Checkmarx One vs Qualys VMDR comparison

Checkmarx and Qualys are both solutions in the Vulnerability Management category. Checkmarx is ranked #17 with an average rating of 8.2, while Qualys is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.6. Checkmarx holds a 1.3% mindshare in VM, compared to Qualys’s 5.0% mindshare. Additionally, 88% of Checkmarx users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of Qualys users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 25, 2026

Qualys VMDR and Checkmarx One are competitors in the security solutions category, targeting network and application security respectively. Checkmarx One holds an edge in application security due to its extensive code scanning capabilities and support for multiple programming languages.

Features: Qualys VMDR excels in vulnerability management, policy compliance, and continuous monitoring. Its asset tagging, prioritization, and scalability complement its ease of use and ability to automate scans via scheduled tasks. Checkmarx One offers a robust code security framework with SAST scanning, seamless API integration, and detailed vulnerability tracking. Its support for various programming languages and user-friendly interface helps developers maintain secure code efficiently.

Room for Improvement: Qualys VMDR users suggest improvements in reporting and integration features, addressing issues with patch management, API speed, and process scalability. Enhancements in handling false positives and better customer support are also desired. Checkmarx One requires enhancements in scan speed and accuracy, especially with false positives. Better integration with continuous deployment pipelines and broader language support are also areas for growth. Users also express concerns about its complex licensing and cost structure.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Qualys VMDR provides flexible deployment options across public, private, and on-premises environments. Although its customer service is generally well-regarded, improvements in responsiveness are needed. Checkmarx One offers simple setup with hybrid and cloud mode deployment models. While its proactive support is commendable, faster technical support responses are desirable.

Pricing and ROI: Qualys VMDR offers flexible pricing options, but it can be costly for smaller enterprises. Its significant ROI comes from reducing vulnerabilities and streamlining patch management. Checkmarx One's modular licensing allows tailored investments, though it is considered expensive by some. Despite its cost, many users appreciate the transparency in pricing and licensing, which enhances value perception, alongside substantial ROI through robust application security measures.

To learn more, read our detailed Checkmarx One vs. Qualys VMDR Report (Updated: January 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Checkmarx One vs. Qualys VMDR

January 2026

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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

Zafran Security

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Vulnerability Management category, the mindshare of Zafran Security is 1.0%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Checkmarx One is 1.3%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Qualys VMDR is 5.0%, down from 9.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Vulnerability Management Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Qualys VMDR	5.0%
Checkmarx One	1.3%
Zafran Security	1.0%
Other	92.7%

Vulnerability Management

Featured Reviews

Reviewer6233

Works at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees

Has become an indispensable tool in our cybersecurity arsenal

While Zafran Security is already a powerful tool, there are areas where it could be further improved to provide even greater value. One key area for enhancement is the searching capabilities within its vulnerabilities module. By incorporating the ability to create Boolean searches, users would gain the ability to apply more complex filters and customize their search criteria. This would greatly enhance the precision and efficiency with which security teams can identify and prioritize vulnerabilities. Having such tailored search capabilities would save time and resources by narrowing down vast lists of vulnerabilities to those that meet specific parameters relevant to our unique risk environment. Additionally, integrating more robust reporting and visualization tools would be advantageous. Enhanced dashboards that offer customizable visual representations of risk configurations and threat landscapes would facilitate better communication with stakeholders, making it easier to explain vulnerabilities and the rationale behind certain security measures. This would also aid in demonstrating the improvements and value derived from existing security investments to leadership and non-technical team members.

