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Microsoft Configuration Manager vs Qualys Patch Management comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 9, 2025

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

Microsoft Configuration Man...
Ranking in Patch Management
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
81
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (6th), Configuration Management (3rd)
Qualys Patch Management
Ranking in Patch Management
4th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
33
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Patch Management category, the mindshare of Microsoft Configuration Manager is 15.0%, down from 18.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Qualys Patch Management is 4.1%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Patch Management
 

Featured Reviews

MikeNelson2 - PeerSpot reviewer
Deployment recovery works well but requires configuration improvements
While I do not use the product frequently, many issues were due to configuration rather than the product itself. I cannot give an exact recommendation as it is not my area of responsibility. The team that uses it finds it adequate. It is presently good enough for us not to investigate other options. Overall, I rate the product a six out of ten.
Revathi VeeraRaghavan - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides a centralized platform for managing assets and vulnerabilities, enabling assessment, prioritization, and remediation
Qualys Patch Management system requires several improvements. Firstly, the inability to download asset patches and the lack of third-party application integration limit patch accessibility. Additionally, rollback options are unreliable, and pre-deployment patch testing is crucial. Reporting needs enhancement, particularly with group-based compliance percentages and clearer, VMDR-like reporting in the Patch Management module. Furthermore, detection speed should be improved, as patches are released 24 hours after QIDs are published. The user interface could be more functional, with dashboards for patch compliance visualization and simplified error code language. Finally, the Mac patch catalogue needs expansion, and automated workflows, policy enforcement, and testing procedures should be streamlined for seamless, user-independent operation.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The product is useful for patch management."
"We are happy with the collaboration of SCCM with Patch My PC, which allows us to do patch work."
"I like a lot of the reporting capabilities and baseline configurations."
"I like Mircosoft's technical support. Microsoft has a few updates, like some of the critical KBs. They are published within the interval time, and in case of an escalation on the client missions, we will raise a ticket with the Microsoft team. They will create a hotfix or a critical update. They will chat with us, and that is one thing I like about Microsoft. Whenever any issues occur at my organization, they will help you out soon as possible within the SLA."
"You can remote control or RDP. That has been the most valuable because we can go into one console and can get to anything we want. Instead of going to all these different consoles, we centralized everything."
"This solution has made life easy with respect to patching, compliance, and OSD."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager is it's incredibly simple to configure and execute changes in bulk, allowing for seamless deployment. With this solution, you can easily track the status of all modifications and send them with ease, making it a comprehensive and efficient solution for any necessary adjustments."
"I find the product valuable for deployment recovery and it has done much more than that."
"Qualys Patch Management offers valuable features like scheduling and on-demand patching, allowing us to conveniently push patches to our servers at designated times."
"The consolidated report we received from the solution was very time-saving because, in the dashboard, we could get all the patch details for a particular patch and all the assets listed."
"Qualys Patch Management is beneficial for addressing critical vulnerability alerts quickly, providing significant improvements in mitigating risk within our organization."
"The customer support team is quite responsive and always ready to assist."
"The integration of Qualys Gateway Scanner is my favorite feature. The patches our downloaded to QGS in our environment and deployed, saving bandwidth. The patch logging and policies have been helpful. The dashboard shows you when the patch has been applied to your assets."
"Qualys Patch Management streamlines our vulnerability management process by providing a single source of truth to assess, prioritize, and remediate vulnerabilities across all assets."
"Automated features streamline patch deployment and ensure compliance, effectively mitigating risks and bolstering organizational security."
"Qualys Patch Management has reduced our organizational risk by 99.9 percent."
 

