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Kiuwan vs Qualys Web Application Scanning comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 8, 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

Kiuwan
Ranking in Application Security Tools
34th
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
29th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Qualys Web Application Scan...
Ranking in Application Security Tools
20th
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
13th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Application Security Tools category, the mindshare of Kiuwan is 1.1%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Qualys Web Application Scanning is 1.7%, down from 2.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Security Tools Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Qualys Web Application Scanning1.7%
Kiuwan1.1%
Other97.2%
Application Security Tools
 

Featured Reviews

Mustufa Bhavnagarwala - PeerSpot reviewer
CyberRisk Solution Advisor at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Though a stable tool, the UI needs improvement
Kiuwan can improve its UI a little more. The user experience can be made better. Kiuwan offers a user interface that is similar to the one offered by Windows 7 or Windows 98, which I saw when I ran the tool and tried to scan the repository to find the security issues. The product's UI has certain shortcomings, where improvements are required.
AnkitSharma13 - PeerSpot reviewer
Security Officer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Web scanning needs improvement but offers good vulnerability detection
The downside of Qualys Web Application Scanning is that it cannot crawl automatically. If I provide an IP address and a login form, it does basic testing, but it doesn't go deep as IBM AppScan does. If Qualys Web Application Scanning could improve its crawling capability, it would be more user-friendly. Qualys Web Application Scanning does IP-level testing, requiring direct input of credentials, and can only scan a few pages to provide known generic vulnerabilities, which isn't as beneficial from my point of view. The Vulnerability Management also relies heavily on version numbers and will flag vulnerabilities based on the component version, but it doesn't check if a real fix exists, leading to flags on components that actually have workarounds available.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I personally like the way it breaks down security vulnerabilities with LoC at first glance."
"It provides value by offering options to enhance both code quality and the security of the company."
"We have had an improvement of 20% in our time to market and it significantly improved the quality of our code."
"The solution offers very good technical support."
"For the moment, this is a solution that I could recommend."
"I have found the security and QA in the source code to be most valuable."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the continuous integration process, which enables us to make the best in terms of security of our solution and not introduce new mistakes, with problems solved step by step."
"I've tried many open source applications and the remediation or correction actions that were provided by Kiuwan were very good in comparison."
"It works with many different products."
"We’re a Linux shop and Qualys gave us good Linux vulnerability scanning; it reports only a few glaring false-positive errors, and the long baseline of iterative results was valuable to track changes and our rate of improvement while access to the API let us automate its use in our CI/CD pipeline for machine images."
"Qualys is perfect, scalability-wise."
"What I remember from my experience with Qualys is that the simplicity of exporting reports and the simplicity and clarity of the reports included with the product is good."
"Qualys Web Application Scanning is accurate and provides minimal false positives."
"Key features include: Cloud-based, so the installation is not so tedious, easily deployed, highly scalable, and provides comprehensive reporting."
"The Qualys Web Application Scanning solution offers a single comprehensive console and consolidated reporting, covering all aspects from on-prem to cloud and compliance, etcetera."
"​QualysGuard web-based scanner is very useful for performing external penetration and PCI scans from remote locations.​"
 

Cons

"The integration process could be improved. It'll also help if it could generate reports automatically. But I'm not sure about the effectiveness of the reports. This is because, in our last project, we still found some key issues that weren't captured by the Kiuwan report."
"I would like to see better integration with the Visual Studio and Eclipse IDEs."
"More languages and frameworks would enhance this tool."
"In Kiuwan there are sometimes duplicates found in the dependency scan under the "insights" tab. It's unclear to me why these duplicates are appearing, and it would be helpful if the application teams could investigate further."
"It would be beneficial to streamline calls and transitions seamlessly for improved functionality."
"Improvement could be made with the integration of the programming tools."
"Kiuwan's support has room for improvement. You can only open a ticket is through email, and the support team is outside of our country. They should have a support number or chat."
"I would like to see better integration with Azure DevOps in the next release of this solution."
"There could be better management and faster scanning."
"The tool should have a live HTTP editor and more configuration options for some situations, such as handling applications that have URL rewriting enabled."
"Sometimes the response time is low because the handshake fails, and then you have to re-login and start again."
"The reporting contains too many false positives."
"We have many websites. We don't force scanning on all of them at once because it's taking some time."
"The authenticated scanning feature could be improved by adding support for real-time scanning tokens and authorization tokens."
"The solution needs to adjust its pricing. They should make it more affordable."
"It should have better automatic reporting."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Check with your account manager."
"Kiuwan is an open-source solution and free to use."
"The price of Kiuwan is lower than that of other tools on the market."
"It follows a subscription model. I think the price is somewhere in the middle."
"This solution is cheaper than other tools."
"Nothing special. It's a very fair model."
"I recommend contacting a sales person who will create the best plan payment plan for you, as we did."
"Try the free trial of the product to understand the basic working mechanisms.​"
"The product pricing is fair and reasonably priced."
"​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​."
"I rate the software’s pricing a six out of ten."
"It is an expensive platform."
"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."
"We are on an annual license for the solution and the pricing could be more affordable."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
12%
University
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise27
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Qualys Web Application Scanning?
Regarding pricing, I think for personal use, it is costly, but if organizations are ready to pay, then it is fine as they are using it.
What needs improvement with Qualys Web Application Scanning?
The downside of Qualys Web Application Scanning is that it cannot crawl automatically. If I provide an IP address and a login form, it does basic testing, but it doesn't go deep as IBM AppScan does...
What is your primary use case for Qualys Web Application Scanning?
I use Qualys Web Application Scanning, and we are using Vulnerability Management. By Vulnerability Management, I mean not TotalCloud; they have some on-premises solutions also. Patch Management and...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Qualys WAS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

DHL, BNP Paribas, Zurich, AXA, Ernst & Young, KFC, Santander, Latam, Ferrovial
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 Kiuwan vs. Qualys Web Application Scanning and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
914,322 professionals have used our research since 2012.