Contrast Security Assess vs Qualys Web Application Scanning comparison

Contrast Security and Qualys are both solutions in the Application Security Tools category. Contrast Security is ranked #30, while Qualys is ranked #16 with an average rating of 7.7. Contrast Security holds a 1.1% mindshare in AS, compared to Qualys’s 1.8% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Contrast Security users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 88% of Qualys users who would recommend it.

Contrast Security Assess

Read 11 Contrast Security Assess reviews

1,722 Views
1,119 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Qualys Web Application Scan...

Read 40 Qualys Web Application Scanning reviews

3,821 Views
2,407 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

Contrast Security Assess

Qualys Web Application Scan...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 8, 2024

Qualys Web Application Scanning and Contrast Security Assess are competitors in the web application security tool category. Contrast Security Assess appears to have the upper hand due to its advanced features and real-time monitoring capabilities, despite higher pricing.

Features: Qualys Web Application Scanning is known for its thorough scanning, detailed reporting, and user-friendly interface. Contrast Security Assess offers real-time monitoring, seamless integration into development environments, and proactive vulnerability detection, making it feature-rich.

Room for Improvement: Qualys Web Application Scanning could enhance scalability, detection accuracy, and adaptiveness to emerging threats. Contrast Security Assess could improve documentation, simplify the setup process, and better adapt to rapidly evolving security landscapes.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Qualys Web Application Scanning is appreciated for simple deployment and strong customer support, suitable for less experienced security teams. Contrast Security Assess, while effective, presents a steeper learning curve with users needing more setup guidance despite effective customer service.

Pricing and ROI: Qualys is known for competitive pricing and quick ROI, attracting cost-conscious buyers. Contrast Security Assess, with its extensive features, justifies higher costs by delivering substantial long-term ROI, particularly in complex environments.

To learn more, read our detailed Contrast Security Assess vs. Qualys Web Application Scanning Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Contrast Security Assess vs. Qualys Web Application Scanning

December 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

Contrast Security Assess

Ranking in Application Security Tools

30th

Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

28th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Qualys Web Application Scan...

Ranking in Application Security Tools

16th

Ranking in Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

13th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Application Security Tools category, the mindshare of Contrast Security Assess is 1.1%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Qualys Web Application Scanning is 1.8%, down from 1.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Security Tools Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Qualys Web Application Scanning	1.8%
Contrast Security Assess	1.1%
Other	97.1%

Application Security Tools

Featured Reviews

reviewer1605099

Director of Threat and Vulnerability Management at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees

We're gathering vulnerability data from multiple environments in real time, fundamentally changing how we identify issues in applications

The solution is very accurate in identifying vulnerabilities. In cases where we are performing application assessment using Contrast Assess, and also using legacy application security testing tools, Contrast successfully identifies the same vulnerabilities that the other tools have identified but it also identifies significantly more. In addition, it has visibility into application components that other testing methodologies are unaware of. Assess also provides the option of helping developers incorporate security elements while they're writing code. It depends on whether individual developers decide to utilize the information that's provided to them from the solution, but it definitely gives them visibility into more environments. It gives them an opportunity to remediate vulnerabilities well before production deployments.

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AnkitSharma13

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I am impressed with the product's identification of alerts and vulnerabilities."

"This has changed the way that developers are looking at usage of third-party libraries, upfront. It's changing our model of development and our culture of development to ensure that there is more thought being put into the usage of third-party libraries."

"When we access the application, it continuously monitors and detects vulnerabilities."

"We use the Contrast OSS feature that allows us to look at third-party, open-source software libraries, because it has a cool interface where you can look at all the different libraries. It has some really cool additional features where it gives us how many instances in which something has been used... It tells us it has been used 10 times out of 20 workloads, for example. Then we know for sure that OSS is being used."

"The solution is very accurate in identifying vulnerabilities. In cases where we are performing application assessment using Contrast Assess, and also using legacy application security testing tools, Contrast successfully identifies the same vulnerabilities that the other tools have identified but it also identifies significantly more. In addition, it has visibility into application components that other testing methodologies are unaware of."

"The most valuable feature is the continuous monitoring aspect: the fact that we don't have to wait for scans to complete for the tool to identify vulnerabilities. They're automatically identified through developers' business-as-usual processes."

"No other tool does the runtime scanning like Contrast does. Other static analysis tools do static scanning, but Contrast is runtime analysis, when the routes are exercised. That's when the scan happens. This is a tool that has a very unique capability compared to other tools. That's what I like most about Contrast, that it's runtime."

