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Qualys VMDR vs Vectra AI comparison

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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

Zafran Security
Sponsored
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
8.1
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (27th), Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) (6th)
Qualys VMDR
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
93
Ranking in other categories
IT Asset Management (5th), Vulnerability Management (2nd), Configuration Management Databases (2nd), Container Security (12th), Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (2nd)
Vectra AI
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
45
Ranking in other categories
Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) (3rd), Network Detection and Response (NDR) (2nd), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (15th), Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) (10th), AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Vulnerability Management
Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS)
 

Featured Reviews

Israel Cavazos Landini - PeerSpot reviewer
Weekly insights and risk analysis facilitate informed security decisions
I appreciate the weekly insights Zafran provides, which include critical topics for networks and IT security, allowing us to evaluate which insights apply to our environment. The organization score feature is valuable to keep the leadership team updated on how our infrastructure fares security-wise. The applicable risk level versus base risk level feature is beneficial because prior to Zafran, we only used the base risk level, but now understand that risk depends on the asset itself. Zafran is an excellent tool.
Harold Jensen - PeerSpot reviewer
Good visibility but expensive and needs better support
Support: It's often overseas and often following a script, basically asking us to redo what we opened the case with. Multiple APIs: There seems to be a lack of easy onboarding into Qualys. We had to use manual inputs and some API calls to get items in place. Dashboard: It is very rudimentary with very little customization. The Qualys Scripting Language (QSL) works differently in different Qualys modules, so when you get it working in one area you have to modify the syntax in others. User account management: We often have to give users more rights than needed just to give them what they need. Integration with the various Qualys Modules: You can tell the UI is different based on of the different teams that created them. QSL syntax same in all modules Responsiveness of some of the components: They time out, you get a blank screen, etc. Backend updates between the various modules: You update connectors and information takes a few minutes to show in VMDR or Global Asset View Connectors: Connectors have a throttling issue with AWS which causes them to frequently fail unless you manually run them again.
Mohammad Alkurdi - PeerSpot reviewer
Innovative detection features enhance monitoring
The advantages of the integration are not entirely out-of-the-box. You have to do it manually. When I'm doing tier response, an out-of-the-box solution is not available. You need to have a Linux server, and from the Linux server, you must perform AI tasks, and there is a lot to be handled in the back end. This is a major consideration about them. The recall feature, if it can be placed in some areas instead of the cloud, and charged for, would be better. Recall the storage where you watch all the traffic, and you can recall it and try to analyze it in the back end. It’s cloud-based. If they offer it on-prem, it would be better. I think they have a solution, but I have never tested it, to be honest with you.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Zafran has become an indispensable tool in our cybersecurity arsenal."
"Zafran is an excellent tool."
"We are able to see the real risk of a vulnerability on our environment with our security tools."
"Continuous monitoring is a crucial feature that we use more frequently."
"Qualys VMDR provides a real-time response and reporting feature, which is excellent."
"Vulnerability management is the most valuable one and it’s a must in every organization."
"Qualys VM has allowed us to know the vulnerabilities we need to prioritize based on the threat levels and the possible impact if there's an intrusion."
"This is one of the best products I have worked with so far. I like the power of Qualys, and it's a better solution because you can scan a compact file, a BIT file, or batch files. The product already knows what's happening inside, and you don't need to expand the package. Tenable will do the same thing, but you need to have a package issuance claim. With Qualys, we can immediately understand the file, even a compact file. If there's some kind of discovery or incident, you will know what happened in the environment."
"It is very easy to use and there are lots of options. We can usually easily go through it and all of the things we want to configure, and we can configure everything to our specifications very easily."
"The most valuable feature is automation."
"Tech support is helpful."
"It keeps up with the network traffic, which is a good thing. It provides more context to plain alerts compared to using an older system. So, it helps an analyst reduce the information overload."
"The key feature for me for Detect for Office 365 is that it can also concentrate all the information and detection at one point, the same as the network solution does. This is the key feature for me because, while accessing data from Office 365 is possible using Microsoft interfaces, they are not really user-friendly and are quite confusing to use. But Detect for Office 365 is aggregating all the info, and it's only the interesting stuff."
"The solution's ability to reduce alerts, by rolling up numerous alerts to create a single incident or campaign, helps in that it collapses all the events to a particular host, or a particular detection to a set of hosts. So it doesn't generate too many alerts. By and large, whatever alerts it generates are actionable, and actionable within the day."
"The fact that we get the visualization of what's happening on our network, which is a way of improving our security in-depth is most valuable."
"The UI is easy to use and when we send detection to everybody, they easily understand what we are asking at the time."
"It's important for us that the user interface is easy to understand and that is the biggest benefit we see from Vectra AI."
"It does a reliable job of parsing out the logs of all the network traffic so that we can ingest them into our SIEM and utilize them for threat hunting and case investigations. It is pretty robust and reliable. The administration time that we spend maintaining it or troubleshooting it is very low. So, the labor hour overhead is probably our largest benefit from it. We spend 99% of our time in Vectra investigating cases, responding to incidents, or hunting, and only around 1% of our time is spent patching, troubleshooting, or doing anything else. That's our largest benefit from Vectra."
"Vectra AI can bring the ability to detect intrusion on the network more so than legacy IDS tools."
 

