10 Best Qualys Alternatives: Qualys Web Application Scanner

Select the best web application scanner based on this review and comparison of the top Qualys Alternatives and Competitors:

Qualys is a popular web application scanner that is primarily known for detecting application vulnerabilities earlier in a fast and accurate manner. The tool is a particular favorite of security teams because of its ability to identify and automatically catalog all web apps in the network, including unknown and new applications.

It performs dynamic deep scans that cover all types of apps, regardless of whether they are in perimeter, underdevelopment, or reside in the internal environment. The platform can perform scans on IoT services and mobile APIs for vulnerabilities. That being said, it is important to note that Qualys exclusively offers a cloud solution.

Qualys Alternatives Review

As such, it may not meet the needs and requirements that your business has concerning application security testing. Fortunately, Qualys isn’t the only platform that can identify and patch vulnerabilities. This article will look at tools that make for ideal alternatives to the cloud-based Qualys Web Application Scanner.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q #1) Who competes with Qualys?

Answer: Qualys has been around for a while now. At that time, it has gone head to head with many competitors. Here are some of its most known competitors:

1. Indusface
2. Invicti (formerly Netsparker)
3. Acunetix
4. Intruder
5. Zscaler
6. Veracode

Q #2) Why Qualys is used?

Answer: Qualys is a cloud-based web application scanner that is known for proactively locating and assessing vulnerabilities in an application or website. It automatically classifies vulnerabilities based on the severity of their threat so security teams can prioritize their remedial response.

Qualys can perform deep scans on IoT services and mobile applications to identify both known and undocumented vulnerabilities with actionable insights on how to deal with them.

Q #3) Is Qualys open source?

Answer: Qualys is a provider of multiple commercial web application scanning and security testing tools. It has recently released its own open-source web application fingerprinting tool called BlindElephant.

BlindElephant can identify application and plugin versions of them via static files. This new version features a powerful fingerprinting engine that is incredibly fast and accurate.

Q #4) Is Qualys a DAST?

Answer: Yes, Qualys is a good Dynamic Application Security Testing tool. It can run security tests on an application for vulnerabilities while the application is still running.

With DAST, you are testing the application from the outside in. So a developer isn’t aware of the framework with which the application was built. This method also means that the vulnerability will be identified at the end of a software’s development lifecycle.

Q #5) What does API stand for and does Qualys perform scans on APIs?

Answer: Yes, Qualys can examine APIs for vulnerabilities, mainly mobile APIs. API, also known as Application Programming Interface, refers to a set of protocols and definitions that are required to build and integrate an application software. APIs help your product or service communicate with other products or services without being aware of how they were implemented.

List of the Top Qualys Alternatives

Here is an updated list of noteworthy Qualys Competitors:

1. Indusface WAS
2. Invicti (formerly Netsparker)
3. Acunetix
4. Intruder
5. ManageEngine Vulnerability Manager Plus
6. Zscaler
7. Veracode
8. Rapid7 InsightVM
9. Tenable
10. Burp Suite
11. Bluecoat
12. Netskope

Comparing Some of the Best Qualys Competitors

Name	Best For	Fees	Ratings
Indusface WAS	A complete scanning solution with vulnerability assessment, application audit, and malware monitoring.	Basic: Free, Advanced: $49/app/month, Premium: $199/app/month.
Invicti (formerly Netsparker)	Dynamic, Interactive, and Proof Based Scanning	Contact for Quote
Acunetix	Perform fast and Accurate Scans to detect over 7000 different types of vulnerabilities.	Contact for Quote
Intruder	Vulnerability Verification and Threat-Severity Analysis	Essential: $113/month Pro: $182/month Custom plan also available
ManageEngine Vulnerability Manager Plus	Enterprise Vulnerability Management for detection and remediation of vulnerabilities, misconfigurations and much more.	US $695 For 100 workstations/ year
Zscaler	Preventing Ransomware, Phishing, and Zero-Day Attacks	Contact for Quote
Veracode	Discover, Assess and Remediate Vulnerabilities.	Contact for Quote

Best Qualys WAS Alternatives review:

#1) Indusface WAS

Best for a complete vulnerability assessment with application audit (web, mobile and API), infrastructure scan, penetration testing and malware monitoring.