"The accuracy of the solution in identifying vulnerabilities is better than any other product we've used, far and away. In our internal comparisons among different tools, Contrast consistently finds more impactful vulnerabilities, and also identifies vulnerabilities that are nearly guaranteed to be there, meaning that the chance of false positives is very low."

More Contrast Security Assess pros

"Qualys Web Application Scanning has multiple features like threat protection and container security scanning in one box."

"The interface is user-friendly and easy to understand."

"This product is designed for easy scalability and can easily scale up without major challenges."

"The advantage of Qualys Web Application Scanning lies in its user-friendly dashboard and appealing reports, which are useful for presentation to leadership."

"Qualys WAS' most valuable features are the navigation flow of the UI and the option for a different layer of security (identification and operation through email and mobile)."

"QualysGuard web-based scanner is very useful for performing external penetration and PCI scans from remote locations."

"Automated scanning has significantly improved our web application security management by reducing manual work."

"It scans web applications to identify vulnerabilities during deployment."

More Qualys Web Application Scanning pros

Cons

"I think there was activity underway to support the centralized configuration control. There are ways to do it, but I think they were productizing more of that."

"Contrast Security Assess covers a wide range of applications like .NET Framework, Java, PSP, Node.js, etc. But there are some like Ubuntu and the .NET Core which are not covered. They have it in their roadmap to have these agents. If they have that, we will have complete coverage."

"The setup of the solution is different for each application. That's the one thing that has been a challenge for us. The deployment itself is simple, but it's tough to automate because each application is different, so each installation process for Contrast is different."

"Personalization of the board and how to make it appealing to an organization is something that could be done on their end. The reports could be adaptable to the customer's preferences."

"Regarding the solution's OSS feature, the one drawback that we do have is that it does not have client-side support. We'll be missing identification of libraries like jQuery or JavaScript, and such, that are client-side."

"To instrument an agent, it has to be running on a type of application technology that the agent recognizes and understands. It's excellent when it works. If we're using an application that is using an unsupported technology, then we can't instrument it at all. We do use PHP and Contrast presently doesn't support that, although it's on their roadmap. My primary hurdle is that it doesn't support all of the technologies that we use."

"The product's retesting part needs improvement. The tool also needs improvement in the suggestions provided for fixing vulnerabilities. It relies more on documentation rather than on quick fixes."

"Contrast's ability to support upgrades on the actual agents that get deployed is limited. Our environment is pretty much entirely Java. There are no updates associated with that. You have to actually download a new version of the .jar file and push that out to your servers where your app is hosted. That can be quite cumbersome from a change-management perspective."

More Contrast Security Assess cons

"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 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."

"Sometimes the response time is low because the handshake fails, and then you have to re-login and start again."

"One area for improvement is the user interface. The new UI, which was recently upgraded, feels more complex and less user-friendly than the old version."

"The product should allow users to upload their payloads."

"The virus code updates are not frequent enough."

"Deployment can be complicated."

"It should have better automatic reporting."

More Qualys Web Application Scanning cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's a tiered licensing model. The more you buy, as you cross certain quantity thresholds, the pricing changes. If you have a smaller environment, your licensing costs are going to be different than a larger environment... The licensing is primarily per application. An application can be as many agents as you need. If you've got 10 development servers and 20 production servers and 50 QA servers, all of those agents can be reporting as a single application that utilizes one license."

"For what it offers, it's a very reasonable cost. The way that it is priced is extremely straightforward. It works on the number of applications that you use, and you license a server. It is something that is extremely fair, because it doesn't take into consideration the number of requests, etc. It is only priced based on the number of onboarded applications. It suits our model as well, because we have huge traffic. Our number of applications is not that large, so the pricing works great for us."

"The product's pricing is low. I would rate it a two out of ten."

"The solution is expensive."

"I like the per-application licensing model... We just license the app and we look at different vulnerabilities on that app and we remediate within the app. It's simpler."

"You only get one license for an application. Ours are very big, monolithic applications with millions of lines of code. We were able to apply one license to one monolithic application, which is great. We are happy with the licensing. Pricing-wise, they are industry-standard, which is fine."

