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Qualys TotalCloud vs Tenable Nessus comparison

 

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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
5.7
Qualys TotalCloud significantly reduces risk, time, and costs for organizations with automation and task integrations, improving ROI.
Sentiment score
3.0
Tenable Nessus boosts security by enhancing threat visibility, reducing vulnerabilities, saving costs, and achieving high user satisfaction.
It has saved about 90% of our time.
Senior Consultant at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
TotalCloud has generated overall savings of 30 to 40 percent across various departments.
Security Manager at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
CallStream helps us integrate and automate tasks.
Senior Security Consultant at CyberNxt Solutions LLP
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.4
Qualys TotalCloud has mixed reviews; praised for quick issue resolution but needs improvement in handling complex inquiries efficiently.
Sentiment score
3.9
Tenable Nessus support is praised for responsiveness and efficiency, with mixed feedback on response times and depth for advanced queries.
They are helpful, respond to my queries, and can answer any question.
Developer at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Qualys's tech support is highly responsive, providing multiple ways to interact with them.
Service Manager, Security Operations at CDA IT SOLUTIONS
Qualys' customer service provides quality answers, but the response time is long, even though it is within the SLA.
Works at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
We received support within one to three hours.
CIO at a insurance company with 201-500 employees
Whenever any issue arises, we contact the support, and they are always there for us.
Information security engineer at Cyberisk
The technical support is good yet could improve in terms of response time.
SOC Engineer at a outsourcing company with 10,001+ employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.0
Qualys TotalCloud is generally scalable, adaptable for various organizations, requiring experienced management but offering beneficial customizations and centralized controls.
Sentiment score
5.2
Tenable Nessus is scalable and flexible for most organizations but may face limitations with very large enterprises.
We started our organization about nine months back. We started with about 30 users, and we now have more than 100 users.
CIO at a venture capital & private equity firm with 11-50 employees
Our organization currently uses it to manage over 1200 web applications.
Analyst, Information Security at Infosys
It is absolutely scalable, and I would rate its scalability as nine out of ten.
retired at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Whether managing 50 servers today or 500 tomorrow, performance or capacity are not hindered.
SOC Engineer at a outsourcing company with 10,001+ employees
Tenable Nessus is definitely scalable, especially for license formats designed for scalability.
Security Center Coordinator at a comms service provider with 1-10 employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.4
Qualys TotalCloud is stable, with high uptime and reliable performance, minor glitches resolved quickly, and effective communication.
Sentiment score
5.8
Tenable Nessus is praised for stability and reliability, with high user satisfaction despite minor setup and update issues.
Overall, the support provided has been excellent.
Analyst, Information Security at Infosys
It is a stable solution, which is why we chose it.
CIO at a venture capital & private equity firm with 11-50 employees
Continuous monitoring is crucial to ensure system stability and avoid vulnerabilities or threats.
Developer at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
We have not encountered any issues with missing network items or errors in API and webhook interactions.
SOC Engineer at a outsourcing company with 10,001+ employees
The stability of Tenable Nessus is extraordinary.
Founder at Cipheroot
 

Room For Improvement

Qualys TotalCloud needs feature enhancements for better usability, reporting, customization, integration, pricing, and intuitive interface with faster processing.
Tenable Nessus requires enhanced reporting, better integration, modern UI, faster scans, accurate detection, and comprehensive IT asset coverage.
Ideally, the scanner should automatically detect and scan all subdomains, even if not explicitly defined, ensuring comprehensive vulnerability assessment.
Analyst, Information Security at Infosys
Ideally, updates should be more immediate, enabling quicker implementation of solutions.
Project Lead at Persistent Systems
Our goal is to integrate all these functions into Qualys, creating a single dashboard for comprehensive security monitoring and management.
Senior Information Security Engineer at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
This is Tenable's property. They want to sell Tenable Security Center, and they closed all the API capability for Tenable Nessus Professional.
Co-Founder at RSU Consultancy
An AI feature that helps them discover options without requiring them to deep dive into all features or guides them through advisory functions would be beneficial.
Freelancer And CEO at a tech vendor with 1-10 employees
The documentation is not well-organized, which can be confusing when searching for solutions or specific information related to Tenable Nessus Professional.
SOC Engineer at a outsourcing company with 10,001+ employees
 

Setup Cost

Qualys TotalCloud's pricing is considered high but cost-effective due to its comprehensive features and value for large enterprises.
Tenable Nessus is valued for affordability and flexibility, though costs vary by organization size, IP count, and region.
Qualys TotalCloud's pricing is currently acceptable, it is becoming increasingly expensive.
Senior Manager at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Pricing is managed by our finance team; however, Qualys TotalCloud offers cost-effective licensing flexibility.
IT Manager at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Qualys TotalCloud is expensive, but it offers a premier solution with no headaches.
Vice President at Inspira Enterprise
The pricing for Tenable Nessus has increased significantly, tripling over the last few years.
Security Center Coordinator at a comms service provider with 1-10 employees
Tenable Nessus's pricing is adequate if it is fully utilized.
SOC Engineer at a outsourcing company with 10,001+ employees
When we compare it to other solutions, it is more difficult for us to negotiate the price for Tenable Nessus than to negotiate the price with Rapid7.
Freelancer And CEO at a tech vendor with 1-10 employees
 

