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Calico Cloud vs Red Hat Advanced Cluster Security for Kubernetes 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Qualys TotalCloud
Sponsored
Ranking in Container Security
11th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
46
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (10th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (9th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (8th), SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) (2nd), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (7th)
Calico Cloud
Ranking in Container Security
28th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (19th), AI Observability (22nd)
Red Hat Advanced Cluster Se...
Ranking in Container Security
30th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Container Security category, the mindshare of Qualys TotalCloud is 1.8%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Calico Cloud is 0.6%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Red Hat Advanced Cluster Security for Kubernetes is 1.4%, down from 2.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Container Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Qualys TotalCloud1.8%
Calico Cloud0.6%
Red Hat Advanced Cluster Security for Kubernetes1.4%
Other96.2%
Container Security
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2859021 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr Security Engineer at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees
Risk-based triage has transformed container security and now prioritizes high-impact threats
The best features Qualys TotalCloud offers currently include managing cloud infrastructure and container security while facing major challenges such as alert fatigue. Traditional vulnerability scanners flag hundreds of CVEs on short-lived Kubernetes containers, some of which have no internet exposure or are gone before we can even triage them. I leverage Qualys TotalCloud to move beyond static CVSS. I use it to implement runtime exposure, correlation risk reprioritization, and shift-left integration. This notifies developers to fix a base image upstream rather than patching live ephemeral instances. In my work with cloud and container security, the biggest operational hurdle was alert fatigue. I use Qualys to shift left from static CVSS severity to context-aware risk prioritization. I correlated raw vulnerability data with real-time risk factors such as public network exposure, active runtime execution, or overly permissive IAM roles. This allows us to immediately drop the priority of isolated containers and escalate lower-severity CVEs that sit on an exposed, high-risk path. We can map these findings directly back to our CI/CD pipelines so developers can patch the root base images upstream. We have drastically cut down the signal-to-noise ratio, saved a lot of manual hours doing triage work, and ensured engineering effort goes directly towards high-impact risk reduction.
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.
Daniel Stevens - PeerSpot reviewer
Software Engineer at Galley
Offers easy management and container connection with HTTPS, but the support needs to improve
I have experience with the solution's setup in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and our company has assisted in the development of a cluster in a research department, but we didn't start from scratch because we have IT professionals who have installed Kubernetes across 12 nodes of a cluster and a new environment can be created for a new platform. I also had another setup experience of Red Hat Advanced Cluster Security for Kubernetes in Portugal where I had to implement the solution in a cluster of 22 computer servers, which was completed with assistance from the IT department of the company. The initial setup process of the solution can be considered as difficult. The setup process involves using the permissions, subnets and range of IPs, which makes it complex. Deploying Red Hat Advanced Cluster Security for Kubernetes takes around eight to ten hours for new clusters. The solution's deployment can be divided into three parts. The first part involves OpenStack, where the cluster's resources need to be identified. The second part involves virtualizing assets and identifying other physical assets, for which OpenStack, Kubernetes, or OpenShift are used. The third part of the deployment involves dividing the networks into subnetworks and implementing automation to deploy the microservices using Helm. The number of professionals required for the solution's deployment depends upon the presence of automated scripts. Ideally, two or three professionals are required to set up Red Hat Advanced Cluster Security for Kubernetes.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"One of the features I appreciate is the ability to generate daily reports without relying on anyone else."
"Qualys TotalCloud has significantly improved our organization by automating our reporting processes, reducing the time spent on report creation from two hours to less than fifteen to twenty minutes."
"The scalability is good as well. I would rate it ten out of ten."
"Qualys TotalCloud helps you not just to identify misconfigurations, but you can actually also fix issues."
"I would definitely recommend Qualys TotalCloud to other users."
"I would definitely recommend it because it is easy to handle any cloud resources."
"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."
"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."
"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 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."
"The number one standout feature is the multi-cloud hybrid workload support, as the fact that Calico Cloud is not strictly bound to Kubernetes pods but can also utilize bare metal or virtual machines means it offers a unified control plane and allows for a single security policy to be applied and for traffic flow to be observed between VM-based databases and containerized applications running in Kubernetes, which is amazing for increasingly popular hybrid workloads."
"Calico Cloud has had a positive impact on our organization by improving both our Kubernetes security posture and operational efficiency."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to share resources."
"I am impressed with the tool's visibility."
"Offers easy management with authentication and authorization features"
"Segmentation is the most powerful feature."
"The benefit of working with the solution is the fact that it's very straightforward...It is a perfectly stable product since the details are very accurate."
"The technical support is good."
"The most beneficial security feature of the product revolves around the areas of vulnerability and configuration."
"One of the most valuable features I found was the ability of this solution to map the network and show you the communication between your containers and your different nodes."
 

