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Contrast Security Protect vs Qualys Web Application Scanning comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 8, 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

Contrast Security Protect
Ranking in Application Security Tools
33rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.8
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Qualys Web Application Scan...
Ranking in Application Security Tools
15th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Application Security Tools category, the mindshare of Contrast Security Protect is 1.1%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Qualys Web Application Scanning is 1.7%, down from 2.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Security Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Qualys Web Application Scanning1.7%
Contrast Security Protect1.1%
Other97.2%
Application Security Tools
 

Featured Reviews

ToddMcAlister - PeerSpot reviewer
Lead Application and Data Security Engineer at a insurance company with 5,001-10,000 employees
It provides us with more in-depth visibility into ongoing attacks.
I rate Contrast Security Protect eight out of 10. Overall, it's a solid product, but I deduct a couple of points because of the interface and some shortcomings in the reporting. If you have a large enterprise where you're dealing with a lot of servers, then it makes sense not to use the internal MySQL database. You should use something like Oracle or Microsoft SQL, but if you don't have many transactions, the embedded MySQL database works great.
AnkitSharma13 - PeerSpot reviewer
Security Officer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Web scanning needs improvement but offers good vulnerability detection
The downside of Qualys Web Application Scanning is that it cannot crawl automatically. If I provide an IP address and a login form, it does basic testing, but it doesn't go deep as IBM AppScan does. If Qualys Web Application Scanning could improve its crawling capability, it would be more user-friendly. Qualys Web Application Scanning does IP-level testing, requiring direct input of credentials, and can only scan a few pages to provide known generic vulnerabilities, which isn't as beneficial from my point of view. The Vulnerability Management also relies heavily on version numbers and will flag vulnerabilities based on the component version, but it doesn't check if a real fix exists, leading to flags on components that actually have workarounds available.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution has excellent real-time capabilities."
"The product gives a few false positives. We get 99 percent true positives."
"Contrast Security's support is great. They're willing to spend a lot of time on your problem."
"Protect provides us with more in-depth visibility into ongoing attacks."
"The Protect solution allows applications to continue to run, even with known vulnerabilities, but will report or block attempts to exploit the vulnerabilities."
"You can integrate your Burp Suite results and create an integrated report. Also, the way it shows the results - threats and exploit details - makes remediation very easy."
"The product prevents possible vulnerabilities in our network."
"We’re a Linux shop and Qualys gave us good Linux vulnerability scanning; it reports only a few glaring false-positive errors, and the long baseline of iterative results was valuable to track changes and our rate of improvement while access to the API let us automate its use in our CI/CD pipeline for machine images."
"By using QualysGuard, we are able to finish external scans with assured results in half the time.​"
"It works with many different products."
"The features of Qualys Web Application Scanning are impressive as the scan is faster and gets completed quickly, the dashboards look great, the option for scheduled scans makes it fully automated, and customizable reports can be downloaded anytime in CSV, PDF, or whichever format required."
"The best thing about this product is that it is really easy to use."
"Qualys Web Application Scanning is accurate and provides minimal false positives."
 

Cons

"Protect's reporting GUI is very basic. To get all statuses from the APIs, we needed to write our own KPI dashboard to provide reports."
"Contrast Security Protect needs to improve integration."
"We're not using it much anymore because we had some performance issues."
"There's room for improvement in the initial setup."
"I would like it to be cheaper because it is a bit expensive compared to competitors like Tenable Nessus."
"There should be better visibility into the application."
"Sometimes the response time is low because the handshake fails, and then you have to re-login and start again."
"When comparing this solution to Veracode, Veracode has good interactive features and gives a clear understanding of what the vulnerabilities are, which error line of the vulnerability is on and what can be done. It gives interactive features, whereas this solution does not give a clear understanding of where or how to fix the problem."
"They should improve the performance of the security scanning. It should have better performance."
"The organization of the assets was a little confusing and overwhelming."
"The pricing does not seem to be competitive."
"The product should allow users to upload their payloads."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"I rate the software’s pricing a six out of ten."
"Pricing was reasonable and competitive. It was not too far above the other products."
"Qualys has an IT-based licensing based on a yearly license, which is a good way of handling it. However, in some cases, when we do the PCI scanning, the host will not like the scanning and we lose the IT license. So, this could be improved."
"From my perspective, it is a budget-friendly option."
"The product is expensive, at least initially, in comparison to other products in this category."
"Qualys Web Application Scanning's pricing is a bit expensive compared to other solutions available in the market."
"There are different options available with respect to licensing."
"Licensing was based on the number of assets that you want to scan on your network. You can also do licensing on subscription. On subscription, it is easier and more flexible. You tell Qualys that you want to move from the 1000 to 2000 band or the 3000 or 5000 band, then they will give you the quotation for it. Once you pay for it, applying the licensing is quite easy and effective."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Construction Company
7%
Computer Software Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
8%
Construction Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise27
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Qualys Web Application Scanning?
Regarding pricing, I think for personal use, it is costly, but if organizations are ready to pay, then it is fine as they are using it.
What needs improvement with Qualys Web Application Scanning?
The downside of Qualys Web Application Scanning is that it cannot crawl automatically. If I provide an IP address and a login form, it does basic testing, but it doesn't go deep as IBM AppScan does...
What is your primary use case for Qualys Web Application Scanning?
I use Qualys Web Application Scanning, and we are using Vulnerability Management. By Vulnerability Management, I mean not TotalCloud; they have some on-premises solutions also. Patch Management and...
 

Also Known As

Contrast Protect
Qualys WAS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Williams-Sonoma, Autodesk, HUAWEI, Chromeriver, RingCentral, Demandware.
BskyB, Cartagena, ClearPoint Learning Systems, Connect Group, du, Fortrex Technologies, HBOR, HDI, Highlights for Children, The Lithuanian State Enterprise Centre of Registers, City of Miami Beach, Microsoft, MidlandHR, MSCI Inc., Northern Arizona University, Ofgem, Olympus Europa, PhoneFactor, RTL Nederland, ThousandEyes, VGZ Organisatie B.V.
Find out what your peers are saying about Contrast Security Protect vs. Qualys Web Application Scanning and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
899,324 professionals have used our research since 2012.