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Shahzad Shahzad

Senior Solution Architect | L3+ Systems & Cloud Engineer | SRE Specialist at Canada Cloud Solution

Enable secure development workflows while identifying opportunities for faster scans and improved AI guidance

Checkmarx One is a very strong platform, but there are several areas where it can improve to support modern DevSecOps workflows even better. For example, better real-time developer guidance is needed. The IDE plugin should offer richer AI-powered auto-fixes similar to SNYK Code or GitHub Copilot Security, as current guidance is good but not deeply contextual for large-scale enterprise codebases. This matters because it reduces developer friction and accelerates shift-left adoption. More transparency control over the correlation engines is another need. The correlation engine is powerful but not fully transparent. Users want to understand why vulnerabilities were correlated or de-prioritized, which helps AppSec teams trust the prioritization logic. Faster SAST scan and more language coverage is needed since SAST scan can still be slow for very large mono-repos and there is limited deep support for new language frameworks like Rust and Go, along with advanced coverage for serverless-specific frameworks. This matters because large organizations want sub-minute scans in CI/CD as cloud-native ecosystems evolve fast. A strong API security module is another area for enhancement. API security scanning could be improved with active testing, API discovery, full Swagger, OpenAPI, drift detection, and schema-based fuzzing. This is important as API attacks are one of the biggest AppSec risks in 2025. Checkmarx One is strong, but I see a few areas for improvement including faster SAST scanning for large mono-repos, deeper language framework support, more transparent correlation logic, and stronger API security that includes discovery and runtime context. The IDE plugin could offer more AI-assisted fixes, and the SBOM lifecycle tracking can evolve further. Enhancing integration with SIEM and SOAR would also make enterprise adoption smoother, and these improvements would help developers and AppSec teams move faster with more accuracy.

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Vaibhav Ghule

Soc Lead & Edr Administration at Persistent Systems

Continuous risk-based monitoring has strengthened incident response and vulnerability prioritization

I haven't explored Qualys VMDR's vulnerability lifecycle automation yet. One of my analysts mentioned that queries lack grouping operators in Qualys VMDR. From my experience, I would appreciate improvements in the query options in Qualys VMDR, specifically in the query-building process where I would need more features and operators. Additionally, we have been facing issues with Qualys on the cloud level. We cannot download the configuration profile from the cloud agent, and it is showing a pending action for download. During 2025, we noticed outages of Qualys a couple of times. I want to mention that there is an issue with receiving timely RCA deliveries. While this is not necessarily about the tool, it relates to support. The support has not been very responsive, and we are receiving RCAs a little delayed whenever we raise support cases or communicate with the TAMs. Additionally, the UI has a slight latency, which I and my team have experienced. They have also reported this latency issue when navigating through different pages.

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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

"Zafran has become an indispensable tool in our cybersecurity arsenal."

"We are able to see the real risk of a vulnerability on our environment with our security tools."

"Zafran is an excellent tool."

"Overall, we have seen about eighty-seven percent reduction of the number of vulnerabilities that require urgency to remediate, specifically the number of criticals."

"With Zafran Security, it integrates with your security controls, allowing you to take that risk score and reduce it based on the controls in place or increase the risk based on different factors, such as if the issue is internet reachable or if there's an exploit in the wild."

"We saw benefits from Zafran Security almost immediately after deploying it."

"The most valuable features of Checkmarx are the Best Fix Location and the Payments option because you can save a lot of time trying to mitigate the configuration. Using these tools can save you a lot of time."

"The main thing we find valuable about Checkmarx is the ease of use. It's easy to initiate scans and triage defects."

"Checkmarx One has positively impacted our organization as we tend to find vulnerabilities very early in the development cycle."

"Checkmarx One has positively impacted my organization because in the past, when Checkmarx One scan was not implemented, we faced a lot of issues finding vulnerabilities inside the repository, but now, since we have integrated Checkmarx One into our repository, we can smoothly and very easily find vulnerabilities and manage those effectively."

"From my point of view, it is the best product on the market."

"The value you can get out of the speedy production may be worth the price tag."

"The solution improved the efficiency of our code security reviews. It helps tremendously because it finds hundreds of potential problems sometimes."

"The most valuable features of Checkmarx are the SCA module and the code-checking module. Additionally, the solutions are explanatory and helpful."

More Checkmarx One pros

"The vulnerability management feature is what I used the most. It is a good SaaS product. It is easy to use. It has a nice UI where you can see all the assets and vulnerabilities."

