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DefectDojo vs Tenable Security Center 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 Vulnerability Management
10th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
46
Ranking in other categories
Container Security (11th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (8th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (8th), SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) (2nd), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (7th)
DefectDojo
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
50th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
DevSecOps (13th)
Tenable Security Center
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
16th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
56
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (22nd), Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Vulnerability Management category, the mindshare of Qualys TotalCloud is 1.2%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of DefectDojo is 0.8%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tenable Security Center is 2.5%, down from 4.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Vulnerability Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Qualys TotalCloud1.2%
Tenable Security Center2.5%
DefectDojo0.8%
Other95.5%
Vulnerability Management
 

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.
reviewer2267097 - PeerSpot reviewer
Integration and Solution Architect at a government with 501-1,000 employees
Easy to use with efficient vulnerability reporting and team collaboration
Use case, so all the reports from GitLeaks, DefectDojo, GitLeaks or dependency check or Trivy, they make reports, and we send this report to DefectDojo to have CVMs, Central Vulnerability Management. DefectDojo is Central Vulnerability Management. If you have a dashboard to set, we have…
reviewer1534134 - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of Information Security at a consultancy with 1,001-5,000 employees
Centralized analytics have strengthened patch visibility and support efficient regulatory reporting
From my experience, I assess the product's analytics capabilities as successful. It helped us significantly with patching and managing the risk of the patching process across all our environments, including network devices with Windows and Unix systems. The product covered several environments and gave us exactly what we needed in our environment. Tenable Security Center's centralized platform helped with risk assessment and management across our IT environments. It covered the patching process, and we previously faced many issues regarding how to patch different environments, how to monitor the patching process, and whether it was successful or not. We obtained good reports showing when patches were closed and the details of each patch, including who executed it and everything related to the patching process until it was closed. This gave us good details about the process which helped us significantly in our reporting and even in audits, whether internal or external. We learned how to close audit issues safely and successfully. We used the dashboards for real-time threat insights and extracted several dashboards from Tenable Security Center. We use these dashboards in our cybersecurity dashboard and committees that we have. These dashboards are part of our committees, especially the cybersecurity committee and other committees that we attend.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"With TotalCloud, we can scan through the API. If we are not able to deploy cloud agents on the machine, we can use the API."
"The best part I like is the on-demand scans."
"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."
"One of the features I appreciate is the ability to generate daily reports without relying on anyone else."
"Qualys TotalCloud provides a single, prioritized view based on requirements such as identifying the most vulnerable assets and calculating the average time to remediate vulnerabilities."
"Qualys TotalCloud has positively impacted our bank's performance, and we have definitely seen benefits after implementing this solution."
"Generally, Qualys is very good at detections, whether on cloud or on-prem, and the agent allows deployment on both infrastructures, providing continuous monitoring of your assets, which is a key selling point for us."
"I would recommend Qualys TotalCloud to other users because it is cost-efficient and has a good return on investment."
"With the pipeline of detection and DefectDojo, we are able to see the real vulnerabilities, and we fix them."
"One of the most valuable features is their distributed scan model for allotting engines to work together as a pool and handle multiple scans at once, across multiple environments. Automatic scanning distribution is a distinguishing feature of their toolset."
"The customer service and support team at Tenable were extremely helpful."
"Tenable Security Center's centralized platform helped with risk assessment and management across our IT environments, covering the patching process and providing detailed reports that significantly supported our reporting and audits and helped us close audit issues safely and successfully."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the vulnerability assessment."
"Having Tenable is a requirement; it is money well-spent in that it focuses us to work on problems that are prioritized and it allows us to cut down on the manual integration of multiple reports from Microsoft and Linux, etc., so that running with a much smaller team of two people probably saves 80 percent of manpower."
"Of all the tools I've used, when it comes to managing the vulnerabilities and risks of a whole enterprise environment, I don't think I've used a better tool than Security Center."
"I found the dashboard features very useful, as they made it easy to track remediation progress and allowed me to publish dashboards to remediation teams and track the progress on the dashboards."
"Tenable.sc's best features are the availability model, accident management, and scoring."
 