Indusface WAS helps in vulnerability testing for web, mobile, and API applications. The scanner is a powerful combination of applications, Infrastructure, and Malware scanner. The 24X7 support helps development teams with detailed remediation guidance and removal of false positives.

The solution is efficient with the detection of common application vulnerabilities that are validated by OWASP and WASC. It can immediately detect vulnerabilities that occurred because of application changes & updates.

Features:

• Zero false positive guarantee with unlimited manual validation of vulnerabilities found in the DAST scan report.
• 24X7 support to discuss remediation guidelines and proofs of vulnerabilities.
• Penetration testing for web, mobile and API apps.
• Free trial with a comprehensive single scan and no credit card required.
• Integration with Indusface AppTrana WAF to provide instant virtual patching with a zero false positive guarantee.
• Graybox scanning support with the ability to add credentials and then perform scans.
• Single dashboard for DAST scan and pen testing reports.
• Ability to automatically expand crawl coverage based on actual traffic data from the WAF system (in case AppTrana WAF is subscribed and used).
• Check for Malware infection, the reputation of the links in the website, defacement and broken links.

Verdict: Indusface offers a fully-managed SaaS-Based Web Application Security solution. It provides a centralized dashboard for manual PT & automated scans which is an added advantage.

Price: Indusface WAS offers a free plan. It has two more plans, Premium ($199 per app per month) and Advance ($49 per app per month). All these prices are for annual billing. A free trial is available with the Advance plan.

#2) Invicti (formerly Netsparker)

Best for dynamic, interactive, and proof-based scanning.

Invicti is a full-featured web application vulnerability scanner that can be easily integrated into your SDLC. It is a rare platform that operates on proof-based scanning technology. It verifies all detected vulnerabilities in a read-only, open environment. Invicti can also generate proof of exploit to prove whether a detected vulnerability is a false positive.

Invicti comes equipped with a state-of-the-art application discovery system, which means it can scan and secure all your web assets. It can perform scans on all types of web applications, services, and APIs. It can also detect all types of vulnerabilities, thanks to its combined dynamic and interactive approach to scanning.

It features a visualized dashboard, which can get a holistic snapshot of your scan activity, identified vulnerability, and web assets. The dashboard can manage user permissions and assign vulnerabilities to security teams for remediation.

Invicti tool also combines signature and behavior-based analysis for dead-accurate and fast vulnerability detection. The platform also offers detailed documentation on all detected vulnerabilities. The report can demonstrate compliance and help security teams take appropriate remedial actions.

The tool also integrates seamlessly with most current third-party systems being used by your enterprise.

Features:

• Proof based scanning
• DAST+IAST security testing
• Detailed report generation
• Seamless Integration with third-party tools
• Full web asset discovery

Verdict: Unlike Qualys, Invicti is a full-featured cloud-based and on-premises web application scanner that identifies, monitors, and assesses vulnerabilities. Invicti is available in several editions, thus fulfilling all types of business security needs and requirements. It is a rare solution that features ‘Proof Based Scanning’. It is, definitely, one of the best alternatives to Qualys out there.

Price: Contact for quote

#3) Acunetix

Best for performing fast and accurate scans to detect over 7000 different types of vulnerabilities.

Acunetix is an intuitive web application scanner that is ideal for non-technical employees, simply because of how easy it is to configure and deploy. The platform can perform superfast scans without overloading the server. It can run scans on complex web applications, services, and APIs. It can detect over 7000 vulnerabilities.

Acunetix operates on ‘Advanced Macro Recording’ technology that allows you to even scan complex multi-level forms and password-protected areas of a site. It can automatically verify all types of vulnerabilities to reduce false positives.

It also automatically classifies all security threats based on how severe they are. Security teams can prioritize their response.

