Qualys VMDR vs XM Cyber comparison

Qualys and XM Cyber are both solutions in the Vulnerability Management category. Qualys is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.6, while XM Cyber is ranked #31 with an average rating of 8.5. Qualys holds a 6.4% mindshare in VM, compared to XM Cyber’s 1.1% mindshare. Additionally, 94% of Qualys users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of XM Cyber users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 19, 2025

Qualys VMDR and XM Cyber compete in the vulnerability management and security domain. XM Cyber is often favored for its threat emulation capabilities, while Qualys VMDR excels in vulnerability scanning features.

Features: Qualys VMDR provides vulnerability assessment, asset management, and automatic remediation across environments. XM Cyber offers continuous attack simulations, breach analysis, and proactive threat management.

Room for Improvement: Qualys VMDR could enhance its user interface and integration capabilities. XM Cyber might expand its range of threat scenarios and improve its reporting features.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Qualys VMDR's deployment is straightforward with robust technical support and various integration options. XM Cyber emphasizes flexible deployment and customer service, focusing on enhancing client communication and support strategies.

Pricing and ROI: Qualys VMDR has a more attractive initial setup cost, providing significant long-term returns through comprehensive network security features. XM Cyber, despite higher initial costs, is seen as an investment in advanced security measures, balancing its expense with extensive security benefits over time.

To learn more, read our detailed Qualys VMDR vs. XM Cyber Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Qualys VMDR vs. XM Cyber

September 2025

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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

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Vulnerability Management category, the mindshare of Zafran Security is 1.0%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Qualys VMDR is 6.4%, down from 10.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of XM Cyber is 1.1%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Vulnerability Management Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Qualys VMDR	6.4%
Zafran Security	1.0%
XM Cyber	1.1%
Other	91.5%

Vulnerability Management

Featured Reviews

Israel Cavazos Landini

Associate Director IT Security Operations at a pharma/biotech company with 10,001+ employees

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.

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Ankesh Raj

Information Security Analyst at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

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.

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Stephen Owen

Group CISO at a insurance company with 51-200 employees

Has significantly improved risk visibility and optimized remediation efforts across dynamic environments

We tightly integrate with APIs, consuming feeds and open source data. We have integrated with XM Cyber, and we are elevating ourselves with AI and MCP tools as we view this as a forerunner to reducing the workload for our agents and IT staff. We're pushing all our security partners to provide AI and MCP tools. Our vision is for them to offer a chat interface where a junior IT or an experienced infrastructure engineer can ask for what needs to be patched next without using an interface. Their current interface is very usable and professional, ranking in the top tier of applications. Their reporting is good, offering custom reports, and their API integration is a new capability that serves us well. We have high expectations for the next generation, such as a chat interface to ask questions. However, everything has been very good. We push the boundaries with digital twins; I understand XM Cyber uses a similar concept of graph databases to map environments. I would like access to that and querying languages, enabling more informed business decisions. XM Cyber sees much of our estate, which is beneficial for making informed decisions, and we can harness those insights and data for business analytics. For instance, it could help us gain insights into change management—if a particular server impacts another and that server is supported by yet another server, we could glean significant insights for change management meetings.

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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."

"We saw benefits from Zafran Security almost immediately after deploying it."

"Overall, we have seen about eighty-seven percent reduction of the number of vulnerabilities that require urgency to remediate, specifically the number of criticals."

"We are able to see the real risk of a vulnerability on our environment with our security tools."

"Zafran is an excellent tool."

"It's a good product. After the scan our internet works well. It scans our security posture."

"Qualys VM's most valuable feature is automatic detection."

"The solution shows us classic categories, including high, medium, and low risks. It also shows critical items, and that gives us the advantage of prioritizing things."

"Qualys VM's best feature is vulnerability management."

"What I like about Qualys VM is the dashboard presentation. It's very good."