"The most valuable features of Qualys VM are its ability to do proper vulnerability assessment. It has a lot of updates for all the vulnerability databases from all over the globe. It's an amazing solution when it comes to the versatility of the features it has. Additionally, the reports are very good. It generates very detailed reports about the vulnerabilities inside the environment"

"It is very easy to use and there are lots of options. We can usually easily go through it and all of the things we want to configure, and we can configure everything to our specifications very easily."

"Monitors workstations and servers for vulnerabilities and creates reports."

"Qualys VMDR provides a real-time response and reporting feature, which is excellent."

"The solution shows us classic categories, including high, medium, and low risks. It also shows critical items, and that gives us the advantage of prioritizing things."

"Qualys VM has allowed us to know the vulnerabilities we need to prioritize based on the threat levels and the possible impact if there's an intrusion."

"It is quite easy to implement."

More Qualys VMDR pros

Cons

"I think the ability to have some enhanced reporting capabilities is something they can improve on, as they have good reports but we have asked for some specific reporting enhancements."

"The dashboarding and reporting functionality of Zafran Security is an area that definitely could use some improvements."

"Initially, we were somewhat concerned about the scalability of Zafran due to our large asset count and the substantial amount of information we needed to process."

"The plugins for the development environment have room for improvements such as for Android Studio and X code."

"We have received some feedback from our customers who are receiving a large number of false positives."

"Checkmarx could improve the REST APIs by including automation."

"Checkmarx needs improvement in its Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) and API security features."

"Its pricing model can be improved. Sometimes, it is a little complex to understand its pricing model."

"C, C++, VB and T-SQL are not supported by this product. Although, C and C++ were advertised as being supported."

"The validation process needs to be sped up."

"Checkmarx could improve the speed of the scans."

More Checkmarx One cons

"There's a need to upgrade or fix the potential vulnerability rate. Around 20,000 potential vulnerabilities were showing in Qualys VMDR, but none of the other tools showed them. When we checked, it wasn't the case. Support explained that even small issues were being counted as vulnerabilities, causing issues in our audit. So, the security features could be improved to identify vulnerabilities accurately."

"The response time of technical support takes a while."

"Qualys should improve their customer experience. They need to improve the tech support experience and the turnaround time."

"It is more expensive vs. other products on the market."

"Make some minimal dashboard improvements."

"If AI features were integrated, it could enhance the capabilities significantly."

"There seems to be a lack of easy onboarding into Qualys."

"Sometimes the scanning can get overwhelmed and start to drag when a lot of users are trying to scan at once."

More Qualys VMDR cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

"It is an expensive solution."

"We got a special offer for a 30% reduction for three years, after our first year. I think for a real source-code scanning tool, you have to add a lot of money for Open Source Analysis, and AppSec Coach (160 Euro per user per year)."

"It is not expensive, but sometimes, their pricing model or licensing model is not very clear. There are similar variables, such as projects or developers, and sometimes, it is a little bit confusing."

"The price of Checkmarx could be reduced to match their competitors, it is expensive."

"We have purchased an annual license to use this solution. The price is reasonable."

"It is the right price for quality delivery."

"I would rate the solution’s pricing an eight out of ten. The tool’s pricing is higher than others and it is for the license alone."

"For around 250 users or committers, the cost is approximately $500,000."

More Checkmarx One pricing and cost advice

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

"In Nigerian Naira, we spend about roughly four to five million to use this solution and this is expensive compared to solutions like Nessus."

"It is more expensive than other products on the market."

"I used to work there, so I never paid for the product. As an employee, we get a lifetime license for personal use, and that's what I'm using. It is a comprehensive platform, so there is a lot more to it. There could be other solutions that are probably a little bit cheaper, but it depends on what people need. Different people have different needs. It offers many things on the same platform. If you add all the things up, it should be cheaper, but I have not done any analysis specifically."

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

"The solution is costly."

"An annual license for a single scanner costs around $3,000."

"The license is on a yearly basis."

More Qualys VMDR pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Outsourcing Company

Financial Services Firm

18%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Financial Services Firm

16%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	32
Midsize Enterprise	9
Large Enterprise	46

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	20
Midsize Enterprise	12
Large Enterprise	70

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zafran Security?

