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Digital Shadows vs Qualys VMDR vs Recorded Future comparison

 

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:
 

Mindshare comparison

Digital Risk Protection Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Digital Shadows4.5%
Recorded Future18.2%
ZeroFOX17.0%
Other60.3%
Digital Risk Protection
Vulnerability Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Qualys VMDR6.4%
Wiz10.5%
Tenable Nessus7.3%
Other75.8%
Vulnerability Management
Threat Intelligence Platforms (TIP) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Recorded Future14.6%
CrowdStrike Falcon7.9%
ThreatConnect Threat Intelligence Platform (TIP)5.6%
Other71.9%
Threat Intelligence Platforms (TIP)
 

Featured Reviews

DavidJones7 - PeerSpot reviewer
Has required additional context for alerts but supports monitoring impersonation and threat activity effectively
I do not rate Digital Shadows a nine or ten because there are many things that need improvement. The information we get is kind of generic. For instance, for impersonation, we don't have much detail on their history, when it was used or how it was misused. Those further details would be really helpful, but the information we receive is basic, such as when it was last registered and when it was updated, without more insight about the malicious factors. For basic support from Digital Shadows, my impression is that it is six to seven because many times we see duplications or bugs, and the quality of the alerts is not up to the mark. We have escalated many times, but we do not receive solid responses from them in terms of fixes. Digital Shadows should focus on the engineering side rather than the support aspect because support is there to help us get updates, but in terms of quick fixes, it is not as responsive. The need for improvement lies more with the engineering part in fixing issues, which is linked to support.
Ankesh Raj - PeerSpot reviewer
Real-time responses and reporting streamline vulnerability management
Qualys VMDR provides a real-time response and reporting feature, which is excellent. It allows us to see real-time graphs and reports for every asset, server, and more, which is very user-friendly. Our clients have given good feedback, and they are satisfied with the tool. We use it daily to fix vulnerabilities by connecting with infrastructure to remediate. The feedback from the client side is very good.
Dr. Merrick Watchorn - PeerSpot reviewer
Traceless online searches, stable, and scalable
There is a semantic oncology dynamic relationship between how the MIGR Tech framework needs more data infusion enrichment capabilities. To be clear, what the vendor is doing is of a high standard, and my only critique is that they need to make new enhancements. I am aware that the vendor is making a concerted effort to add additional information to their repository, and it is something they actively do. The vendor has publicly stated that they will work on this, and I always pay attention to make sure they adhere to that. This does not change over time. The export feature of the recording needs to stop being so restricted. When they record in order to save themselves by operations, I would expect that as a super user, if I asked to download the dataset I'm looking for, I would not be limited in my data downloads. One of the cool things is, let's say we do our entire research and we want to save all of the materials that were returned, and that special custom search that we made, we can export that into a CSV file. The problem is it gets restricted. So sometimes when I say it's restricted, we don't get all the data that we saw online. So then we have to go and manually search for the specific thing we're looking for. I would like to have the URI and whatever value set that I search off, and for the NLP package to not be stripped out. It's like saying I want to do a Pcap analysis. Don't strip out the Pcap when I asked to see Pcap. That's what they're doing. They do this for many different reasons. One of them is, imagine if everyone downloaded datasets that are very large and it brings the whole system down.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most effective feature for threat intelligence, in my opinion, is collecting impersonating websites."
"The most effective feature for threat intelligence, in my opinion, is collecting impersonating websites."
"Digital Shadows helps our organization identify and mitigate cyber threats through their crawling of the internet, gathering information, pivoting it, and then sending those alerts to us which we monitor from our SIEM tool."
"It is quite easy to implement."
"I find the most valuable features are the continuous monitoring. Even on premises, there is constant monitoring."
"The most valuable features are vulnerability scanning, policy compliance scanning, and tablet for web application scanning."
"It gives a very good overview of the inventory assessment process, and it can be accessed across our company because it's a global tool."
"I like Qualys because it is a very complete product, more so than Tenable."
"The reporting is fine."
"The most valuable feature is the connection of threat intelligence information with identified vulnerabilities, which means you can prioritize vulnerabilities according to actual attacks."
"Provides great functionality."
"The most valuable feature is Recorded Future's protection of exposed customer data on the hardware side."
"The tool can integrate with a lot of security control and proactive protection devices."
"The most valuable features of Recorded Future are the useful alerts it provides. If we are monitoring a domain, the solution will provide us with an alert in a prompt manner. It is simple for clients to receive alerts. The advanced search is useful for more accurate filter results."
"The tool is helpful in vulnerability assessment of zero-day vulnerabilities and phishing domains. The solution provides information on any domains of the organization that has undergone phishing or any other cyberattacks."
"Recorded Future allows me to maintain very accurate alerts."
"Has the ability to conduct and build any query without limitations."
"The intel that they were providing us over the emails was very good. If it found any hashtag in our organization's name on the dark web, a rogue IP, or a marketplace, it would send us an email and notify us that this is being mentioned, and if we want, they can take some action."
"The most valuable feature of Recorded Future is how it detects everything regarding our domain."
 