Valuable Features

Qualys TotalCloud offers unified vulnerability management, threat assessment, and AI-enhanced tools for efficient risk management across IaaS and SaaS.
Tenable Nessus excels in vulnerability detection, user-friendliness, scalability, real-time monitoring, integration, compliance reporting, and remediation advice.
This view of risk helps reduce the work we would have to do to combine multiple sources to prioritize risk.
Works at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
It will help cybersecurity professionals monitor the cloud and find vulnerabilities.
Developer at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
We are enjoying the new feature, FlexScan, which is valuable for Internet-facing VMs.
Senior Consultant at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
I mostly use the configuration audit feature for the audit configuration as a scan policy, and I will use it for credential audit, which helps me scan credentials access such as local administrator or root access, performing a deeper and more accurate check of local configuration settings and file systems, making it a highly recommended feature.
Founder at Cipheroot
The scanning and reporting features are the most valuable aspects of Tenable Nessus.
SOC Engineer at a outsourcing company with 10,001+ employees
The most valuable features of Tenable Nessus include its ease of access and quick usability.
Security Center Coordinator at a comms service provider with 1-10 employees
 

Categories and Ranking

Qualys TotalCloud
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
11th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
37
Ranking in other categories
Container Security (13th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (9th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (8th), SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) (1st), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (8th)
Tenable Nessus
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
88
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Vulnerability Management category, the mindshare of Qualys TotalCloud is 0.9%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tenable Nessus is 4.9%, down from 10.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Vulnerability Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Tenable Nessus4.9%
Qualys TotalCloud0.9%
Other94.2%
Vulnerability Management
 

Featured Reviews

AN
Cyber Security Specialist at UBS Financial
A centralized tool for vulnerability and misconfiguration management in a multiple cloud environment
Qualys TotalCloud provides written explanations to help guide the remediation paths and eliminate cyber risk. We are using TruRisk for the remediations. The TruRisk shows anything critical, and we can then focus on that. We also assess manually whether an asset is a critical target or not. Qualys TotalCloud provides a single, prioritized view of risk. We are using CIS-CAT standards to harden our clouds, such as AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure. We are able to analyze the scans and identify which policies have failed and how we can remediate them. We can customize policies as per our organization's requirements. That is very helpful for us. With the TruRisk Insights feature, security has significantly improved. In six months of using it, we see that everything is under control. We've solved many problems related to asset management, cloud configuration, and the new asset identification. If an application team has onboarded any cloud asset, we can see that. We have that information now.
MohammedJaffir - PeerSpot reviewer
Founder at Cipheroot
Has enabled me to reduce false positives and perform deep credential auditing with seamless integrations
I mostly use the configuration audit feature for the audit configuration as a scan policy, and I will use it for credential audit, which helps me scan credentials access such as local administrator or root access, performing a deeper and more accurate check of local configuration settings and file systems, making it a highly recommended feature. Regarding integration capabilities, we can integrate Tenable Nessus with SIM tools such as Splunk, IBM QRadar, and Azure Sentinel, as well as with ticketing systems such as ServiceNow, Jira, and Slack. There is no complexity as it is very easy to integrate everything. In terms of the reporting feature, while vulnerability scanning can throw some false positives, Tenable Nessus has very few, achieving a reduction of 75% to 80% false positives with manual analysis needed. We can generate standard Nessus reports that typically include host summaries and vulnerabilities by host and plugin, alongside solutions and remediation recommendations. The main benefits I get from Tenable Nessus are complete asset inventory and comprehensive attack surface management, allowing us to prioritize vulnerabilities based on risk, focusing on true risk and threat path analysis.
report
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise26
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business40
Midsize Enterprise19
Large Enterprise35
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Qualys TotalCloud?
Qualys TotalCloud is on the pricier side, and I would rate the pricing around an 8 on a scale from 1 to 10.
What needs improvement with Qualys TotalCloud?
In my opinion, what can be improved in Qualys TotalCloud includes pricing and container scanning.
What is your primary use case for Qualys TotalCloud?
Qualys TotalCloud provides container security, vulnerability management, posture management, and more.
How would you choose between Rapid7 InsightVM and Tenable Nessus?
You have full visibility across cloud, network, virtual, and containerized infrastructures with Rapid7 Insight VM. You can easily prioritize vulnerabilities using attacker analytics. Overall, Rapid...
What's the difference between Tenable Nessus and Tenable.io Vulnerability Management?
Tenable Nessus is a vulnerability assessment solution that is both easy to deploy and easy to manage. The design of the program is such that if a company should desire to handle the installation t...
What do you like most about Tenable Nessus?
We have around 500 virtual machines. Therefore, we conduct monthly scans and open tickets for our developers to address identified vulnerabilities. These scans cover the servers, other network equi...
 

Also Known As

Qualys TotalCloud with FlexScan
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Bitbrains, Tesla, Just Eat, Crosskey Banking Solutions, Covenant Health, Youngstown State University
Find out what your peers are saying about Qualys TotalCloud vs. Tenable Nessus and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
885,311 professionals have used our research since 2012.