Since we stood Zafran Security up in our private cloud, we handle the maintenance on our side. As we opted not to use...

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What needs improvement with Zafran Security?

In terms of areas for improvement, Zafran Security is doing a really great job as a new and emerging company. Oftenti...

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What is your primary use case for Zafran Security?

My use cases for Zafran Security revolve around two primary areas. One is around vulnerability management and priorit...

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What alternatives are there for Fortify WebInspect and Fortify SCA?

I would like to recommend Checkmarx. With Checkmarx, you are able to have an all in one solution for SAST and SCA as ...

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What do you like most about Checkmarx?

Compared to the solutions we used previously, Checkmarx has reduced our workload by almost 75%.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Checkmarx?

Checkmarx One is a premium solution, so budget accordingly. Make sure you understand how licensing scales with additi...

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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...

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

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing shows that we can consider both time and money saved.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Qualys VMDR?

I haven't explored Qualys VMDR's vulnerability lifecycle automation yet. One of my analysts mentioned that queries la...

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Zafran Security

January 2026

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Buyer's Guide

Checkmarx One

January 2026

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Buyer's Guide

Qualys VMDR

January 2026

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Also Known As

No data available

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

Overview

Zafran Security integrates with existing security tools to identify and mitigate vulnerabilities effectively, proving that most critical vulnerabilities are not exploitable, optimizing threat management.

Zafran Security introduces an innovative operating model for managing security threats and vulnerabilities. By leveraging the threat exposure management platform, it pinpoints and prioritizes exploitable vulnerabilities, reducing risk through immediate remediation. This platform enhances your hybrid cloud security by normalizing vulnerability signals and integrating specific IT context data, such as CVE runtime presence and internet asset reachability, into its analysis. No longer reliant on patch windows, Zafran Security allows you to manage risks actively.

What are the key features of Zafran Security?

Threat Exposure Management: Utilizes existing tools to prioritize vulnerabilities and manage threats.
Integrative Analysis: Combines security data with IT context for precise vulnerability management.
Real-time Risk Reduction: Enables immediate risk management without waiting for patches.
Hybrid Cloud Compatibility: Functions across diverse cloud environments for comprehensive security.

What benefits can users expect from Zafran Security?

Improved Security: Enhances protection by efficiently identifying and mitigating risks.
Cost Efficiency: Reduces unnecessary patching expenses by confirming non-exploitable vulnerabilities.
Time Savings: Frees developers to focus on root causes by handling immediate threats.
Comprehensive Insight: Offers a holistic view of security threats and vulnerabilities.

In industries where security is paramount, such as finance and healthcare, Zafran Security provides invaluable protection by ensuring that only exploitable vulnerabilities are addressed. It allows entities to maintain robust security measures while allocating resources efficiently, fitting seamlessly into existing security strategies.

Zafran Security

Checkmarx One is an enterprise cloud-native application security platform focused on providing cross-tool, correlated results to help AppSec and developer teams prioritize where to focus time and resources.

Checkmarx One offers comprehensive application scanning across the SDLC:

Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
Software Composition Analysis (SCA)
API security
Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST)
Container security
IaC security
Correlation, prioritization, and risk management
Codebashing secure code training
AI security
Tech partnerships extending AppSec into runtime analysis
Developer tool integrations including: CI/CD tools, development frameworks, feedback tools, IDEs, programming languages and SCMs

Checkmarx One provides everything you need to secure application development from the first line of code through deployment and runtime in the cloud. With an ever-evolving set of AppSec engines, correlation and prioritization features, and AI capabilities, Checkmarx One helps consolidate expanding lists of AppSec tools and make better sense of results. Its capabilities are designed to provide an improved developer experience to build trust with development teams and ensure the success of your AppSec program investment.

Checkmarx

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

YIT, Salesforce, Coca-Cola, SAP, U.S. Army, Liveperson, Playtech Case Study: Liveperson Implements Innovative Secure SDLC

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

Checkmarx One vs. Qualys VMDR

January 2026

Free Report: Checkmarx One vs. Qualys VMDR

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