"Qualys VMDR has positively impacted my organization by reducing vulnerability exposure time through faster detection and patching, and it has improved compliance reporting with accurate and up-to-date data."

"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 integrations for this solution are very good. I use a different product for virtual patching of vulnerabilities and Qualys integrates well with that product."

More Qualys VMDR pros

"Since implementing XM Cyber, we have improved the way we are doing patching, focusing on the choke points in our patching cycle, and it improves the way we assess the risk."

"What I personally like very much, from my experience, is that it is very reliable."

"XM Cyber made it clear that browser vulnerabilities were the top priority because the platform was able to examine how vulnerabilities within our estate could be exploited and what the path would be from some bad actor in order to exploit those vulnerabilities."

"Six weeks into using XM Cyber, we saw a compelling return on investment—primarily in risk reduction, with a specific issue our other security tooling did not pick up but XM Cyber did, reducing IT remediation time and saving over 60,000 US dollars per year while significantly lowering our loss exposure amount."

"The platform's most valuable feature is attack simulation."

Cons

"The dashboarding and reporting functionality of Zafran Security is an area that definitely could use some improvements."

"I think the ability to have some enhanced reporting capabilities is something they can improve on, as they have good reports but we have asked for some specific reporting enhancements."

"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 helpful to have features for better tracking, including options for adding relevant owners or supporting groups for each asset."

"I would like to see this solution more developed and competitive in the Cloud space."

"They can tweak their UI since the new version seems a bit jumbled up, and the old UI was more user-friendly."

"There needs to be better documentation."

"The solution is a bit expensive if you do not have access to discounts."

"While Qualys VMDR is comprehensive, improvements in asset management functionality would be beneficial."

"There were some issues later with Qualys VMDR regarding security, specifically with numerous false positive reports."

"Qualys could be improved in its overall performance compared to other vulnerability management or scanning tools."

More Qualys VMDR cons

"There are many interesting things about XM Cyber, but the part that can be improved is the mobile exposure and the IBM i specific equipment."

"We'd like to see a cheaper price."

"XM Cyber could identify all areas of vulnerability. They could expand the identification span for different areas."

"We have high expectations for the next generation, such as a chat interface to ask questions."

"We have not saved any time or effort, but we can prove that the effort involved around vulnerability management has been better spent to greater effect, and we've been able to demonstrate that vulnerabilities that do represent a high risk have been remediated more rapidly and more effectively."

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

"Qualys Virtual Scanner Appliance isn't expensive right now. But the price for their product bundles could be better."

"Qualys VM is reasonably priced."

"An annual license for a single scanner costs around $3,000."

"The solution is expensive."

"The pricing and licensing for Qualys could be improved."

"The product is more expensive than that of any other vendor."

"The solution is reasonably priced for the value it provides."

"We have an annual contract for Qualys VMDR. I believe it's for either two years or five years."

More Qualys VMDR pricing and cost advice

"We have to pay standard licensing fees."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

11%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Retailer

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	20
Midsize Enterprise	12
Large Enterprise	69

No data available

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zafran Security?

Since we stood Zafran Security up in our private cloud, we handle the maintenance on our side. As we opted not to use...

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What needs improvement with Zafran Security?

In terms of areas for improvement, Zafran Security is doing a really great job as a new and emerging company. Oftenti...

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What is your primary use case for Zafran Security?

My use cases for Zafran Security revolve around two primary areas. One is around vulnerability management and priorit...

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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...

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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.

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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 n...

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What do you like most about XM Cyber?

The platform's most valuable feature is attack simulation.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for XM Cyber?

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing was that we have a large, complicated estate, and in the licens...

See all answers

What needs improvement with XM Cyber?

There are many interesting things about XM Cyber, but the part that can be improved is the mobile exposure and the IB...