Cons

"It would be nice to have everything in one place. Now they have Intune for the desktops and SCCM to handle their servers."
"The database should be made to be more stable and robust, but not so much the configuration."
"The availability of technical support could improve."
"SCCM should strive to enhance the accuracy of its reporting functions in order to avoid any issues with incorrect or inaccurate data."
"I would like to see more automation."
"Not everything is readily available, and there are a lot of commands that are only executable via PowerShell."
"In terms of scalability, I believe there's room for improvement. While SCCM is capable of handling our current needs effectively, scalability could be enhanced to accommodate future growth and larger deployments."
"The main room for improvement is the on-screen display. I think it would be good if some improvements were made."
"It is pretty good. However, it would be good to have more widgets and AI-generated reports. I have not seen anything related to AI with Qualys. It would be beneficial for Qualys to incorporate AI-generated tools for Patch Management and VMDR. This could assist in managing risks, providing AI-generated reports, and creating risk letters for clients, which can streamline communication."
"The pricing of the solution is slightly high compared to other tools in our field."
"Downloading extensive vulnerability reports, especially those with millions of entries, is time-consuming. To improve efficiency, Qualys should implement faster download speeds and offer reports in Excel format in addition to the current CSV option."
"The pricing of the solution is slightly high compared to other tools in our field."
"Not all patches are supported, so there are some restrictions. Some remediations require script-level changes which Qualys does not support."
"Qualys could improve its randomized download feature and provide more detailed information about patch failures, including the reason for failure."
"There is room for improvement in terms of adding more patches. Not all patches are available for deployment on Qualys Patch Management, so collaborating with various vendors to provide new patches would be beneficial."
"Qualys's current response time for releasing solutions to zero-day vulnerabilities, which takes approximately 12 to 16 hours, needs improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The license price could be reduced for Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager They should make the price more affordable for smaller companies, most companies would be able to use the solution if it was priced better. There are more people on this cloud because you don't have to have either a server room or an on-premise server. You can have one IT person handle this without any local infrastructure."
"As far as I know, it is an annual operating expense license."
"The price could be better."
"For enterprises, there is an annual license required to use this solution. The price of the solution could be cheaper. However, this is mostly because of the exchange rate from the dollar to the Nigerian currency."
"We have to pay for a license."
"Along with buying a license for MECM, we also have to buy a service called CMG (Cloud Management Gateway) which is a virtual machine in the cloud with which you can link your MECM to the Azure tenant so as to manage teleworkers."
"We use the tool's free license. It is expensive."
"Pricing and licensing are a downside of SCCM. It's expensive. I'd have to confirm this, but I think they changed the licensing to core-based instead of socket-based. It's not cheap, because you have to buy the software, you have to buy SQL. Another thing we learned from talking to Microsoft is that they provide you a license for SQL if you run it on the same box as the primary server. If you run it outside that box, you have to buy SQL. Microsoft does recommend you running it on the same box because of performance. But then, in order to run SQL, SCCM, and everything on the same box, you better have some resources. It's an expensive solution. There's no doubt about it."
"Qualys Patch Management offers a moderate price point, neither cheap nor expensive, considering its comprehensive functionality."
"The pricing is reasonable and less expensive than the previous tool."
"The licensing cost is more than 2,000 for the whole Americas region"
"From what I have heard, Qualys Patch Management is pricey, which is a main barrier to entry. Another aspect that I do not like about Qualys is that they do not add new patch management functionalities to the existing package. It is a separate SKU, so you have to pay more money."
"Pricing for Qualys Patch Management is moderate."
"Its price is competitive in the market. Compared to other solutions like Rapid7, Qualys offers a favorable price point and robust features."
"I'm unaware of Qualys' exact price, but it's more expensive than Nessus. With technological products, you need to pay to get the best."
"Qualys Patch Management is a cost-effective solution for managing our 43,000-plus assets."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
17%
Government
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

How does Ansible compare to Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (SCCM)?
Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager takes knowledge and research to properly configure. The length of time that the set up will take depends on the kind of technical architecture that your org...
How to choose between ManageEngine Desktop Central and Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (formerly SCCM)?
ManageEngine Desktop Central is very easy to set up, is scalable, stable, and also has very good patch management. What I like most about ManageEngine is that I can log on to every PC very easily a...
What do you like most about SCCM?
One of the standout features of SCCM is its application management capabilities. It allows us to create packages efficiently and deploy them to specific groups within our network. This streamlined ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Qualys Patch Management?
Qualys Patch Management comes as part of a bundled package with several modules, making it a cost-effective deal for us. I cannot speak to the separate cost, as we have always used it as part of th...
What needs improvement with Qualys Patch Management?
I deploy patches to endpoints and servers every month. However, despite a job showing as successful, I need to examine the job in detail. For instance, if I have deployed patches to 100 endpoints, ...
What is your primary use case for Qualys Patch Management?
I use Qualys Patch Management as a single platform for patch management. We have Microsoft, Adobe, and various other apps. I create a scheduled task to push all the required patches to the laptops ...
 

Also Known As

Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager, System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM )
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Bank Alfalah Ltd., Wªrth Handelsges.m.b.H, Dimension Data, Japan Business Systems, St. Lucie County Public Schools, MISC Berhad
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Configuration Manager vs. Qualys Patch Management and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.