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IBM Guardium Vulnerability Assessment vs Tenable Security Center comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 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

Qualys TotalCloud
Sponsored
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
11th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
Container Security (11th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (7th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (8th), SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) (1st), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (6th)
IBM Guardium Vulnerability ...
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
53rd
Average Rating
6.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.1
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Tenable Security Center
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
8th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
56
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (12th), Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Vulnerability Management category, the mindshare of Qualys TotalCloud is 1.1%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Guardium Vulnerability Assessment is 0.8%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tenable Security Center is 2.6%, down from 4.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Vulnerability Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Tenable Security Center2.6%
Qualys TotalCloud1.1%
IBM Guardium Vulnerability Assessment0.8%
Other95.5%
Vulnerability Management
 

Featured Reviews

RO
IT Security Expert at Alior Bank S.A.
Unified risk scoring has improved our cloud visibility and simplifies remediation priorities
Qualys TotalCloud provides unified vulnerability and threat assessment across both IAS and SaaS. This solution provides a single prioritized view of risk, which helps reduce the work I would have to do. We are no longer based on CVSS; we are based on Qualys risk scoring, which is based on CVSS plus internal findings made by Qualys, and then assigns its own score. The TruRisk insight feature has found a small number of assets with high vulnerability scores, though I am cautious since some information is classified. Qualys TotalCloud has positively impacted our bank's performance, and we have definitely seen benefits after implementing this solution.
SL
Guardium Administrator at Interactive Group
Improvements sought in database optimization while benefiting from robust security monitoring
We use the analytical functionality of Guardium, but the analytical functionality is not so powerful or flexible because it does not include the application user ID. It only includes the database user ID. To identify risky users, it does not support end users, so IBM must incorporate this feature into the built-in analytical engine of the Guardium. There is only one problem I experienced while using Guardium: the internal database of the collector is MySQL, which is not so powerful or flexible. When you make a query in a MySQL database, it takes too much time to respond. IBM should replace this MySQL database with a more powerful internal database for the logging mechanism so that Guardium can collect logging data flexibly and ensure optimization. My overall experience with Guardium is good. The only problem is that IBM must replace the internal DB, MySQL, with a more powerful enterprise-level database because enterprises use it at an enterprise level, and MySQL does not support optimally.
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

"One of the features I appreciate is the ability to generate daily reports without relying on anyone else."
"TotalCloud has been excellent in providing us with immediate access to all the products and features we need, such as CSPM, TruRisk Insights, and compliance reports, including CIS and HIPAA."
"I would definitely recommend it because it is easy to handle any cloud resources."
"Qualys TotalCloud's most valuable features are its cloud security posture management, Kubernetes, and container security capabilities."
"Its dashboards are brilliant. It provides in-depth insights."
"The most valuable feature of Qualys TotalCloud is the visibility it provides."
"The most valuable feature is extensibility."
"While automatic inventory detection upon connection is a helpful feature, a truly valuable capability would be assessing an environment's security posture against Azure and CIS best practices."
"The most valuable feature is that it provides a simple English recommendation on actions that you need to take once a vulnerability is discovered."
"The Vulnerability Assessment feature is quite stable and helps identify numerous vulnerabilities in databases."
"The best feature is that you can see the activity in your data environment and have the ability to get the vulnerability assessments done quickly with scores that can be compared."
"It helped with some of the regulatory requirements, and it also helped with some of the security analytics and analysis, making it worthwhile from that perspective."
"The reporting features are good and there are many built-in reports that can be quickly configured."
"It's a very useful tool."
"Overall, I rate the solution 9.8 out of 10."
"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."
"It is a very good and user-friendly product."
"The most valuable features of Tenable SC are scanning, reporting, dashboards, and automation."
"Tenable also helps us to focus resources on the vulnerabilities that are most likely to be exploited. And since it is continuously updated, it allows us to reevaluate quickly if there are new vulnerabilities found..."
"What is useful to me is being able to fulfill very customized scanning policies. In the clinical environment, because of vendor control, we can't perform credential-vulnerability scanning. And network scans, which I've done before, can cause a lot of impact. Being able to create very customized policies to be able to routinely scan and audit our clinical networks, while simultaneously not causing impact, is important to us."
"I find Tenable SC to be a very scalable product."
 

