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Qualys VMDR vs Sysdig Secure comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 19, 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

Qualys VMDR
Ranking in Container Security
9th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
95
Ranking in other categories
IT Asset Management (4th), Vulnerability Management (3rd), Configuration Management Databases (2nd), Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (1st)
Sysdig Secure
Ranking in Container Security
13th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (18th), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (11th), Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2025, in the Container Security category, the mindshare of Qualys VMDR is 2.4%, down from 2.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sysdig Secure is 2.7%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Container Security Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Qualys VMDR2.4%
Sysdig Secure2.7%
Other94.9%
Container Security
 

Featured Reviews

Ankesh Raj - PeerSpot reviewer
Real-time responses and reporting streamline vulnerability management
Qualys VMDR provides a real-time response and reporting feature, which is excellent. It allows us to see real-time graphs and reports for every asset, server, and more, which is very user-friendly. Our clients have given good feedback, and they are satisfied with the tool. We use it daily to fix vulnerabilities by connecting with infrastructure to remediate. The feedback from the client side is very good.
Peter Du - PeerSpot reviewer
Gives real-time visibility and helps to articulate constantly-changing landscape
The main benefit for me personally is being able to articulate the ever-growing, dynamic, and constantly changing landscape. Just today, in a management leadership call, I was able to demonstrate that although we are solving a lot of these vulnerabilities, we are picking up new vulnerabilities each and every day. It allows me to articulate the importance of information security with actual real-time data. Sysdig's runtime insights help us detect and respond to threats that are happening in real-time. We can look at Sysdig dashboards or run reports to see precisely what happens in our runtime environment. A good use case of this was that when zero-day vulnerabilities came out, we could scan our environment to see if the vulnerabilities apply to any of our production workloads. Sysdig Secure helps us prioritize issues and distribute work. We are a small company, so we do not have multiple security or dev teams. We have two or three guys on my team. Having the ability to focus on critical vulnerabilities is crucial. It does not make sense to prioritize low-level threats when we have limited time. We do not use live threat investigation features as much as we would like because of different priorities, but it is something that we do use. Over time, it shows us whether we are putting the right effort into resolving issues. For example, when we look at the dashboard scene over a 30-day period, we can see whether the critical vulnerabilities are increasing or decreasing. It lets us know whether we are on the right track. We are currently using agentless scanning. Deploying it onto our cluster has enabled us to get full visibility into what is running on our cluster. Sysdig provides us with the contextual awareness we need to create an immediate incident response strategy. It provides links to the threat and explains the threat and the resolution possible. It equips us with the right information to make a decision on whether to address the threat immediately or take a risk in terms of deploying remediation. Sysdig has not enabled us to reduce the number of security tools we use. We were not using anything before Sysdig, and after choosing Sysdig, we did not have a need to look at anything else. Sysdig has not helped reduce external SOC costs. We are a very small business, so we do not have the budget for an external SOC. However, it has definitely alleviated the pressure to look for one and to source an external SOC. We have a project history to look at a virtual SOC and leverage tools that we do have, and Sysdig is a part of that. There is definitely a saving there because we have not had the need to go out and look for an external SOC. Sysdig has helped reduce the percentage of workloads that have security exposures that put the organization at risk. It has reduced the workload, mainly from an understanding of where we can assign work to cover the most ground in terms of resolving vulnerabilities.

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 features of Qualys VMDR include patch management and the use of virtual scanners to scan appliances and devices, especially those provided by vendors where we cannot manage them ourselves."
"Vulnerability management is the most valuable one and it’s a must in every organization."
"The solution is easy to use."
"Continuous monitoring is a crucial feature that we use more frequently."
"Qualys has a continuous endpoint monitoring feature for agent-based scanning. Once you deploy the solution, it monitors everything that is happening every 30 minutes. Then, if there are any vulnerabilities, they are reported."
"I am impressed with the VMDR feature."
"The reporting is fine."
"Qualys VMDR provides us with a quick response to threat findings through regular scheduled scanning, which improves our security operations."
"From a container-based standpoint, it offers excellent scalability to its users...I would tell those planning to use the solution that, from a container standpoint, it's excellent."
"We appreciate this feature, especially when combined with CD monitoring. The implementation of requested features has been remarkable, such as scanning for compliance in CRM processes for the US government. We heavily rely on this feature to assess compliance with federal requirements."
"Sysdig Secure has many strong foundational features like compliance and benchmark, security, network access management, and vulnerability management."
"The tool has the capability to conduct scans initially. It can perform scans on your virtual machines, physical machines, containers, and container images. A standout feature is its ability to scan offline container images stored in your container registry. Additionally, it can scan runtime images in your cluster or on your host machine. This allows for the detection of vulnerabilities in running containers, including loaded libraries. Notably, the tool can identify which library vulnerabilities are already present in your system. An added advantage is its capacity to take action beyond threat detection. It has the ability to block access and respond to encountered threats."
"I have not seen any stability issues so far."
"The proactiveness of the support has been fantastic. Every time we mention something in a meeting that we're trying to do, he proactively takes that as an investigation topic and looks into it. He'll provide the solution even though we might not have asked him to investigate it."
"The most valuable feature is the level of support that we get. Our solutions or customer success representative is very valuable. I see them as an extension of our security team."
"The log monitor is the most valuable feature."
 

