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Sysdig Secure vs Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 8, 2026

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 TotalCloud
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (11th), 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)
Sysdig Secure
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Container Security (18th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (24th), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (17th), Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) (9th), AI Observability (25th)
Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange...
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
67
Ranking in other categories
Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (5th), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (8th), Application Control (4th), ZTNA as a Service (1st), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (2nd), Remote Browser Isolation (RBI) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Sysdig Secure3.3%
Wiz13.8%
Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks11.0%
Other71.9%
Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP)
Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform8.9%
Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks10.4%
Cato SASE Cloud Platform8.7%
Other72.0%
Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)
 

Featured Reviews

RO
IT Security Expert at Alior Bank S.A.
Unified risk scoring has improved our cloud visibility and simplifies remediation priorities
Qualys TotalCloud provides unified vulnerability and threat assessment across both IAS and SaaS. This solution provides a single prioritized view of risk, which helps reduce the work I would have to do. We are no longer based on CVSS; we are based on Qualys risk scoring, which is based on CVSS plus internal findings made by Qualys, and then assigns its own score. The TruRisk insight feature has found a small number of assets with high vulnerability scores, though I am cautious since some information is classified. Qualys TotalCloud has positively impacted our bank's performance, and we have definitely seen benefits after implementing this solution.
MM
DevSecOps Engineer at a outsourcing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Runtime threat detection has improved and security teams prioritize real Kubernetes risks
The best feature Sysdig Secure offers is threat detection. The threat detection feature on Sysdig Secure stands out compared to other solutions I have seen or used because Sysdig sees the actual behavior inside the container or kernel and correlates it with Kubernetes infrastructure, which makes detection both earlier and more precise in a cloud-native environment. Sysdig Secure has positively impacted our organization by improving visibility into our Kubernetes environment and focusing on real risk, which has reduced alert noise, improved threat detection at runtime, and made vulnerability management more efficient by prioritizing issues that actually affect running workloads.
Vibin Thomas - PeerSpot reviewer
Team Lead, Technical Content Security at Valuepoint Systems
Zero trust access has transformed remote connectivity and now simplifies secure app usage
Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform, especially Zscaler Private Access, is very strong, though there are a few areas where improvements can be made. One challenge observed is around initial troubleshooting and visibility. While Zscaler Private Access provides logs, it can sometimes take time to pinpoint the exact cause of access issues, especially in complex environments with multiple policies and identity integration. Another area is the dependency on identity and connector health. Since Zscaler Private Access is heavily reliant on app connectors and identity providers, any issues with these components can impact user access, making proper monitoring critical. During the initial setup, policy configuration and application onboarding require careful planning, especially for larger environments with many applications. These challenges are manageable with proper design and monitoring. Overall, the platform delivers strong security and user experience. I would recommend a few improvements, especially around user interface, reporting, and troubleshooting experience. From a user interface perspective, while the platform is powerful, the policy configuration and navigation can feel complex, especially for new users. A more simplified and intuitive layout for policy mapping and application access would help reduce the learning curve. In terms of reporting, Zscaler Private Access provides logs, but having more built-in customizable dashboards and analytics would be very helpful. Better visibility into user access patterns, application performance, and real-time troubleshooting insights would improve operational efficiency. From a support and troubleshooting standpoint, it would be beneficial to have more granular centralized visibility, allowing for quick end-to-end tracing of a user request from authentication to application access without switching between multiple views. These improvements would make the platform even more efficient, especially for large-scale enterprise environments.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"In my opinion, this is the best tool."
"I would rate Qualys TotalCloud ten out of ten."
"With TotalCloud, we can scan through the API. If we are not able to deploy cloud agents on the machine, we can use the API."
"TotalCloud's best feature is the integration of cloud accounts. It helps with the risk and security posture management of our cloud infrastructure."
"The best features in Qualys TotalCloud include the total asset management of the cloud environment. It is very easy to export the report and see the vulnerabilities related to the cloud specifically."
"If I had to say something positive about the product that brings me the biggest benefit, I would say it has accurate reports, gets new update CVEs, zero-day attack detection, and is easy to manage with its GUI."
"Qualys TotalCloud has positively impacted our bank's performance, and we have definitely seen benefits after implementing this solution."
"Qualys TotalCloud has significantly improved our organization by automating our reporting processes, reducing the time spent on report creation from two hours to less than fifteen to twenty minutes."
"Sysdig Secure has many strong foundational features like compliance and benchmark, security, network access management, and vulnerability management."
"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."
"Sysdig Secure has positively impacted our organization by improving visibility into our Kubernetes environment and focusing on real risk, which has reduced alert noise, improved threat detection at runtime, and made vulnerability management more efficient by prioritizing issues that actually affect running workloads."
"I see Sysdig as the most comprehensive solution in comparison to its competitors."
"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."
"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."
"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 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."
"Sandboxing, DLP, and SSL inspection engine are the most valuable features of Zscaler SASE."
"Subsequently, after this, there is a huge reduction, as the vulnerabilities, especially the security bugs that were coming prior to Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform, were about 20,000 to 22,000 and have come down more than 40 percent, which is definitely an advantage over the previous product."
"It is easy to use."
"It has been helpful in maintaining our infrastructure. The granular level control it offers allows us to set application policies per application for each user."
"I like the web filtering capabilities."
"Users get direct secure access to applications over the internet."
"It has some good data security and WIP features, providing secure Internet access."
"The most valuable feature of Zscaler Private Access is the categorization of the dynamic URLs which keeps the customer's environment protected. The threats and the malware are correctly categorized."
 

