical interface makes the scanning process simple."
"Qualys TotalCloud has helped us view our risk structure, vulnerabilities, and security posture."
"One of Qualys' best features is its categorization, which allows us to see the types of assets, their security postures, and the AI-powered version of the tool."
"The impact of Calico Cloud is that we were able to achieve a more secure understanding of our security posture, access our containers knowing full well that all policies set were followed through, and see visually how everything was interconnected, which has impacted our business positively."
"Calico Cloud has positively impacted my organization, especially on the security front, as it helped us anticipate security threats."
"Calico Cloud has positively impacted my organization by improving the security of deployed applications while having greater control and visibility over communication between the different microservices."
"The valuable features include the ability to manage devices and the fact that Defender can replace other security tools like SCCM."
"Some of the most valuable features of Microsoft Defender for Cloud include its effectiveness in threat detection through unsupervised machine learning, CTI, and advanced sandboxing."
"We saw improvement from a regulatory compliance perspective due to having a single dashboard."
"Defender is user-friendly and provides decent visibility into threats."
"It has seamless integration with any of the services I mentioned, on Azure, such as IaaS platforms, virtual machines, applications, or databases, because it's an in-house product from Microsoft within the Azure ecosystem."
"If you're in the world of cloud and your company is using Azure as their primary cloud, I think Azure Security Center is a must-have feature, because it provides a bird's eye view of the entire security position of the organization."
"It isn't a highly complex solution. It's something that a lot of analysts can use. Defender gives you a broad overview of what's happening in your environment, and it's a great solution if you're a Microsoft shop."
"The solution's coordinated detection and response across devices and identities is impressive because it is complete."
 

Cons

"Qualys TotalCloud needs to improve its accuracy for non-Windows operating systems."
"The support process is inefficient due to the excessive number of replies required when submitting tickets."
"The support is not up to the mark and seems to be overburdened."
"We encountered challenges identifying the correct resource category for certain items, such as those in containers or storage."
"The main area needing improvement is integration. Although the team is strengthening TotalCloud, integration can be enhanced with SIEM, SOAR, ITSM, and other sources."
"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."
"Although TotalCloud is a helpful tool, some of its advanced features are still under development."
"They may not have all the features that their competitor Cilium has, and they are doing a portion of what Cilium does and a portion of what Istio does."
"I think Calico Cloud could be improved by being a bit cheaper."
"The integration process of Calico Cloud with existing systems has its challenges."
"Integration into other third-party products, particularly those from tier three vendors like ManageEngine and Hexcode, has proven difficult."
"The pricing is very difficult because every type of Defender for Cloud has its own metrics and pricing."
"I've heard there might be issues with scalability for larger enterprises."
"Defender is occasionally unreliable. It isn't 100% efficient in terms of antivirus detection, but it isn't an issue most of the time. It's also somewhat difficult to train new security analysts to use Defender."
"From a compliance standpoint, they can include some more metrics and some specific compliances such as GDPR."
"Microsoft has much room for improvement regarding the support for Microsoft Defender for Cloud. Their competitors are much better regarding support."
"If a customer is already using Okta as an SSO in its entire environment, they will want to continue with it. But Security Center doesn't understand that and keeps making recommendations. It would help if it let us resolve a recommendation, even if it is not implemented."
"The pricing could be better."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"While Qualys TotalCloud's pricing is currently acceptable, it is becoming increasingly expensive and may soon be considered overpriced."
"Its price seems higher compared to other tools, but it is worth it. If they could adjust the pricing and make it comparable with other tools, that would be great."
"Qualys TotalCloud offers cost-effective licensing flexibility."
"The pricing is comparable. It is built into our other product, so I cannot piecemeal it. It is a part of our subscription."
"Qualys TotalCloud is expensive."
"Although Qualys TotalCloud is relatively expensive due to its unique automation features, its cost-effectiveness is rated an eight out of ten, with ten being the most costly."
"It isn't cheap, but it's reasonable. It helps us to manage things with very few resources."
"Qualys TotalCloud offers good pricing that is affordable and competitive with the market. Our partnership also provides us with additional benefits."
Information not available
"Defender's basic version is free, which is good. Many of our teams are evaluating the paid version against third-party products."
"The tool is pretty expensive."
"There are two different plans. We're using the secure basic plan, but we have used the end security plan as well. There are additional costs, but it gives us more functionalities compared to the basic plan."
"It has global licensing. It comes with multiple licenses since there are around 50,000 people (in our organization) who look at it."
"The pricing is very difficult because every type of Defender for Cloud has its own metrics and pricing. If you have Cloud for Key Vault, the pricing is different than it is for storage. Every type has its own pricing list and rules."
"Pricing depends on your workload size, but it is very cheap. If you're talking about virtual machines, it is $5 or something for each machine, which is minimal. If you go for some agent-based solution for every virtual machine, then you need to pay the same thing or more than that. For an on-premises solution like this, we were paying around $30 to $50 based on size. With Defender, Microsoft doesn't bother about the size. You pay based on the number of machines. So, if you have 10 virtual machines, and 10 virtual machines are being monitored, you are paying based on that rather than the size of the virtual machine. Thus, you are paying for the number of units rather than paying for the size of your units."
"I'm not privy to that information, but I know it's probably close to a million dollars a year."
"There are improvements that have to be made to the licensing. Currently, for servers, it has to be done by grouping the servers on a single subscription... We don't have an option whereby, if all those resources are in one subscription, we can have each of the individual servers subject to different planning."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Construction Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
No data available
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise29
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise49
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Qualys TotalCloud?
Areas that need improvement in every solution include the remediation part. The remediation steps should be simple en...
What is your primary use case for Qualys TotalCloud?
Our use case involves the assets that we have under cloud, the assets exposed to the internet, and the internal appli...
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How is Prisma Cloud vs Azure Security Center for security?
Azure Security Center is very easy to use, integrates well, and gives very good visibility on what is happening acros...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender for Cloud?
My experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing was that the license cost was the only consideration. Setup an...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for Cloud?
To improve Microsoft Defender for Cloud, I think pricing-wise, the license price is a little bit higher from an inges...
 

Also Known As

Qualys TotalCloud with FlexScan
No data available
Microsoft Azure Security Center, Azure Security Center, Microsoft ASC, Azure Defender
 

Interactive Demo

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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
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Microsoft Defender for Cloud is trusted by companies such as ASOS, Vatenfall, SWC Technology Partners, and more.
Find out what your peers are saying about Calico Cloud vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,747 professionals have used our research since 2012.