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NowSecure vs Qualys Web Application Scanning comparison

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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

NowSecure
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
38th
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Mobile App Testing Tools (21st)
Qualys Web Application Scan...
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
10th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (18th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of NowSecure is 0.7%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Qualys Web Application Scanning is 2.0%, down from 2.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Static Application Security Testing (SAST) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Qualys Web Application Scanning2.0%
NowSecure0.7%
Other97.3%
Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
 

Featured Reviews

AN
Quality Assurance and Analyst Intern at a university with 201-500 employees
Scalable and reliable, but dynamic analysis needs improvement
I would advise others when testing using NowSecure to do secondary tests with other tools. For example, set it up in the local environment and recheck what the results of the reports are. Since the dynamic results are less accurate, I would suggest using static analysis. I rate NowSecure a seven out of ten.
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

"The most valuable feature is the ability to download an application without actually putting in the APK, as it gives us an option to put the APK in if we want to, but we can also download it from the App Store and Play Store."
"The tool links vulnerabilities with DDIs and gives a complete overview of the application. The continuous monitoring capability is good."
"The best thing about this product is that it is really easy to use."
"Qualys Web Application Scanning has multiple features like threat protection and container security scanning in one box."
"Technical support is very good whenever we send them a message."
"Qualys is perfect, scalability-wise."
"The most valuable feature is that we are able to scan the services and put credentials like a user ID password, and we can verify the vulnerability level."
"WAS gave us visibility into our externally exposed web applications and showed us vulnerabilities that we were not aware of and did not know how to test for."
"It protects against zero-day vulnerabilities, like Heartbleed."
 

Cons

"In this solution, there are two kinds of testing, static analysis, and dynamic analysis. There needs some improvement in testing with dynamic analysis because I have found it is not accurate"
"Please add manual penetration testing features. Also I didn't like the license terms and the features were limited compared to other tools used for web applications."
"The tool should have a live HTTP editor and more configuration options for some situations, such as handling applications that have URL rewriting enabled."
"Qualys Web Application Scanning is very complex to use, and its graphical interface is not very user-friendly."
"There should be better visibility into the application."
"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."
"The pricing does not seem to be competitive."
"The area of false positives could be improved. There are quite a number of false positives as compared to other solutions. They could probably fine tune the algorithm to be able to reduce the number of false positives being detected."
"The product should allow users to upload their payloads."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"I rate the software’s pricing a six out of ten."
"The product has a very good licensing model."
"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."
"We are on an annual license for the solution and the pricing could be more affordable."
"It is an expensive platform."
"​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​."
"The product pricing is fair and reasonably priced."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
28%
Retailer
19%
Construction Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise27
 

Questions from the Community

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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

Vaporstream, FIS, MEA Financial, Silent Circle, Capital One, Citi, EY, EMC, Emerson, Kaiser Permanente, The Home Depot, Humana, Shell, Kellogg's, TD Bank, VMware
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 SonarSource Sàrl, Checkmarx, Veracode and others in Static Application Security Testing (SAST). Updated: October 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.