Cons

"There is room for improvement in the support."
"Two areas for improvement in Qualys TotalCloud are the speed of the public cloud platform and vulnerability detection."
"It has been working very well, but it would be helpful if the dashboard could generate reports tailored to specific compliance needs. For example, in India, we have to comply with RBI and SEBI guidelines. It w"
"I sometimes have difficulty detecting or uninstalling certain versions of applications, which I have to do manually."
"An area for improvement would be to focus on risks related to AI, such as large language models and potential data leakage."
"The onboarding process is a bit difficult. In the initial phase, it is very difficult to understand the features, what the dashboard contains, and what criteria they are using."
"One of the things that could be improved is the alerts. Qualys is a fantastic tool, especially with the TruRisk feature, but one challenge that most leaders face involves alert fatigue."
"Qualys's ticketing system can be confusing when assigning tasks to individuals, and support could be improved by offering instant call solutions with engineers in addition to ticket replies."
"Another issue is the resource footprint because Calico Cloud is an all-inclusive networking solution with many daemons running inside the cluster, putting a noticeable load on the Kubernetes API server in large clusters."
"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."
"Calico Cloud is a very good product with well-defined usage. I would appreciate seeing more improvement on real-time analysis capabilities."
"I do see that some features associated with the IAST part are not included in the tool, making it an area where improvements are required."
"The documentation about Red Hat Advanced Cluster Security available online is very limited... So it's very limited to the documentation."
"The support and specifications need to be up to date for the cluster technologies"
"The solution's visibility and vulnerability prevention should be improved."
"The testing process could be improved."
"The solution lacks features when compared to some of the competitors such as Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks and has room for improvement."
"The deprecation of APIs is a concern since the deprecation of APIs will cause issues for us every time we upgrade."
"The initial setup is pretty complex. There's a learning curve, and its cost varies across different environments. It's difficult."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 offers cost-effective licensing flexibility."
"Qualys TotalCloud is expensive, but it offers a premier solution with no headaches."
"As a middle management member, I do not have direct pricing knowledge, but based on the knowledge from our meetings, its pricing is competitive."
"Qualys TotalCloud is expensive."
"Qualys TotalCloud is cost-efficient and was selected for its value compared to other products."
"It isn't cheap, but it's reasonable. It helps us to manage things with very few resources."
"TotalCloud's price is about right where I would expect it to be."
Information not available
"We purchase a yearly basis license for the solution."
"The pricing model is moderate, meaning it is not very expensive."
"The price of Red Hat Advanced Cluster Security for Kubernetes is better than Palo Alto Prisma."
"It's a costly solution"
"Red Hat offers two pricing options for their solution: a separate price, and a bundled price under the OpenShift Platform Plus."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
16%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
No data available
Financial Services Firm
27%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Insurance Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise35
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise4
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Qualys TotalCloud?
In terms of improvement, remediation still belongs to the cloud team, which is one of the issues we faced with Qualys...
What is your primary use case for Qualys TotalCloud?
My main use case for Qualys TotalCloud is regarding the cloud visibility that we were not having previously. Previous...
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?
I think there are a couple of issues with Calico Cloud, at least during the first time I used it more intensively. On...
What is your primary use case for Calico Cloud?
My main use case for Calico Cloud was primarily cloud network security. An unfortunate aspect of cloud architecture i...
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Also Known As

Qualys TotalCloud with FlexScan
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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
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City National Bank, U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Find out what your peers are saying about Calico Cloud vs. Red Hat Advanced Cluster Security for Kubernetes and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
915,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.