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Harness vs Qualys Web Application Scanning 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Harness
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
27th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Build Automation (10th), Cloud Cost Management (12th)
Qualys Web Application Scan...
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
9th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (13th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of Harness is 0.2%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Qualys Web Application Scanning is 2.2%, up from 2.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
 

Featured Reviews

Linwei Yuan - PeerSpot reviewer
Streamline microservices deployment with integrated execution pipelines and comprehensive monitoring
Harness integrates all functions like execution pipelines, environment checks, and log monitoring in one place. It is very convenient since we have many microservices, so having one platform for all of them is beneficial. The dashboard allows me to monitor all core services' deployment status in one place, making it easier to find bugs and check logs.
Kelvin Oladipo - PeerSpot reviewer
User-friendly scanning provides valuable vulnerability insights, but pricing improvements are needed
Qualys Web Application Scanning is user-friendly, easy to understand, easy to use, and easy to deploy. Credential scanning is very effective because it goes in-depth into the system, crawling the pages, and reporting on vulnerabilities. The product helps by providing options for remediating vulnerabilities it finds, making it really useful.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Harness starts integrating with organizations, making everything automated without the need for manual interruption."
"Harness integrates all functions like execution pipelines, environment checks, and log monitoring in one place, making it convenient."
"It's a highly customizable DevOps tool."
"Harness integrates all functions like execution pipelines, environment checks, and log monitoring in one place."
"The features of Harness are valuable, supporting rolling deployments, basic deployments, and blue-green deployments with zero downtime."
"I have found the detection of vulnerabilities tool thorough with good results and the graphical display output to be wonderful and full of colors. It allows many types of outputs, such as bar and chart previews."
"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."
"Licensing is the most valuable. Qualys provides the best licensing for companies. It is the best product for the development purposes of web applications. The product has a lot of integrations."
"​QualysGuard web-based scanner is very useful for performing external penetration and PCI scans from remote locations.​"
"​We have experienced quick customer support. They have a complete list of our previous issues along with our history, which makes it faster for them to solve issues.​"
"The feature that I have found most valuable is the progressive scan. It is good. It's done in 24 hours."
"Qualys Web Application Scanning has multiple features like threat protection and container security scanning in one box."
"The most valuable feature is that we are able to scan the services and put credentials like a user ID password. We can verify the vulnerability level."
 

Cons

"When integrating Harness with more than twenty applications in one place, it becomes less stable, causing improvements to be necessary."
"Even with automation, there's a requirement for manual change requests for approvals."
"I prefer the previous less compact UI version of Harness, which showed more details on the screen."
"There's also room for improvement in debugging pipeline issues, which can sometimes become complex."
"When deploying multiple components to multiple environments, like production and BCP, failures sometimes occur. Improvements are needed when deploying one component to one environment."
"The authenticated scanning feature could be improved by adding support for real-time scanning tokens and authorization tokens."
"We have many websites. We don't force scanning on all of them at once because it's taking some time."
"The software’s pricing could be improved."
"The UI is not user-friendly and you don't have a yearly reporting facility where you can slice and dice in different jobs."
"New features need to be added, specifically LLM-based solutions."
"The virus code updates are not frequent enough."
"There should be better visibility into the application."
"Qualys Web Application Scanning is very complex to use, and its graphical interface is not very user-friendly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"From my perspective, it is a budget-friendly option."
"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."
"Try the free trial of the product to understand the basic working mechanisms.​"
"We normally purchase an annual license."
"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."
"The product pricing is fair and reasonably priced."
"The cost is $30,000 USD for one year to cover WAS (Web Application Security) and the VM (Virtual Machine) security in a company with 200 employees."
"​It is best to be an institutional buyer and directly contact the sales team, as they can provide over-the-top discounts for bulk orders​."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
32%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
6%
Retailer
5%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Harness?
It's a highly customizable DevOps tool.
What needs improvement with Harness?
When deploying multiple components to multiple environments, like production and BCP, failures sometimes occur. Improvements are needed when deploying one component to one environment.
What is your primary use case for Harness?
Our primary use case for Harness ( /products/harness-reviews ) is as a deployment tool. Although I am not a DevOps engineer, my team uses Harness ( /products/harness-reviews ) for deployment purpos...
What do you like most about Qualys Web Application Scanning?
The vulnerability management feature is a strong one. And also the patch management feature.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Qualys Web Application Scanning?
The price of Qualys Web Application Scanning is reasonable compared to other vendors. Qualys Web Application Scanning is priced per application rather than per user.
What needs improvement with Qualys Web Application Scanning?
I have experience with adaptive scanning for single-page applications, which was not very effective. Generally, comparing with other tools, Qualys Web Application Scanning still needs to improve on...
 

Also Known As

Armory
Qualys WAS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Linedata, Openbank, Home Depot, Advanced
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 Harness vs. Qualys Web Application Scanning and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.