No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Flow Security [EOL] vs Varonis Platform comparison

Why PeerSpot?
Sponsored
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 11, 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

Qualys TotalCloud
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
53
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (10th), Container Security (11th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (9th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (8th), SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) (2nd), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (7th)
Flow Security [EOL]
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Varonis Platform
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (15th), Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (9th), User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) (6th), Data Governance (5th), SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) (1st), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (3rd), Compliance Management (8th), Ransomware Protection (7th), Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) (5th), Insider Risk Management (1st), AI Security (8th)
 

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.
reviewer2231631 - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Information Security Officer at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
It gives us a risk report that helps us refine our process management by highlighting where we might be exposed
Flow's distinctive capability to analyze both data at rest and data in motion grants us the ability not only to get full visibility and classification of the data within our managed databases but also to visualize the data flows both within and beyond our environment. This enables us to achieve a comprehensive understanding of all our sensitive data, even as it traverses through applications, shadow databases, and external services such as third-party entities and SaaS applications. What we aspire to achieve with Flow is extended visibility into the external services themselves, which will allow us to see the data they contain.
TarunKumar11 - PeerSpot reviewer
Global Leadership Council at a tech company with 10,001+ employees
Data governance has strengthened and automation now reduces risk and manual compliance work
Varonis Platform offers key features including data discovery, data classification, data analysis, governance, user and entity behavior analysis, also known as UEBA, which helps in ransomware detection, insider threat detection, and compliance reporting. It does a lot of automation from a remediation standpoint, as well as investigation and forensics. The number one feature that makes the biggest difference for my clients is visibility into unstructured data; that is the most difficult for organizations to achieve. They do not have a good understanding of where sensitive data resides, who has access to this data, whether this access is appropriate, and how data is being used. Varonis Platform provides visibility, governance, threat detection, and automated remediation around data. Varonis Platform is a great data discovery platform that provides visibility into sensitive data estimates and how it is being used. Clients have been able to reduce excessive permissions, strengthen their compliance posture, detect insider threats, and ransomware activity, which would otherwise be difficult and manual. Varonis Platform is deployed in my clients' organizations in a combination of all types. Many clients use Varonis Platform in a largely SaaS-based model since it is a data security platform consumed in this way, and many organizations still operate hybrid environments. As far as Varonis Platform is in a position to get the data source and identify systems, it can discover and classify more secure data. Deployment in most of our clients is cloud-based, connecting to Microsoft 365, AWS, or other SaaS applications such as Salesforce. In other environments, it is a hybrid deployment with SaaS and on-premises, including file servers, NAS devices, and AD servers.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I rate the breadth of FlexScan in providing visibility into on-premises, multicloud, and container environments as fantastic."
"Qualys TotalCloud's most valuable features are its security capabilities that help identify and mitigate risk factors."
"I found the initial setup user-friendly."
"By integrating TotalCloud, we have significantly reduced vulnerabilities in our deployment pipeline."
"The most valuable feature is the consolidated information that it provides from various platforms."
"The biggest strengths of Qualys TotalCloud are that it is pretty good at cloud visibility, has easy integration, and also has multi-cloud compatibility."
"Multi-cloud visibility saves time and makes things easier, as we can also have comparability to see what configuration differences have been made from cloud to cloud."
"The best part I like is the on-demand scans."
"Before implementing Flow Security, we had no mechanism to alert us when third-party contractors were accessing sensitive data or moving it to locations with lower security. Now we know precisely where the data is stored and can assess the risk when someone wants to develop something. Flow Security lowers our risk of a data breach."
"The solution's classification engine is highly configurable and efficient."
"In my experience, the best features that Varonis Platform offers are data labeling, data classification, along with all the integrations and its easy-to-use platform."
"The telemetry to capture everything and the reports are very easy to configure without having a developer degree."
"The solution has significantly improved data security and compliance posture by allowing us to track and monitor activities. We can see who accesses data and when files are created and understand what's happening in our environment."
"The most important feature is remediation. In remediation support, there is no group permission. We'll go ahead and remediate the access from the Dell folder to the parent folder."
"That alerting and reporting service is great."
"On the Varonis side, technical support is phenomenal. Their ability to explain is very good, and they seem to be very knowledgeable. When I get an alert that doesn't quite make sense, they dive in there and kind of take me through it. That's very useful and very good. There are some false alerts, but it is better to have a false alert than no alert at all."
"Varonis offers robust data access governance, allowing us to understand which sensitive data exists and who has access to it."
 