See all answers

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Compared 20% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Zafran Security

October 2025

Download Zafran Security product report

Buyer's Guide

Qualys VMDR

October 2025

Download Qualys VMDR product report

Buyer's Guide

XM Cyber

October 2025

Download XM Cyber product report

Also Known As

No data available

Qualys VM, QualysGuard VM, Qualys Asset Inventory, Qualys Container Security

No data available

Overview

Zafran Security integrates with existing security tools to identify and mitigate vulnerabilities effectively, proving that most critical vulnerabilities are not exploitable, optimizing threat management.

Zafran Security introduces an innovative operating model for managing security threats and vulnerabilities. By leveraging the threat exposure management platform, it pinpoints and prioritizes exploitable vulnerabilities, reducing risk through immediate remediation. This platform enhances your hybrid cloud security by normalizing vulnerability signals and integrating specific IT context data, such as CVE runtime presence and internet asset reachability, into its analysis. No longer reliant on patch windows, Zafran Security allows you to manage risks actively.

What are the key features of Zafran Security?

Threat Exposure Management: Utilizes existing tools to prioritize vulnerabilities and manage threats.
Integrative Analysis: Combines security data with IT context for precise vulnerability management.
Real-time Risk Reduction: Enables immediate risk management without waiting for patches.
Hybrid Cloud Compatibility: Functions across diverse cloud environments for comprehensive security.

What benefits can users expect from Zafran Security?

Improved Security: Enhances protection by efficiently identifying and mitigating risks.
Cost Efficiency: Reduces unnecessary patching expenses by confirming non-exploitable vulnerabilities.
Time Savings: Frees developers to focus on root causes by handling immediate threats.
Comprehensive Insight: Offers a holistic view of security threats and vulnerabilities.

In industries where security is paramount, such as finance and healthcare, Zafran Security provides invaluable protection by ensuring that only exploitable vulnerabilities are addressed. It allows entities to maintain robust security measures while allocating resources efficiently, fitting seamlessly into existing security strategies.

Zafran Security

Vulnerability Management, Detection, and Response (VMDR) is a cornerstone product of the Qualys TruRisk Platform and a global leader in the enterprise-grade vulnerability management (VM) vendor space. With VMDR, enterprises are empowered with visibility and insight into cyber risk exposure - making it easy to prioritize vulnerabilities, assets, or groups of assets based on business risk. Security teams can take action to mitigate risk, helping the business measure their actual risk exposure over time.

Qualys VMDR offers an all-inclusive risk-based vulnerability management solution to prioritize vulnerabilities and assets based on risk and business criticality. VMDR seamlessly integrates with configuration management databases (CMDB), Qualys Patch Management, Custom Assessment and Remediation (CAR), Qualys TotalCloud and other Qualys and non-Qualys solutions to facilitate vulnerability detection and remediation across the entire enterprise.

With VMDR, users are empowered with actionable risk insights that translate vulnerabilities and exploits into optimized remediation actions based on business impact. Qualys customers can now aggregate and orchestrate data from the Qualys Threat Library, 25+ threat intelligence feeds, and third-party security and IT solutions, empowering organizations to measure, communicate, and eliminate risk across on-premises, hybrid, and cloud environments.

Qualys

XM Cyber is a leading hybrid cloud security company that’s changing the way innovative organizations approach cyber risk. Our attack path management platform continuously uncovers hidden attack paths to your critical assets across cloud and on-prem environments, so you can cut them off at key junctures and eradicate risk with a fraction of the effort. This overcomes the big disconnect that security teams experience when they’re presented with endless alerts, yet can’t see which exposures impact risk the most, how they come together to be exploited by an attacker, or how to efficiently eliminate them. This approach is a complete game-changer, which is why some of the world’s largest, most complex organizations choose XM Cyber to help eradicate risk. Founded by top executives from the Israeli cyber intelligence community, XM Cyber has offices in North America, Europe, and Israel.

XM Cyber

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

Hamburg Port Authority, Plymouth Rock Corporation

Buyer's Guide

Qualys VMDR vs. XM Cyber

September 2025

Free Report: Qualys VMDR vs. XM Cyber

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