Cons

"Sometimes the scanning can get overwhelmed and start to drag when a lot of users are trying to scan at once."
"The only improvement I can think of is on the implementation side. At times it is a bit slow."
"The reporting needs improvement. It should generate much more stuff like field reports."
"Endpoint stability and fault resolution could be improved."
"Qualys VM's scanner doesn't pick up every vulnerability, so we have to use multiple scanners to cover that gap."
"The reporting section needs improvement as running reports can take several hours."
"It would be helpful to have features for better tracking, including options for adding relevant owners or supporting groups for each asset."
"Support could be improved since the response can be slow."
"Perhaps, it could support more custom implementations, as our company utilizes custom implementations rather than standard ones. Configuring it requires a deep understanding and adjustment to our specific needs, which took some time. Other than that, I'm unsure about potential improvements. We were considering the possibility of compartmentalizing their tools. Currently, in Sysdig Secure, they bundle multiple features, and we are unable to use them individually. For instance, if we only need compliance scanning, we have to deploy the entire secure package. This is because of the way their agent functions, but I can't delve into more details."
"Sysdig's biggest weakness is dashboarding and reporting. You have access to the data and can get everything you need, but we need the ability to summarize the information quickly in a format that senior leaders can understand. We report to the executive level and global board. I need to roll all that in-depth information into a quick summary, and their maturity level isn't there. I'm seeing that on the future road map, but it isn't there now."
"Sysdig Secure needs to scale more for complete cloud-native coverage."
"Reporting can definitely be better. Live dashboards should be configurable for a longer period of time rather than 30 days. Being able to go back in time to compare six months ago to today would be valuable."
"The dashboard could be more simple and show the more important issues that are detected first. We'd like to be able to set it up so more important issues show up more prominently in the dashboard."
"Banks and financial institutions cannot use Sysdig Secure because it doesn't sell SaaS-hosted versions for under two hundred working nodes."
"They should make it specific with a couple of features only."
"The solution needs to improve overall from a CSPM standpoint since they can't compete with Wiz or Orca."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is very reasonable."
"We have an annual contract for Qualys VMDR. I believe it's for either two years or five years."
"The solution is expensive."
"An annual license for a single scanner costs around $3,000."
"It is different for every company, but for us, it's every three years."
"The product is more expensive than that of any other vendor."
"I used to work there, so I never paid for the product. As an employee, we get a lifetime license for personal use, and that's what I'm using. It is a comprehensive platform, so there is a lot more to it. There could be other solutions that are probably a little bit cheaper, but it depends on what people need. Different people have different needs. It offers many things on the same platform. If you add all the things up, it should be cheaper, but I have not done any analysis specifically."
"There are no additional fees in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"Sysdig is competitive. The quality matches the pricing. Obviously, everyone wants things to be cheaper, but if you're realistic, you acknowledge that quality service comes with a price. Sysdig is the gold standard for Kubernetes, and I wouldn't choose anything else. We live in Kubernetes. Everything is containerized, so that means a lot to us, and we're willing to make an investment."
"I am always going to say that it could be a little bit cheaper. I do feel that it is a little bit on the expensive side."
"In comparison to other cloud solutions, it's reasonably priced. However, when compared to in-house built open-source projects, it might be considered somewhat costly. The cost depends on whether someone sees the support provided by Sysdig as an advantage or if it's deemed unnecessary. Personally, I find the support to be excellent and consider it a good value."
"The solution's pricing depends on the agents...In short, the price depends on the environment of its user."
"It is quite costly compared to other tools."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise69
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise3
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Qualys VMDR?
I like that we have many scanners and channels that don't overload. It helps us scan and track easily. Also, the tagging system is good for tagging. We can still use QualysAgent task ID tools even ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Qualys VMDR?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing shows that we can consider both time and money saved.
What needs improvement with Qualys VMDR?
One area where Qualys VMDR can be improved is the missing feature for deploying agents for over 1,000 assets, as we need to do it manually. Qualys doesn't have its own tool to deploy the agents all...
What do you like most about Sysdig Secure?
The proactiveness of the support has been fantastic. Every time we mention something in a meeting that we're trying to do, he proactively takes that as an investigation topic and looks into it. He'...
What needs improvement with Sysdig Secure?
Sysdig Secure could improve in terms of scalability and expanding services to other areas like database monitoring and support. There is also room for improvement in enhancing their platform speed....
What is your primary use case for Sysdig Secure?
Sysdig Secure ( /products/sysdig-secure-reviews ) is used for cloud-native infrastructure, application monitoring, and detection response.
 

Also Known As

Qualys VM, QualysGuard VM, Qualys Asset Inventory, Qualys Container Security
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Agrokor Group, American Specialty Health, American State Bank, Arval, Life:), Axway, Bank of the West, Blueport Commerce, BSkyB, Brinks, CaixaBank, Cartagena, Catholic Health System, CEC Bank, Cegedim, CIGNA, Clickability, Colby-Sawyer College, Commercial Bank of Dubai, University of Utah, eBay Inc., ING Singapore, National Theatre, OTP Bank, Sodexo, WebEx
SAP Concur, Goldman Sachs, Worldpay, Experian, BigCommerce, Arkose Labs, Calendly, Noteable, Bloomreach. More here: https://sysdig.com/customers/
Find out what your peers are saying about Qualys VMDR vs. Sysdig Secure and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
872,837 professionals have used our research since 2012.