Cons

"We encountered challenges identifying the correct resource category for certain items, such as those in containers or storage."
"I chose a rating of nine out of ten because there is a complex interface that sometimes overwhelms new engineers."
"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 would appreciate additional integration options to connect Qualys TotalCloud with our other vulnerability management tools."
"In terms of improvement, remediation still belongs to the cloud team, which is one of the issues we faced with Qualys TotalCloud."
"I sometimes have difficulty detecting or uninstalling certain versions of applications, which I have to do manually."
"The cloud licensing unit system is unclear, especially since "units" aren't well-defined."
"It provides a good overview of our infrastructure, but I need more end-to-end visibility, and SaaS is one of the gaps."
"The product is very complicated."
"Be prepared that when you implement the product, you will have to tune it as you go."
"It is significantly complex."
"For user-based reports, log on activity, and stuff like that, it doesn't seem to really be present like Log360."
"For unstructured data monitoring, it's one of the top ones, if not the top one, due to its usability."
"The licensing pricing model and module licensing can be complex for customers to understand."
"Varonis Platform could be improved because when I used it, we had a significant issue related to the large volume of data on that file share."
"The potential areas of improvement I see for Varonis Platform are that it doesn't have a SIEM or SOAR console where you can see your incidents or a native style incident case management where you can see all your incidents and do the tracking of all those things."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"While Qualys TotalCloud's pricing is currently acceptable, it is becoming increasingly expensive and may soon be considered overpriced."
"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."
"The cost is high, but it meets our organizational needs."
"Qualys TotalCloud is cost-efficient and was selected for its value compared to other products."
"Qualys TotalCloud offers cost-effective licensing flexibility."
"It isn't cheap, but it's reasonable. It helps us to manage things with very few resources."
"The pricing for TotalCloud is attractive and competitive in the market. Given the features, especially the dashboard, I have no concerns regarding pricing."
"Its price seems higher compared to other tools, but it is worth it. If they could adjust the pricing and make it comparable with other tools, that would be great."
Information not available
"Licensing is on an annual basis. Maintenance and renewal fees are separate. Varonis Datalert is quite expensive."
"Varonis Platform wasn't certainly the cheapest solution."
"It's expensive, kind of, really expensive."
"I would rate the pricing an eight out of ten, with ten being the most expensive."
"The pricing is good. It neither expensive nor cheap. It is average."
"The platform is expensive. I rate the pricing a nine out of ten."
"You could do a subscription, where you pay yearly, or you could purchase it outright. The licensing cost is based on the number of users on the system that you are monitoring."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) solutions are best for your needs.
917,884 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
18%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
No data available
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Healthcare Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise38
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise15
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Qualys TotalCloud?
I was not involved in pricing, setup cost, and licensing, but I can say that the setup was fast, within a quarter, an...
What needs improvement with Qualys TotalCloud?
In terms of improvements, the features we are using in Qualys TotalCloud are working in the best optimal way, and I d...
What is your primary use case for Qualys TotalCloud?
I have been using Qualys TotalCloud for the last eight months to scan the hardware and the virtual devices in our inf...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What needs improvement with Varonis Platform?
Varonis Platform could be improved because when I used it, we had a significant issue related to the large volume of ...
What is your primary use case for Varonis Platform?
My main use case for Varonis Platform is to monitor access to sensitive data across file shares, Microsoft 365, and S...
What advice do you have for others considering Varonis Platform?
Varonis Platform receives a rating of seven out of ten. I chose seven out of ten because the user experience was easy...
 

Also Known As

Qualys TotalCloud with FlexScan
No data available
SlashNext Complete
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Information Not Available
Nottingham Building Society
Find out what your peers are saying about Wiz, Palo Alto Networks, Varonis and others in Data Security Posture Management (DSPM). Updated: September 2026.
917,884 professionals have used our research since 2012.