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Qualys Web Application Scanning vs Semgrep comparison

 

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

Qualys Web Application Scan...
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
11th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (16th)
Semgrep
Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
18th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Supply Chain Management Software (3rd), Software Composition Analysis (SCA) (11th), Static Code Analysis (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Static Application Security Testing (SAST) category, the mindshare of Qualys Web Application Scanning is 1.9%, down from 2.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Semgrep is 2.5%, up 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 Scanning1.9%
Semgrep2.5%
Other95.6%
Static Application Security Testing (SAST)
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Manjunath Maneppagol - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud & Application Security at Sixt SE
Context-aware code analysis has reduced noise and now improves developer experience with actionable security findings
I have consistently observed that their scan time is an issue for mono repos. Sometimes with their AI-based scanning, when you triage that scan, the scan never completes or finishes(, which makes it difficult. Another consistent issue is that whenever you have a new repo to onboard to the platform, the tool ideally should detect the master branch by default. However, sometimes the tool fails to identify it and will never scan it unless manually somebody looks into it and fixes the issue. Although their support team is really good, this issue was present six or eight months ago during the POC and is still present now. If it is affecting multiple customers, it should be prioritized and fixed. I would say that their integration aspects could have been improved. I see a lot of different security solutions that provide flexibility to the security teams based on Jira project, team divisions, Slack, and all those can be very much easily customized. Semgrep needs to work on the enhancement of their notification capabilities. Currently, they are working on identifying business logic vulnerabilities or privilege escalation vulnerabilities by looking at the code, and they should continue to focus on and improve this effort. Regarding stability, whenever you have a mono-repo which is a very large repository, the scan never finishes or the scan never kicks in. At that time, you have to reach out to the support team and ask them to expand the resources in the back end to fix it. This is an issue I keep seeing often on that platform.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The interface is user-friendly and easy to understand."
"We can do scanning and submit reports straight to the customers when there are new vulnerabilities, then tell them whether they are affected or not."
"Licensing is the most valuable. Qualys provides the best licensing for companies. It is the best product for the development purposes of web applications. The product has a lot of integrations."
"It is a good product for website penetration testing to detect vulnerabilities."
"It scans web applications to identify vulnerabilities during deployment."
"Qualys' process of updating signatures is something we really appreciate, and it's way ahead of its industry peers."
"The advantage of Qualys Web Application Scanning lies in its user-friendly dashboard and appealing reports, which are useful for presentation to leadership."
"​This product is designed for easy scalability and can easily scale up ​without major challenges."
"The best part of Semgrep is its ease of integration with CI/CD pipelines and how it is a developer-friendly tool."
"Compared to other competitors in the market, the AI-backed capability is the biggest strength of Semgrep."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to write our custom rules."
 

Cons

"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 UI is not user-friendly and you don't have a yearly reporting facility where you can slice and dice in different jobs."
"The organization of the assets was a little confusing and overwhelming."
"The GUI could be a little less complicated as it opens a lot of new windows for creating search lists, templates, reports, or for scanning purposes."
"The solution needs to adjust its pricing. They should make it more affordable."
"In certain cases, this product does have false positives, which the company should work on."
"There should be better visibility into the application."
"The UI is not user-friendly and you don't have a yearly reporting facility where you can slice and dice in different jobs."
"There should be more information on how to acquire the system, catering to beginners in application security, to make it more user-friendly."
"I have consistently observed that their scan time is an issue; sometimes with their AI-based scanning, when you triage that scan, the scan never completes or finishes, which makes it difficult."
"However, as a tool it is really complex to maintain and to use, and it has a huge price tag."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pricing was reasonable and competitive. It was not too far above the other products."
"​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​."
"Qualys Web Application Scanning's pricing is a bit expensive compared to other solutions available in the market."
"From my perspective, it is a budget-friendly option."
"Licensing was based on the number of assets that you want to scan on your network. You can also do licensing on subscription. On subscription, it is easier and more flexible. You tell Qualys that you want to move from the 1000 to 2000 band or the 3000 or 5000 band, then they will give you the quotation for it. Once you pay for it, applying the licensing is quite easy and effective."
"The product is expensive, at least initially, in comparison to other products in this category."
"We normally purchase an annual license."
"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."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

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

Questions from the Community

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...
What needs improvement with Semgrep?
The coverage of Semgrep could be a bit better, as there are other tools that are more specialized in other areas of security. Semgrep as an SCA tool is adequate, but if you want to use some other p...
What is your primary use case for Semgrep?
I use Semgrep mainly for its software composition analysis capabilities to identify vulnerabilities in dependencies used in our applications. Every time a new feature is developed or a new version ...
What advice do you have for others considering Semgrep?
The first thing you need to do is to integrate Semgrep with your CI/CD pipelines and once they are running, invest time in reading documentation and getting yourself familiar with all of the produc...
 

Also Known As

Qualys WAS
Semgrep Code, Semgrep Supply Chain, Semgrep AppSec Platform
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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.
Policygenius, Tide, Lyft, Thinkific, FloQast, Vanta, and Fareportal
Find out what your peers are saying about Qualys Web Application Scanning vs. Semgrep and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,244 professionals have used our research since 2012.