Cons

"For basic support from Digital Shadows, my impression is that it is six to seven because many times we see duplications or bugs, and the quality of the alerts is not up to the mark."
"The solution doesn't pick up all the brands of the URLs."
"The solution doesn't pick up all the brands of the URLs. I have a relatively small company name, however, the solution still misses a certain number of URLs with my company's name in it that are impersonating websites. It's not very comprehensive, to be honest."
"This solution could be improved by extending the agent capabilities to different operating systems including Mac and Linux. We would also like the capability to easily check for vulnerability in assets in the IOTs."
"Qualys VM's vulnerability scan could be improved, especially the number of CVE numbers it can manage at a time."
"Qualys does have an on-prem solution, but it is very expensive."
"Qualys VM should improve its methodology."
"Make some minimal dashboard improvements."
"There needs to be better documentation."
"Qualys VMDR is basically susceptible to false positives, and false negatives."
"There are scenarios where a vulnerability is reported once yet not in subsequent scans, even if we have not fixed it."
"The tool should improve its third-party supply chain risks because there is a lack of visibility."
"Recorded Future is a very expensive solution, and its pricing could be improved."
"At present, my clients need to be trained by me or another organization on how to use Recorded Future and how to get the best out of it as an analyst, engineer, and administrator. It would be better if clients could directly learn these things without having to go through me or other organizations."
"The solution could improve in reducing the false positives. However, most of the other tools on the market have false positives. If they enhance their data algorithm, it could improve the accuracy of results and minimize false positives. Identifying patterns of false possibilities can aid in developing better reporting features that could potentially eliminate them in the future. This recording feature tool could benefit from adopting similar techniques utilized by other tools to enhance its functionality. By doing so, it could minimize the need for manual efforts in distinguishing true positives from false positives, ultimately reducing the workload."
"The customer support is frustrating and not efficient. They always request logs and screenshots that seem irrelevant."
"There is a semantic oncology dynamic relationship between how the MIGR Tech framework needs more data infusion enrichment capabilities."
"The solution would benefit from introducing automation."
"When you add one website to Recorded Future, it should automatically call all other websites and social media platforms."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"We have an annual contract for Qualys VMDR. I believe it's for either two years or five years."
"The product is more expensive than that of any other vendor."
"The price is very reasonable."
"The solution is reasonably priced for the value it provides."
"The pricing and licensing for Qualys could be improved."
"There is a license for the use of this solution. We pay annually instead of monthly to receive a better discount on the price."
"It is more expensive than other products on the market."
"There are no additional fees in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"The biggest disadvantage of Recorded Future is the cost here in Eastern Europe. The solution is correctly priced for big companies who have the money to invest in such solutions. Also, the solution is useless on its own, which means that you have to invest in other solutions with which Recorded Future can be integrated. At present, Recorded Future can cost 60,000 euros per year. I am able to offer my clients a 5% to 10% discount, but in this region, the cost is still prohibitive even with the discount. If Recorded Future were more flexible in terms of price, there would be better sales opportunities in Europe and Eastern Europe, in particular, because we have more small- and medium-sized companies here."
"There appear to be up to five different levels, with the most expensive version costing around $95,000 to $105,000 a year for subscription services."
"I would rate the solution’s pricing a seven out of ten."
"The price of the solution is worth it. The overall performance of the solution outweighs the cost."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise69
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise9
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Digital Shadows?
Regarding the cost of Digital Shadows, I think prices are a bit higher. The information provided is already available...
What needs improvement with Digital Shadows?
I do not rate Digital Shadows a nine or ten because there are many things that need improvement. The information we g...
What is your primary use case for Digital Shadows?
Our main use cases for Digital Shadows are mainly using it for threat intel. For instance, we have our domain listed ...
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...
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?
One area where Qualys VMDR can be improved is the missing feature for deploying agents for over 1,000 assets, as we n...
What do you like most about Recorded Future?
The most valuable feature of Recorded Future is how it detects everything regarding our domain.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Recorded Future?
I am not the person responsible for purchases, but it's known that Recorded Future is expensive, with a personal rati...
What needs improvement with Recorded Future?
Their research capabilities and the human aspect should be more effective. The Insikt Group covers a narrow range of ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Qualys VM, QualysGuard VM, Qualys Asset Inventory, Qualys Container Security
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Accenture, Pret A Manger, Human Rights Watch
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
Fujitsu, Regions, SITA, St. Jude Medical, Accenture, T-Mobile, TIAA, Intel Security, Armor, Alert Logic, NTT, Splunk
Find out what your peers are saying about Recorded Future, ZeroFOX, Proofpoint and others in Digital Risk Protection. Updated: September 2025.
870,697 professionals have used our research since 2012.