Cons

"There should be improvement from a dashboard perspective when collecting and showcasing data to lead management."
"The areas in the solution that have room for improvement include the UI/UX design, which should be improved, and they should integrate more artificial intelligence into the product."
"Qualys TotalCloud's increasing complexity, due to the development and deployment of multiple solutions, is making the GUI difficult to navigate."
"The support is not up to the mark and seems to be overburdened."
"Two areas for improvement in Qualys TotalCloud are the speed of the public cloud platform and vulnerability detection."
"There should be improvement from a dashboard perspective when collecting and showcasing data to lead management."
"Qualys TotalCloud needs to enhance its scanning capabilities in the IP domain, as it currently lacks the functionality to resolve IPs to their corresponding domain names."
"The main area needing improvement is integration. Although the team is strengthening TotalCloud, integration can be enhanced with SIEM, SOAR, ITSM, and other sources."
"The solution needs to improve overall from a CSPM standpoint since they can't compete with Wiz or Orca."
"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."
"They should make it specific with a couple of features only."
"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."
"Banks and financial institutions cannot use Sysdig Secure because it doesn't sell SaaS-hosted versions for under two hundred working nodes."
"There was a security concern related to a specific feature. While the feature itself was promising, it posed a challenge. The situation revolved around code scanning. If your source code is hosted within your own premises, say on Bitbucket, you naturally wouldn't want your code to be accessible to external parties beyond your company. Keeping your code base private is a standard practice. However, in the case of code scanning using Sysdig Secure, they copy your code to their SaaS platform. This posed an issue for us. When we inquired about this, their response acknowledged the concern. In an upcoming release, they plan to enable code scanning within your on-premises environment through the assistance of an agent. This change is already in progress. While this tool stands out compared to existing solutions in the market, it's important to note that there are still some limitations to consider. Another drawback we encountered relates to our expertise with Kubernetes. The tool can monitor Kubernetes audit logs, triggering alerts and notifications. However, it falls short in terms of taking direct action based on these alerts. There are different methods of event capture, including through system labels and system calls, as well as via Kubernetes audit events. Notably, at the system level, Sysdig Secure can both detect and respond to events, allowing actions like blocking and warning. This proactive approach is effective at the system call level. However, when it comes to monitoring Kubernetes audit events, Sysdig Secure can only notify without being able to execute any further actions. It can't block access or containers. The vendor likened their role to that of a monitoring camera, observing events and sending notifications without the capacity to intervene. This limitation applies to Kubernetes audit events. Given that everything operates within our system, there is a workaround available: configuring system-level policies to block containers as necessary."
"Sysdig Secure works well for us, but there are a few areas for improvement, such as the alerting and notification system being more flexible for complex workflows, and some dashboard and reporting features could be more customizable to match specific team needs."
"Sysdig Secure needs to scale more for complete cloud-native coverage."
"There could be more DLP-related features. Additionally, there needs to be flexibility for integrating ISP features."
"The solution's granularity should be improved because it has limited granular options to control, visible, allow, block, delay, and receive."
"There could be additional ways to define proximity. Additionally, they should provide some exclusion options for specific policies and an ability to control the DLP engine."
"Another area of improvement is implementation through non-client connectors. The solution can be implemented in two ways. One uses the back file; the other one uses client connectors. So the client connector is pretty fast, but when it comes to non-client connectors and procedures, it's kind of delayed and slow."
"The solution needs to improve a lot of aspects."
"Zscaler CASB should include integrations with other SaaS applications."