It can schedule full and incremental scans according to business requirements and traffic loads. The scans can be scheduled to initiate assessment automatically on a daily or weekly basis, as per your preference. It can also generate excellent compliance and technical reports.

Acunetix also integrates seamlessly with most current tracking systems like Jira, Azure DevOps, and GitLab.

Features:

• Advanced macro recording
• Automated vulnerability verification
• Automatic vulnerability classification
• Detailed technical and compliance report generation
• Schedule scans

Verdict: Acunetix is a simple-to-configure, superfast vulnerability scanner that can accurately detect over 7000 different types of vulnerabilities. It can be used to both schedule and prioritize scans. The platform also verifies all detected vulnerabilities so security teams aren’t wasting time dealing with false positives.

Price: Contact for quote

#4) Intruder

Best for vulnerability verification and threat-severity analysis.

Similar to Qualys, Intruder features a comprehensive web asset discovery system. The platform can scan all public and privately accessible devices, thanks to its enterprise-grade scan engine. The tool can accurately detect vulnerabilities like SQL injections, XSS, misconfiguration, weak passwords, and others.

Intruder can verify all detected vulnerabilities to reduce false positives. It also classifies all vulnerabilities based on the severity of their threat, thus allowing security teams to focus on issues that are more urgent and serious. Intruder also provides intuitive, actionable insights that help with the remedial process.

Features:

• Automated vulnerability verification
• Attack surface monitoring
• Compliance and technical report generation
• Continuous, automated vulnerability management

Verdict: Intruder offers a powerful enterprise-grade scan engine that discovers all types of web assets on your network. It presents actionable insights that make patching vulnerabilities simple. It also generates compliance reports that help businesses pass company security audits.

Price: Intruder offers 3 pricing plans. They are as follows:

• Essential: $113/month
• Pro: $182/month
• Custom plans are also available

A 14-day free trial is also available.

#5) ManageEngine Vulnerability Manager Plus

Best for offering a wide range of security features and capabilities to detect and mitigate vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and much more.

ManageEngine Vulnerability Manager Plus is a prioritization-focused threat and vulnerability management software for enterprises offering built-in patch management. It’s a strategic solution for delivering comprehensive visibility, assessment, remediation, and reporting of vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and other security loopholes across the enterprise network from a centralized console.

The assessment feature in Vulnerability Manager Plus allows you to identify vulnerabilities in their context to understand their urgency and impact, so that you can promptly remediate imminent risks. Vulnerability Manager Plus streamlines the entire workflow – right from detection, assessment and prioritization of vulnerabilities to eliminating them with an automated patching module – from a centralized console for timely and accurate risk reduction.

Features:

• Assess & prioritize exploitable and impactful vulnerabilities with a risk-based vulnerability assessment and remediate them with in-built patching module.
• Identify zero-days vulnerabilities and implement workarounds before fixes arrive.
• Continually detect & remediate misconfigurations with security configuration management.
• Audit end-of-life software, peer-to-peer & insecure remote desktop sharing software and active ports in your network.

Verdict: Qualys is a web application scanner that is known for discovering and assessing vulnerabilities in an applications whereas ManageEngine Vulnerability Manager Plus is a multi-OS solution that not only offers vulnerability detection but also provides built-in remediation for vulnerabilities.

Vulnerability Manager Plus offers a wide variety of security features such as security configuration management, automated patching, web server hardening, and high-risk software auditing to maintain a secure foundation for your endpoints.

#6) Zscaler

Best for preventing ransomware, phishing, and zero-day attacks.

Zscaler is a cloud-security program that moves your IT infrastructure’s security to the cloud. The platform facilitates full SSL visibility, wherein SSL across all ports and protocols are inspected for vulnerabilities. The platform is ideal for preventing ransomware, phishing, Zero-Day, and other such types of cyber threats.

Zscaler’s security cloud is known for processing over 160 billion transactions regularly. It not only detects and notifies you of a threat’s presence, but also blocks them before they can cause harm. The system comes fully integrated with policies and contextual visibility, which helps in early and accurate threat detection.