Cons

"Initially, we were somewhat concerned about the scalability of Zafran due to our large asset count and the substantial amount of information we needed to process."
"It would be nice to have an all-in-one solution that was automated and could handle the scanning and reports as well as the patching and updating."
"I would like to see this solution simplified to work more easily in a multi-cloud environment."
"It is a struggle to be able to pull our report and to be able to do onboarding using automated tools."
"Qualys VMDR identifies vulnerabilities and suggests fixes. However, it does not automate patching unless the patch management module is purchased separately."
"I do not like that all of the data is stored on the cloud."
"They can tweak their UI since the new version seems a bit jumbled up, and the old UI was more user-friendly."
"They have integrated with other third parties, but it is still not viable."
"It's too early for me to say if there is any room for improvement since we're in the first couple of months of using this solution."
"The false positives and the tuning side of it is something that could use improvement. But that could be from our side."
"You are always limited with visibility on the host due to the fact that it is a network based tool. It gives you visibility on certain elements of the attack path, but it doesn't necessarily give you visibility on everything. Specifically, the initial intrusion side of things that doesn't necessarily see the initial compromise. It doesn't see stuff that goes on the host, such as where scripts are run. Even though you are seeing traffic, it doesn't necessarily see the malicious payload. Therefore, it's very difficult for it to identify these type of host-driven complex attacks."
"One of the things that we are missing a bit is the capability to add our own rules to it. At the moment, the tech engine does its thing, but we have some cool ideas to make additional rules. There should be an option in the platform to add custom rules, or there should be some kind of user group where we can suggest them for the roadmap and see if they get evaluated and get transparent communication on whether they will be implemented in the product or not."
"Multiple appliances are required for Vectra AI, making it less convenient compared to competitors."
"We have a lot of system solutions and integrations with system solutions. Vectra is a type of black box. It implements AI-informed detection mechanisms, but we cannot create system detections. I understand that the product is designed this way, but it would be great if we could create our own detections as well."
"For S&D account scans, it would be easier if Vectra AI could triage with users. If a client uses a lot of accounts, then it could indicate that these accounts are benign, for example. That would help a lot."
"A blind spot that I have is around the ease with which you can automate threat intervention."
"I'd like to be able to get granular reports and to be able to output them into formats that are customizable and more useful. The reporting GUI is lacking."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"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 product is more expensive than that of any other vendor."
"In Nigerian Naira, we spend about roughly four to five million to use this solution and this is expensive compared to solutions like Nessus."
"There is a license for the use of this solution. We pay annually instead of monthly to receive a better discount on the price."
"The tool's pricing is expensive and I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten."
"When you want to cover yourself for scalability, you will be charged for the number you place on the scan itself."
"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."
"The licensing is on an annual basis."
"The solution is low-cost and affordable."
"From a pricing perspective, they are very commercially competitive. From a licensing perspective, just be conscious that some of their future cloud solutions come with additional subscriptions. Also, if you're outside of the US, you will get charged freight for the device back to your country."
"From a licensing perspective, the Vectra detect platform is pretty doable. Also, the hardware prices are nothing that we're not used to. The stream part is a little overpriced compared to the detect part. The reason is that you need to stream data to detect events anyway, so the data is in there. The only thing that's not available is the UI to be able to look at the stream data, which is also on the appliances but is just not activated. That's mainly the thing that we want to improve on."
"Vectra's licensing model could scale to our research network, which has multiple, 100-gigabit links."
"Vectra AI is not a cheap solution."
"At the time of purchase, we found the pricing acceptable. We had an urgency to get something in place because we had a minor breach that occurred at the tail end of 2016 to the beginning of 2017. This indicated we had a lack of ability to detect things on the network. Hence, why we moved quickly to get into the tool in place. We found things like Bitcoin mining and botnets which we closed quickly. In that regard, it was worth the money."
"My company pays for the Vectra AI licensing fee yearly. I know the figure because my company recently renewed the license, and it's okay, at least for the financial sector."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
6%
Educational Organization
32%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zafran Security?
I find that the pricing for Zafran aligns well with the comprehensive features it offers. The asset and user-based li...
What needs improvement with Zafran Security?
Zafran is a new startup. Features are continuously being added or improved. 1) Continued integrations with existing (...
What is your primary use case for Zafran Security?
We connect this to our vulnerability scanner as input, our security tools to better determine risk, and our change ma...
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 tagg...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Qualys VMDR?
Qualys offers better pricing and is feature-packed compared to other tools.
What needs improvement with Qualys VMDR?
They can tweak their UI since the new version seems a bit jumbled up, and the old UI was more user-friendly.
What is the biggest difference between Corelight and Vectra AI?
The two platforms take a fundamentally different approach to NDR. Corelight is limited to use cases that require the ...
What do you like most about Vectra AI?
The solution is currently used as a central threat detection and response system.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Vectra AI?
It is very acceptable when you compare it with Darktrace, for example.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Qualys VM, QualysGuard VM, Qualys Asset Inventory, Qualys Container Security
Vectra Networks, Vectra AI NDR
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
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
Tribune Media Group, Barry University, Aruba Networks, Good Technology, Riverbed, Santa Clara University, Securities Exchange, Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association
Find out what your peers are saying about Wiz, Qualys, Tenable and others in Vulnerability Management. Updated: April 2025.
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