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Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management vs Qualys VMDR comparison

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 5, 2025

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

Zafran Security
Sponsored
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
32nd
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
8.1
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) (4th)
Microsoft Defender Vulnerab...
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
21st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (21st), Microsoft Security Suite (25th), Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (5th)
Qualys VMDR
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
93
Ranking in other categories
IT Asset Management (5th), Configuration Management Databases (2nd), Container Security (11th), Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (2nd)
 

Featured Reviews

Israel Cavazos Landini - PeerSpot reviewer
Weekly insights and risk analysis facilitate informed security decisions
I appreciate the weekly insights Zafran provides, which include critical topics for networks and IT security, allowing us to evaluate which insights apply to our environment. The organization score feature is valuable to keep the leadership team updated on how our infrastructure fares security-wise. The applicable risk level versus base risk level feature is beneficial because prior to Zafran, we only used the base risk level, but now understand that risk depends on the asset itself. Zafran is an excellent tool.
TakayukiUmehara - PeerSpot reviewer
Ease of management and integration supports operations, but has high resource consumption
A valuable feature is the ease of management and integration with Microsoft products. I appreciate that I can click on a server in the Defender Console, notice a risk, and retrieve all necessary information. Speed is a key feature as it is very quick to administer and allows for manual configuration from the portal.
Harold Jensen - PeerSpot reviewer
Good visibility but expensive and needs better support
Support: It's often overseas and often following a script, basically asking us to redo what we opened the case with. Multiple APIs: There seems to be a lack of easy onboarding into Qualys. We had to use manual inputs and some API calls to get items in place. Dashboard: It is very rudimentary with very little customization. The Qualys Scripting Language (QSL) works differently in different Qualys modules, so when you get it working in one area you have to modify the syntax in others. User account management: We often have to give users more rights than needed just to give them what they need. Integration with the various Qualys Modules: You can tell the UI is different based on of the different teams that created them. QSL syntax same in all modules Responsiveness of some of the components: They time out, you get a blank screen, etc. Backend updates between the various modules: You update connectors and information takes a few minutes to show in VMDR or Global Asset View Connectors: Connectors have a throttling issue with AWS which causes them to frequently fail unless you manually run them again.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Zafran is an excellent tool."
"Zafran has become an indispensable tool in our cybersecurity arsenal."
"The recommendations, scores, and steps to remediate actions are highly useful."
"The product’s most valuable features are compliance, recommendations, and inventories."
"Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management is versatile and assesses vulnerabilities, providing detailed information on CVEs, their categories, and exploit statuses."
"The most valuable aspect is the kind of assessment results I get, and the recommendations provided in Microsoft products really help in taking care of the resources."
"The solution is up-to-date and helps prevent zero-day attacks."
"A valuable feature is the ease of management and integration with Microsoft products."
"The integration with SIEM is the best, specifically the native integration with Microsoft SIEM."
"Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management provides regular advisories and recommendations that help improve our security posture."
"The most valuable features of Qualys VM are its ability to do proper vulnerability assessment. It has a lot of updates for all the vulnerability databases from all over the globe. It's an amazing solution when it comes to the versatility of the features it has. Additionally, the reports are very good. It generates very detailed reports about the vulnerabilities inside the environment"
"The most valuable feature is the vulnerability assessment."
"It is a simple solution that makes scanning easy. You just give it a scheduled task, and it will do everything for you."
"Qualys VMDR provides us with a quick response to threat findings through regular scheduled scanning, which improves our security operations."
"I value the scheduling of scans and reports as per the desired timeframes."
"The most valuable features are vulnerability scanning, policy compliance scanning, and tablet for web application scanning."
"What I like about Qualys VM is the dashboard presentation. It's very good."
"Qualys VM has allowed us to know the vulnerabilities we need to prioritize based on the threat levels and the possible impact if there's an intrusion."
 

Cons

"Initially, we were somewhat concerned about the scalability of Zafran due to our large asset count and the substantial amount of information we needed to process."
"The automated remediations can be more specific."
"It is expensive."
"It is challenging to extract and customize reports from the system."
"The constant changes in the product configuration or the console setup can sometimes be challenging."
"The worst aspect is the refresh rate of the dashboard. A vulnerability I patch within 15 minutes takes 24 additional hours for an update."
"The worst aspect is the refresh rate of the dashboard."
"The product is not stable; it is very resource-intensive, consuming a lot of memory and CPU, which makes it slow."
"Sometimes the stability of the agents could be improved."
"They have integrated with other third parties, but it is still not viable."
"It's not very user-friendly at times and requires in-depth understanding. So, a layman or someone new to Qualys won't be able to easily understand it. You need education to use the solution."
"Finding things in management can be quite difficult."
"In terms of improvement for the web application console, in the older version, things were more segregated and presented in a brief format."
"The reporting in this solution can be improved."
"The customer support is very bad."
"Qualys could improve the inbuilt dashboards."
"The reporting section needs improvement as running reports can take several hours."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"I rate the product's price a three on a scale of one to ten, where one is a low price, and ten is a high price."
"The product’s pricing is medium."
"The tool is a bit costly."
"The licensing costs are reasonable."
"The licensing model follows a per-user per-month structure."
"The tool's pricing is expensive and I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten."
"The license is on a yearly basis."
"It's very expensive, especially if you want to use multiple modules of Qualys."
"It is a high cost product. Compared to the other solutions, it is around 15 to 20% higher in cost."
"We do see over $100,000 in terms of price, for mid-size programs. You likely will pay more than $100,000 without any discount. It is a bit pricey."
"Qualys VM is quite expensive. It's a subscription-based license, and it's yearly. Right now, it's open for me, and I don't have any limitations or caps on the licenses. They are seeing if the product is viable for 4500 users. I can add as much as I want, and at the end of the subscription, they'll let me know how many licenses were actually used and bill me accordingly. On a scale from one to five, I would give their pricing a three. It's still expensive."
"It is different for every company, but for us, it's every three years."
"The price is very reasonable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
University
7%
Retailer
6%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Educational Organization
36%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zafran Security?
Pricing for Zafran Security is not expensive. We have a contract for five years, and the cost is lower than other too...
What needs improvement with Zafran Security?
I would like to see an integration with Check Point firewalls. It's essential for us and they are currently working o...
What is your primary use case for Zafran Security?
We use Zafran Security for threat prioritization. We establish priority to understand which risks should be patched o...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management?
I would rate the price as a three for us due to the partnership discounts. For non-partners, however, the cost could ...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management?
For our current usage, we do not have any complaints, but a potential improvement could be the introduction of a more...
What do you like most about Qualys VMDR?
I like that we have many scanners and channels that don't overload. It helps us scan and track easily. Also, the tagg...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Qualys VMDR?
Qualys offers better pricing and is feature-packed compared to other tools.
What needs improvement with Qualys VMDR?
They can tweak their UI since the new version seems a bit jumbled up, and the old UI was more user-friendly.
 

Also Known As

No data available
No data available
Qualys VM, QualysGuard VM, Qualys Asset Inventory, Qualys Container Security
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Information Not Available
Agrokor Group, American Specialty Health, American State Bank, Arval, Life:), Axway, Bank of the West, Blueport Commerce, BSkyB, Brinks, CaixaBank, Cartagena, Catholic Health System, CEC Bank, Cegedim, CIGNA, Clickability, Colby-Sawyer College, Commercial Bank of Dubai, University of Utah, eBay Inc., ING Singapore, National Theatre, OTP Bank, Sodexo, WebEx
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management vs. Qualys VMDR and other solutions. Updated: February 2025.
842,388 professionals have used our research since 2012.