Features:

• Direct-to-cloud security solution.
• Fully integrated policies and threat intelligence.
• Instant threat detection blocking.
• Full SSL visibility.

Verdict: Zscaler provides you with an all-around security cover by essentially moving your system’s security to the cloud. It facilitates full SSL visibility and is ideal for preventing multiple cyber threats like Phishing and Zero-Day attacks. We also like its ability to proactively block threats before they aggravate.

Price: Contact for quote

Website: Zscaler

#7) Veracode

Best for discover, assess and remediate vulnerabilities.

Veracode is an intuitive application vulnerability scanner that can discover, monitor, and secure all types of web applications. The platform performs lightweight scans to detect thousands of vulnerabilities and their variants. It not only identifies them but also automatically catalogs them based on how severe they are as threats.

The software comes fully integrated and helps you build security throughout your software’s development lifecycle. Moreover, Veracode can also identify critical applications and perform authenticated scans on them while simultaneously monitoring your system’s entire network for potential weaknesses.

Features:

• Fully integrated
• Continuous, automated scans
• Automatic cataloging of detected applications
• Perform authenticated scans

Verdict: Veracode features a powerful scan engine that can detect, monitor, and assess system applications for known and unknown vulnerabilities. It stands out because of its ability to perform lightweight and authenticated scans. Its automatic application cataloging ability makes it one of the best alternatives we have to Qualys WAS.

Price: Contact for quote

Website: Veracode

#8) Rapid7 InsightVM

Best for risk-based security prioritization.

Rapid7 provides full coverage to your business’s entire IT portfolio. It accurately detects and assesses all types of web assets on your network for potential vulnerabilities. It automatically verifies identified vulnerabilities to ensure no false positives are reported.

It also determines which vulnerabilities pose a greater threat, thus helping security teams prioritize their response.

The platform features an advanced automation system. It automates steps that lead up to the gathering of key metrics for vulnerability assessment, finding fixes for them, and deploying them upon approval from the authorized admin. Data collected on vulnerabilities is also presented to users with the help of a comprehensive visual dashboard.

Features:

• Centralized visual dashboard
• Full system visibility
• Automatic vulnerability verification
• Risk-based vulnerability prioritization

Verdict: Rapid7 is the provider of a wide range of security and vulnerability management tools. Perhaps InsightVM is the best among its offerings. It is intuitive, automated, and smartly uses the data it gathers to determine which detected threats are serious and which aren’t.

This helps security teams save a lot of time that would otherwise be wasted dealing with false positives and benign threats.

Price: Pricing starts at $1.84/month per asset for protecting 500 assets.

Website: Rapid7 InsightVM

#9) Tenable

Best for creating new custom scans easily.

Tenable is one of those rare vulnerability management service providers that allows you to create custom scans within minutes. The scans you create and perform instantly generate actionable insights that can manage and patch identified vulnerabilities. One of the largest security development teams in the industry built it.

Perhaps this explains why it is so fast, accurate, and efficient in detecting and assessing vulnerabilities. The platform grants you full visibility across your cloud, IT, and web applications.

Tenable reduces false positives by verifying all detected vulnerabilities. It also assigns all detected vulnerabilities with a threat- severity level so security teams know which threats are severe and which aren’t.

Features:

• Automatic vulnerability verification
• Comprehensive full system vulnerability
• Centralized visual dashboard
• Risk-based security threat assessment

Verdict: Tenable is a modern, advanced, and suitably automated vulnerability management tool that will help you proactively detect and fix vulnerabilities. It also takes a risk-based approach to a security assessment by identifying false positives and assigning threat-severity ranks to identified vulnerabilities.

Price: Subscription starts at $2275 per year to protect 65 assets.

Website: Tenable

#10) Burp Suite

Best for patching zero-day vulnerabilities.

Burp Suite is a solution that facilitates continuous automated vulnerability scanning across your entire IT portfolio. It integrates seamlessly with most current CI/CD tracking systems for enhanced performance.

The tool is especially ideal for its ability to identify and patch zero-day and other exotic vulnerabilities. It performs a thorough analysis of detected vulnerabilities to provide appropriate remedial advice.

