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Cisco Vulnerability Management (formerly Kenna.VM) vs Qualys VMDR comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 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

Cisco Vulnerability Managem...
Ranking in Risk-Based Vulnerability Management
23rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Cisco Security Portfolio (11th)
Qualys VMDR
Ranking in Risk-Based Vulnerability Management
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
96
Ranking in other categories
IT Asset Management (3rd), Vulnerability Management (3rd), Configuration Management Databases (3rd), Container Security (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Risk-Based Vulnerability Management category, the mindshare of Cisco Vulnerability Management (formerly Kenna.VM) is 2.1%, down from 2.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Qualys VMDR is 9.7%, down from 16.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Risk-Based Vulnerability Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Qualys VMDR9.7%
Cisco Vulnerability Management (formerly Kenna.VM)2.1%
Other88.2%
Risk-Based Vulnerability Management
 

Featured Reviews

AshishPaliwal - PeerSpot reviewer
Self-employed at Self-employed
Offers contextual prioritization and risk-based remediation of vulnerability
An improvement would be some sort of an integration with any GRC suite. There are a lot of GRC suites available, like Archer, MetricStream, Rsam, Protiviti, for example. So how would a solution like this work if my company has already invested thousands or maybe millions in a GRC solution? Do I still need it and how does it fit into an existing SAP environment? There could be interoperability, having more data sources, integrating Splunk, Qualys, FireEye, Rapid7, Carbon Black. I'm sure all that can be done to an extent, with a little more insight and a little more accuracy on the industry numbers and trends. I'd like the solution to offer any sort of assistance in any way with the remediation part, not just identification of vulnerability risk, and that is second.
Vaibhav Ghule - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The risk context of any vulnerability is a valuable feature."
"The risk context of any vulnerability is a valuable feature; that is what it is used for and then data from different sources can be fed into it, and they have good dashboards, risk meters, and virtualization."
"Qualys VM's best features are vulnerability management and customizable scoring."
"The most valuable feature is the vulnerability assessment."
"It has helped to automate the vulnerability management program, increasing the security posture and helped us to identify the security risks in our infrastructure."
"Qualys VM's best feature is vulnerability management."
"Detects new hosts along with vulnerabilities."
"I like the solution's web application security for scanning, the solution is flexible with good integration."
"This solution has provided information about existing vulnerabilities, and helped with quick remediation in case of global malware attacks."
"The way we can maintain a current actual registry of all the IP assets within it is very good."
 

Cons

"An improvement would be some sort of an integration with any GRC suite."
"Qualys VM's vulnerability scan could be improved, especially the number of CVE numbers it can manage at a time."
"The tool needs to improve the adding assets and report generation features. I would like to see the policy scan of offline appliances in the product's future releases."
"They have integrated with other third parties, but it is still not viable."
"They should make it accessible for more operating systems."
"It's too early for me to say if there is any room for improvement since we're in the first couple of months of using this solution."
"There needs to be better documentation."
"What we have found is that the solution is not closely tied with the patch management. It is okay with newer ones, like Windows 10 machines; it gives the correct patch. But for Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008, it does not give us the correct patch so we have to manually identify the patches. This is a major problem."
"If AI features were integrated, it could enhance the capabilities significantly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I think the pricing is based on the number of endpoints, so it's more subscription-based."
"The product is more expensive than that of any other vendor."
"Qualys VM is better suited for medium to large companies because the price can be too much for smaller customers."
"They have recently changed the pricing model, which is now better than it was before."
"There is a license for the use of this solution. We pay annually instead of monthly to receive a better discount on the price."
"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 a high cost product. Compared to the other solutions, it is around 15 to 20% higher in cost."
"Qualys VM is quite expensive. It's a subscription-based license, and it's yearly. Right now, it's open for me, and I don't have any limitations or caps on the licenses. They are seeing if the product is viable for 4500 users. I can add as much as I want, and at the end of the subscription, they'll let me know how many licenses were actually used and bill me accordingly. On a scale from one to five, I would give their pricing a three. It's still expensive."
"There are no additional fees in addition to the standard licensing fees."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Retailer
15%
Computer Software Company
12%
Construction Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Construction Company
6%
Computer Software Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise70
 

Questions from the Community

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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.
What needs improvement with Qualys VMDR?
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 imp...
What advice do you have for others considering Qualys VMDR?
I have some understanding about PeerSpot, and I have visited the website. PeerSpot is similar to TrustRadius. It takes reviews from customers or end users who are using the tools and technologies i...
 

Also Known As

Kenna.VM, Kenna Security, Kenna, Kenna Security Platform
Qualys VM, QualysGuard VM, Qualys Asset Inventory, Qualys Container Security
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

TransUnion
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
Find out what your peers are saying about Qualys, Horizon3.ai, Tenable and others in Risk-Based Vulnerability Management. Updated: August 2026.
908,858 professionals have used our research since 2012.