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Cisco SecureX [EOL] vs Qualys Web Application Scanning 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

Cisco SecureX [EOL]
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.2
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Qualys Web Application Scan...
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (16th), Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (11th)
 

Featured Reviews

Alon K - PeerSpot reviewer
CTO & VP of Cyber Solutions, Israel at Rockwell Automation
Gives our customers visibility and they don't have to go multiple management consoles anymore
One of the examples is related to forensics. The forensics are amazing because when you have enrichment, and the solutions talk with each other, when you need it, you have the ability to know everything in the organization: when, why, whatever. With just one click you have information from email, from the endpoint, from the web. Let's say that tomorrow morning, you have a ransom[ware] attack in your organization and you would like to know from which email it came, or where the customer saved the file, even though the incident didn't occur at the same moment. With SecureX, you have Cisco Threat Response inside. [With] one click, you get all of the flow. That's amazing value. That also releases resources for our customers. The customers don't have to connect many systems and try to register the event on each system, or to go to the SIEM and do a correlation. That's the one-stop shop for the customers, and that's amazing.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Integrates well with our existing security infrastructure."
"Using SecureX, we can aggregate the data from all our security products, automate many of our tasks that we had to do manually before, save a huge amount of time, and provide many reports about usage of our systems and networks to our leaders and managers to show what we can do to make our security better."
"When it comes as a business bundle, we come to customers to provide a one-stop shop, and we provide a return of value on human resources, with an XDR SecureX platform offer that customers love."
"SecureX definitely provides us with contextual awareness throughout our security ecosystem, since it allows us to integrate multiple threat intelligence feeds, as well as multiple security appliances and platforms."
"Its cybersecurity and resilience have been extremely important for our organization."
"SecureX enables us to have all the threat intelligence and threat event data in one place."
"The ability to create firewalls online has been most valuable including the ability to create rules."
"The forensics are amazing because when you have enrichment, and the solutions talk with each other, when you need it, you have the ability to know everything in the organization: when, why, whatever."
"What I remember from my experience with Qualys is that the simplicity of exporting reports and the simplicity and clarity of the reports included with the product is good."
"Qualys' process of updating signatures is something we really appreciate, and it's way ahead of its industry peers."
"Network scanner has good reporting, coverage was also good."
"The interface is user-friendly and easy to understand."
"The features of Qualys Web Application Scanning are impressive as the scan is faster and gets completed quickly, the dashboards look great, the option for scheduled scans makes it fully automated, and customizable reports can be downloaded anytime in CSV, PDF, or whichever format required."
"Qualys Web Application Scanning is robust and mature from industry standards."
"The most valuable features are scanning analysis and reporting."
"Qualys' process of updating signatures is something we really appreciate, and it's way ahead of its industry peers."
 

Cons

"The front-end work controls the new algorithm and the firewall rules. The search feature of these rules could be improved."
"The automation and orchestration could be simpler. It could be that all the other parts are that easy to use so that these stick out as a negative, but that's the trickiest part for us. The workflows within the orchestration are just a bit more difficult."
"The playbooks provided with the product are great, although I would appreciate having more playbooks available. Threats are constantly evolving, so having access to updated playbooks is crucial."
"The documentation can be improved and the on-prem integration. The set of applications that it was integrated with wasn't comprehensive."
"I would like it to integrate with another solution, e.g., DNA. I would like it to connect to that solution, but not the security aspect."
"They could put in more third-party integrations, but also more playbooks out-of-the-box for automation would be helpful."
"I would rate this solution 7 out of 10. It's a great idea if it worked consistently, but it has to be way more mature than when I used it."
"For us, the biggest sticking point is that the product is not being designed for multi-tenancy use at present, from an MSP perspective."
"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."
"It should have better automatic reporting."
"The organization of the assets was a little confusing and overwhelming."
"The solution needs to adjust its pricing. They should make it more affordable."
"We procured around 110 licenses for Web Application Scanning, but we have issues running concurrent scans. I don't currently have the option to trigger scans for all 100-plus websites. The default limit is around 10 conference scans. It's not very scalable, to be honest, because of the limitation that they put on concurrent scans."
"The tool should have a live HTTP editor and more configuration options for some situations, such as handling applications that have URL rewriting enabled."
"We have many websites. We don't force scanning on all of them at once because it's taking some time."
"The area of false positives could be improved. There are quite a number of false positives as compared to other solutions. They could probably fine tune the algorithm to be able to reduce the number of false positives being detected."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is the best part of this solution. It is free if you buy Umbrella or Duo Security. It is also a good solution."
"It comes free with all Cisco products. So, it is a good price."
"The pricing is competitive, especially for education institutions. Licensing can be a little bit difficult to navigate, especially with resellers with Cisco, but for us it has been pretty easy."
"It would be nice if they had a different pricing model. Most of our budget for projects goes towards Cisco."
"For the value you get, the pricing of the solution is excellent."
"You can spend less money for another solution, but if you really want to have a good solution you have to pay. We are happy that we are getting such a good solution for what we are spending."
"The product is absolutely free to any customer. As such, the only thing one must keep in mind is that as long as he already has one Cisco security product, irregardless of what that product is, SecureX is available for free."
"It is free. It can't get any better than that."
"Qualys Web Application Scanning's pricing is a bit expensive compared to other solutions available in the market."
"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."
"I rate the software’s pricing a six out of ten."
"We normally purchase an annual license."
"From my perspective, it is a budget-friendly option."
"Try the free trial of the product to understand the basic working mechanisms.​"
"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."
"Qualys has an IT-based licensing based on a yearly license, which is a good way of handling it. However, in some cases, when we do the PCI scanning, the host will not like the scanning and we lose the IT license. So, this could be improved."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Marketing Services Firm
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
13%
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 Business4
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise27
 

Questions from the Community

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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...
 

Also Known As

Kenna.AppSec, Kenna.VI
Qualys WAS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

NHS, Rackspace, UNC Pembroke, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Missing Piece
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.
Find out what your peers are saying about SonarSource Sàrl, Checkmarx, Veracode and others in Application Security Tools. Updated: May 2026.
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