The platform features a comprehensive visual dashboard that presents all key metrics about scan activity and detected vulnerability as stats and graphs.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this tool is its provision of multiple application security testing methods. The tool combines IAST, DAST, SAS, OAST, and SCA methods of security testing to catch critical vulnerabilities without fail.

Features:

• Facilitates multiple application security testing methods.
• Seamless CI/CD integration.
• Comprehensive report generation with actionable insights.
• Full IT Portfolio visibility.

Verdict: Burp Suite comes with a major caveat. It does not feature the ability to automatically verify vulnerabilities for false positives. It is also not suitable for non-technical professionals. Aside from this, there is plenty to admire in what Burp Suite offers.

Burp Suite can be used to perform scheduled, recurring scans across all your web assets without a hassle.

Price – Free plan available, Professional Edition – $399. Enterprise Edition with three Plans – $5595 per year for the Starter plan, $11,580 per year for Grow plan, $23550 per year for Accelerate plan.

Website: Burp Suite

#11) Bluecoat

Best for AI-driven DevOps.

Bluecoat is a DevOps tool that combines agile planning, CI/CD automation, and intuitive AI-driven insights. It is an effective tool for developers who want to integrate security into the software development process. It leverages insights from a vast threat intelligence database to detect all types of vulnerabilities.

The rapid continuous insight provided by Bluecoat can be used to write better, more secure codes, thus improving the quality of software. This also helps developers catch vulnerabilities early in the software development stage.

Features:

• Continuous, automated security testing
• CI/CD automation
• AI-driven insights
• Eliminate QA bottlenecks

Verdict: Bluecoat is not for everyone. It is a tool specifically designed to help developers improve the security of the software or application they are building. In that regard, the tool becomes an ideal alternative to Qualys for developers. Its AI-driven approach to research and insight ultimately makes it truly shine.

Price: Contact for quote

Website: Bluecoat

#12) Netskope

Best for cloud-based security testing.

Netskope is a cloud-based application security scanner that can assess cloud services, private apps, and websites from any location. The platform provides full comprehensive visibility, covering all web assets on your IT network’s portfolio. The platform is capable of finding sensitive data that has been exposed and dispatches actionable policies to fix the issue.

The platform provides formidable protection action against web-based and cloud threats. Netskope can identify threats and quarantine them in real-time. The platform also proactively applies contextual policies for managed and unmanaged devices.

Features:

• Protection from the cloud and web-based threats
• Adaptive access control
• Ensure compliance in Cloud
• Full Comprehensive IT infrastructure visibility

Verdict: Netskope makes assessing cloud services, applications, and websites easy for detecting and automatically deploying suitable fixes. The platform makes security testing more efficient because of the unparalleled visibility, real-time data, and threat protection it offers.

Price: Contact for quote

Website: Netskope

Conclusion

Qualys is a very effective cloud-based application security scanner. It discovers all web assets on your network and catalogs them based on how important they are to your business.

The platform can detect almost all types of vulnerabilities, regardless of whether they are known or undocumented. It is also spectacular when it comes to the security testing of IoT services and mobile APIs.

However, it only offers cloud-based solutions. Its offerings may not satisfy needs and requirements specific to your enterprise.

Further Reading =>> Hands-on Acunetix Web Vulnerability Scanner Review

Fortunately, Qualys isn’t the only solution out there that performs application security testing. All of the above-mentioned tools qualify as better alternatives to Qualys because of a single or the many features they offer that rival the cloud-based solution in terms of quality.

As for our recommendation, if you want powerful vulnerability scanning tools that are easy to configure, perform lightning-fast scans, detect all types of vulnerabilities and generate excellent reports, then look no further than Acunetix and Invicti (formerly Netsparker).

Research Process:

• We spent 13 hours researching and writing this article so you can have summarized and insightful information on which Qualys Alternatives will best suit you.
• Total Qualys Alternatives researched – 25
• Total Qualys Alternatives shortlisted – 10