"In the next release, I would like to see RE2 Regex supported."
"What could be improved in Zscaler Private Access is its notification. For example, if there's a speed issue, there should be a pop-up that alerts the user about it. If there is a network quality issue, for example, it isn't good enough to connect to, or the network quality is bad, there should be a notification from the solution. Zscaler Private Access also needs improvement in terms of its interface and security."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"As a middle management member, I do not have direct pricing knowledge, but based on the knowledge from our meetings, its pricing is competitive."
"While Qualys TotalCloud's pricing is currently acceptable, it is becoming increasingly expensive and may soon be considered overpriced."
"Although Qualys TotalCloud is relatively expensive due to its unique automation features, its cost-effectiveness is rated an eight out of ten, with ten being the most costly."
"Qualys TotalCloud is cost-efficient and was selected for its value compared to other products."
"The pricing is comparable. It is built into our other product, so I cannot piecemeal it. It is a part of our subscription."
"TotalCloud's price is about right where I would expect it to be."
"Qualys TotalCloud offers competitive pricing given its comprehensive suite of features, including integration, assessment, remediation, and detection capabilities, all within a single platform."
"It isn't cheap, but it's reasonable. It helps us to manage things with very few resources."
"The solution's pricing depends on the agents...In short, the price depends on the environment of its user."
"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."
"It is quite costly compared to other tools."
"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."
"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."
"Zscaler CASB is an expensive solution."
"It is an auto-renewal subscription service."
"The product is a little more expensive than other tools."
"The solution is expensive."
"It has been relatively reasonable for what it does. Some of the additional license costs based on the advanced next-generation firewall functions are quite high, and they should have certain features ready and available as a baseline rather than having to purchase additional licenses for it. Overall, the cost seems reasonable."
"The technical support is good."
"Zscaler Private Access is extremely expensive."
"The solution has increased prices this year."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Outsourcing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Insurance Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise28
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise45
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Qualys TotalCloud?
Areas that need improvement in every solution include the remediation part. The remediation steps should be simple en...
What is your primary use case for Qualys TotalCloud?
Our use case involves the assets that we have under cloud, the assets exposed to the internet, and the internal appli...
What needs improvement with Sysdig Secure?
Sysdig Secure works well for us, but there are a few areas for improvement, such as the alerting and notification sys...
What is your primary use case for Sysdig Secure?
Our primary use case for Sysdig Secure is runtime threat detection and vulnerability management.
What advice do you have for others considering Sysdig Secure?
My advice for others looking into using Sysdig Secure is to clearly define your primary use case before getting start...
What is the better solution - Prisma Access or Zscaler Private Access?
We looked into Prisma Access before choosing Zscaler Private Access (ZPA). Palo Alto’s Prisma Access is a secure ac...
What needs improvement with Zscaler SASE?
The solution needs to improve a lot of aspects.
What is your primary use case for Zscaler SASE?
We are using Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange for its Zscaler Internet Access service. It provides web security, DLP, data...
 

Also Known As

Qualys TotalCloud with FlexScan
No data available
Zscaler SASE, Zscaler DLP, Zscaler CASB, Zscaler CSPM, Zscaler Browser Isolation, Zscaler Posture Control
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
SAP Concur, Goldman Sachs, Worldpay, Experian, BigCommerce, Arkose Labs, Calendly, Noteable, Bloomreach. More here: https://sysdig.com/customers/
Siemens, AutoNation, GE, NOV
Find out what your peers are saying about Sysdig Secure vs. Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
896,202 professionals have used our research since 2012.