"The good news is that the agent itself comes in two different forms: the unlicensed form and the licensed form. Unlicensed gives use of that software composition analysis for free. Thereafter, if you apply a license to that same agent, that's when the instrumentation takes hold. So one of my suggestions is to do what we're doing: Deploy the agent to as many applications as possible, with just the SCA feature turned on with no license applied, and then you can be more choosy and pick which teams will get the license applied."

"The product pricing is fair and reasonably priced."

"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."

"Try the free trial of the product to understand the basic working mechanisms."

"Qualys Web Application Scanning's pricing is a bit expensive compared to other solutions available in the market."

"The product has a very good licensing model."

"Pricing was reasonable and competitive. It was not too far above the other products."

"I rate the software’s pricing a six out of ten."

"It is an expensive platform."

More Qualys Web Application Scanning pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

24%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Computer Software Company

10%

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

15%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Computer Software Company

12%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	2
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	6

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	8
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	27

Questions from the Community

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What do you like most about Qualys Web Application Scanning?

The vulnerability management feature is a strong one. And also the patch management feature.

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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.

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What needs improvement with Qualys Web Application Scanning?

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Compared 6% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Contrast Security Assess

January 2026

Download Contrast Security Assess product report

Buyer's Guide

Qualys Web Application Scanning

December 2025

Download Qualys Web Application Scanning product report

Also Known As

Contrast Assess

Qualys WAS

Overview

Contrast Security is the world’s leading provider of security technology that enables software applications to protect themselves against cyberattacks, heralding the new era of self-protecting software. Contrast's patented deep security instrumentation is the breakthrough technology that enables highly accurate assessment and always-on protection of an entire application portfolio, without disruptive scanning or expensive security experts. Only Contrast has sensors that work actively inside applications to uncover vulnerabilities, prevent data breaches, and secure the entire enterprise from development, to operations, to production.

Contrast Security

Qualys Web Application Scanning (WAS) is a fully cloud-based web application security scanner. The scanner will automatically crawl periodically and test web applications to discover potential vulnerabilities, including cross-site scripting (XSS) and SQL injection. The consistent testing equips the automated service to generate consistent results, lessen false positives, and offer the ability to scale to protect thousands of websites effortlessly.

Qualys Web Application Scanning is bundled with different scanning technology to carefully scan websites for malware infections and will send notifications to website owners to assist in preventing blacklisting and brand reputation damage. As digital transformation takes place in various organizations, Qualys WAS gives organizations the ability to track and document their web app security status through its interactive reporting capabilities.

Qualys WAS empowers organizations to remediate any web application vulnerabilities quickly. Some of the key tools offered are:

Deep Scanning: All apps and APIs on your internal network and public cloud are covered by Qualys WAS deep scanning to show you any visible vulnerabilities.
DevSec Ops Tool: Detect security issues in your code while still in app development stages and generate comprehensive reports.
Comprehensive Discovery: Discover and catalog new and unknown web apps in your network.
Malware Detection: Scan a website, identify vulnerabilities, and receive alerts to any infections.

Benefits of Qualys Web Application Scanning

Qualys Web Application Scanning offers many benefits, including:

Quick Deployment: Requires no infrastructure or software to upkeep.
Effortless Scalability: Effortlessly launch a deep scan and protect thousands of websites.
Centralized Management: Manage and mend all web app vulnerabilities through a single interface.
Excellent Integration Capabilities: Integrates with Qualys Web App Firewall (WAF) for a single-click virtual patching of found vulnerabilities.
Respond to Threats Immediately: Qualys Continuous Monitoring offers the user a hands-free service by automatically launching scanning and sending notifications of a potential threat.
Cost-effective Solution: Data is analyzed in real time as Qualys WAS is an end-to-end solution; this helps avoid costs associated with managing multiple security vendors.

Reviews from Real Users

Qualys Web Application Scanning stands out among its competitors for a variety of reasons. Two of those reasons are its progressive scan and quick detection of vulnerabilities.

P.K., a senior software developer at a tech vendor, writes, "The feature that I have found most valuable is the progressive scan. It is good. It's done in 24 hours."

Nagaraj S., lead cybersecurity engineer at a tech service company, notes, "I have found the detection of vulnerabilities tool thorough with good results and the graphical display output to be wonderful and full of colors. It allows many types of outputs, such as bar and chart previews."

Qualys

Sample Customers

Williams-Sonoma, Autodesk, HUAWEI, Chromeriver, RingCentral, Demandware.

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.

Buyer's Guide

Contrast Security Assess vs. Qualys Web Application Scanning

December 2025

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