Cons

"The response part of the Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) module can be improved."
"The cost of Qualys TotalCloud is high and could be more competitive."
"Some major banks and insurance companies require an on-premises solution for comprehensive vulnerability management, which TotalCloud does not offer."
"There is room for improvement in the support."
"Areas that need improvement in every solution include the remediation part. The remediation steps should be simple enough for everyone to understand."
"It is already perfect, but they can bring some newer dashboards and customization options for the dashboard. It would be great to be able to include on-prem assets on the dashboard."
"The support process is inefficient due to the excessive number of replies required when submitting tickets."
"The onboarding process is a bit difficult. In the initial phase, it is very difficult to understand the features, what the dashboard contains, and what criteria they are using."
"Building policies is not that easy. There are some things that are turned off by default, for example, displaying values."
"It was not as easy to use. The user-friendliness of it was somewhat lower than what I was expecting. It was also lacking in terms of the ease of the setup. There should be an automatic agent for deployment."
"I wouldn't use it. That would be my advice to others looking into implementing IBM Guardium Vulnerability Assessment."
"The interface could be improved by having sub-groups of tests, ultimately making the process of collecting tests faster."
"The only problem is that some of the reports come up with blanks and missing data."
"There is only one problem I experienced while using Guardium: the internal database of the collector is MySQL, which is not so powerful or flexible."
"The vulnerability scan does not work correctly until the access privileges are set by the system administrator."
"It's important for Tenable to catch up on testing capabilities that are present in solutions like Qualys."
"The user interface can be improved."
"The solution should provide better web application features and support."
"There's a lot of information being streamed out of the reports. What would be nice, and maybe we just haven't found it, would be more of an executive-type view. We still expect it to collect all this information, but we would like a feature that would allow us to show it to an executive or a director or someone like that and give them some type of high-level overview but not get into the nitty-gritty."
"The reporting side can be improved. The dashboards are nice, but exporting things out for reports for management was a little tough."
"The reports and plugins for reports and scans could benefit from enhancements."
"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

"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."
"The pricing for TotalCloud is attractive and competitive in the market. Given the features, especially the dashboard, I have no concerns regarding pricing."
"It isn't cheap, but it's reasonable. It helps us to manage things with very few resources."
"TotalCloud's price is about right where I would expect it to be."
"The cost is high, but it meets our organizational needs."
"While Qualys TotalCloud's pricing is currently acceptable, it is becoming increasingly expensive and may soon be considered overpriced."
"Qualys TotalCloud offers good pricing that is affordable and competitive with the market. Our partnership also provides us with additional benefits."
"Qualys TotalCloud offers competitive pricing given its comprehensive suite of features, including integration, assessment, remediation, and detection capabilities, all within a single platform."
"One thing not advantageous for it was that it was a little bit more expensive. I would rate it one out of five in terms of pricing."
"We're a Fortune 500 company... our licensing costs [are] in the seven figures."
"The tool costs around 15,000 Saudi riyals monthly."
"Costing is pretty reasonable compared to the competition."
"I use a local license to perform penetration testing and I'm pretty happy with everything when it comes to pricing and licensing."
"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."
"Tenable is open-source."
"I rate the solution's price as seven on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive. The tool is quite expensive."
"The price can start at €10,000 ($13,000 USD) for between 500 and 1,000 assets, and the price can climb into the millions as more assets are added."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Construction Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
29%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Construction Company
6%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise29
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise27
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Qualys TotalCloud?
Areas that need improvement in every solution include the remediation part. The remediation steps should be simple en...
What is your primary use case for Qualys TotalCloud?
Our use case involves the assets that we have under cloud, the assets exposed to the internet, and the internal appli...
What needs improvement with IBM Guardium Vulnerability Assessment?
We use the analytical functionality of Guardium, but the analytical functionality is not so powerful or flexible beca...
What is your primary use case for IBM Guardium Vulnerability Assessment?
We are still using IBM Guardium Vulnerability Assessment. We only use IBM Guardium Data Protection and monitoring, da...
What advice do you have for others considering IBM Guardium Vulnerability Assessment?
We do not use IBM Guardium Vulnerability Assessment for data encryption or any other tool for analytics, or identity ...
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 IBM Guardium Vulnerability Assessment vs. Tenable Security Center and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,988 professionals have used our research since 2012.