Cons

"The areas in the solution that have room for improvement include the UI/UX design, which should be improved, and they should integrate more artificial intelligence into the product."
"Qualys TotalCloud's increasing complexity, due to the development and deployment of multiple solutions, is making the GUI difficult to navigate."
"There is a lack of data segregation according to criticality or inventory."
"I chose a rating of nine out of ten because there is a complex interface that sometimes overwhelms new engineers."
"Some major banks and insurance companies require an on-premises solution for comprehensive vulnerability management, which TotalCloud does not offer."
"I would appreciate additional integration options to connect Qualys TotalCloud with our other vulnerability management tools."
"With the growing integration of AI, I would like Qualys to enhance its service offerings to better accommodate AI-related risks."
"I sometimes have difficulty detecting or uninstalling certain versions of applications, which I have to do manually."
"We need something to notify the team responsible for a product when vulnerabilities are found."
"For downloading reports, we have to go to the scan and then we have to go to the reports and download the Excel or CSV or PDF. I think these menus and clicks can be minimized."
"Their tier-one, initial tech support is pretty bad."
"Tenable SC can improve by adding more integrations with HCI-type tools and more accurate vulnerability detection."
"To be honest, I find SecurityCenter to be lacking in too many ways where my usage of it has been concerned."
"It's good at creating information, it's good creating dashboards, it's good at creating reports, but if you want to take that reporting metadata and put it into another tool, that is a little bit lacking."
"The solution needs to improve the vulnerability assessment because we have experienced some challenges with accuracy."
"I think the vendor training provided for Tenable.sc could be a lower price. It's quite expensive for the training."
"In the next release, we would like to see the inclusion of external IPs and simplified reporting that's easier to deal with."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Qualys TotalCloud is expensive, but it offers a premier solution with no headaches."
"Qualys TotalCloud is expensive."
"Qualys TotalCloud offers good pricing that is affordable and competitive with the market. Our partnership also provides us with additional benefits."
"It isn't cheap, but it's reasonable. It helps us to manage things with very few resources."
"Qualys TotalCloud offers cost-effective licensing flexibility."
"The cost is high, but it meets our organizational needs."
"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."
"I am not sure about the pricing. From what I understand, it is a bit on the higher side, but I do not have the exact numbers."
Information not available
"My company needs to make yearly payments towards the licensing costs. The pricing of the solution falls in the mid-range level, so it is not too expensive"
"Tenable.sc is more expensive than its competitors."
"This solution's price is quite high."
"We're able to save because we don't have to employ more staff members to help wit ht he scheduling of the scans, running the reports or sending them out to the systems owners. That alone is a big ROI for us."
"We pay around 60,000 on a yearly basis."
"The tool provides competitive pricing."
"Compared to other companies or other products it could maybe be a little bit less, but the price is okay. I would say it's not very expensive."
"We're a Fortune 500 company... our licensing costs [are] in the seven figures."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
16%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
14%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Construction Company
7%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise34
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise27
 

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 DefectDojo?
The pricing is great. It is much cheaper compared to other solutions. We don't want to pay for things we are able to ...
What needs improvement with DefectDojo?
We need something to notify the team responsible for a product when vulnerabilities are found. We are able to attach ...
What is your primary use case for DefectDojo?
Use case, so all the reports from GitLeaks, DefectDojo, GitLeaks or dependency check or Trivy, they make reports, and...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Tenable SC?
The price of Tenable Security Center is not so high; it's relatively a cheaper solution.
What needs improvement with Tenable SC?
We did conduct a long implementation which relates to what I think can be improved about Tenable Security Center. In ...
What is your primary use case for Tenable SC?
The typical use case for Tenable Security Center is that it is an on-premise solution, and it can use the agent and a...
 

Also Known As

Qualys TotalCloud with FlexScan
No data available
Tenable.sc, Tenable Unified Security, Tenable SecurityCenter
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Information Not Available
IBM, Sempra Energy, Microsoft, Apple, Adidas, Union Pacific
Find out what your peers are saying about Wiz, Qualys, Tenable and others in Vulnerability Management. Updated: August 2026.
914,109 professionals have used our research since 2012.