Qualys Web Application Scanning vs Rapid7 InsightAppSec comparison

Why PeerSpot?

The compared Qualys and Rapid7 solutions aren't in the same category. Qualys is ranked #20 in AS , with an average rating of 7.4, and holds a 1.7% mindshare in the category. Rapid7 is ranked #5 in DAST , with an average rating of 7.5, and holds a 5.6% mindshare. Additionally, 88% of Qualys users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of Rapid7 users who would recommend it.

Qualys Web Application Scan...

Read 40 Qualys Web Application Scanning reviews

6,989 Views
4,473 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

Rapid7 InsightAppSec

Read 21 Rapid7 InsightAppSec reviews

3,592 Views
1,688 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

Qualys Web Application Scan...

Rapid7 InsightAppSec

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Qualys Web Application Scanning and Rapid7 InsightAppSec based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about SonarSource Sàrl, Checkmarx, Veracode and others in Application Security Tools.

To learn more, read our detailed Application Security Tools Report (Updated: September 2026).

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Application Security Tools

September 2026

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Helped 914,351 peers since 2012

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 Web Application Scan...

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Security Tools (20th), Static Application Security Testing (SAST) (13th)

Rapid7 InsightAppSec

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) (5th), AI Observability (23rd)

Mindshare comparison

While both are Quality Assurance solutions, they serve different purposes. Qualys Web Application Scanning is designed for Application Security Tools and holds a mindshare of 1.7%, down 2.0% compared to last year.
Rapid7 InsightAppSec, on the other hand, focuses on Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST), holds 5.6% mindshare, up 5.0% since last year.

Application Security Tools Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Qualys Web Application Scanning	1.7%
SonarQube	10.8%
Checkmarx One	7.3%
Other	80.2%

Application Security Tools

Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Rapid7 InsightAppSec	5.6%
Checkmarx One	13.9%
Veracode	13.6%
Other	66.9%

Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST)

Featured Reviews

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

Brandi Lea

Regional Information Security Analyst, Lead at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees

Rapid risk detection has transformed how I uncover hidden vulnerabilities in new applications

Rapid7 InsightAppSec offers excellent features including a cloud-based platform that allows for detailed breakdowns of information into more digestible bits. The platform is user-friendly with a broad range of tools, although it does require quite a bit of a learning curve. It allows me to aggregate data and put it into presentations to send to executives about the security status across the entire enterprise. My favorite aspect of the user-friendly interface of Rapid7 is the primary cloud-based dashboard, which I find most useful. I love that even inside a browser, the intuitive help options are available for figuring out what things are, whether it's hovering over a particular option for insights or using right-click features that offer tools and tips on managing the vulnerabilities when found. The interface is very clean, not overly convoluted or difficult to navigate, which I do enjoy. Rapid7 has positively impacted my organization by allowing me to discover vulnerabilities, both publicly known and zero-day, much faster and efficiently than I ever did in the past, ultimately saving the company a lot of money in compliance issues, fines, and possibly even lawsuits. The number of vulnerabilities I am discovering has improved by almost thirty seven percent in the last two years alone. Remediation especially has increased significantly because I am finding these vulnerabilities faster, and Rapid7 provides tips on how to remediate or harden against them, whether through hardening options or upgrading to better versions, which does save the company money.

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

"We’re a Linux shop and Qualys gave us good Linux vulnerability scanning; it reports only a few glaring false-positive errors, and the long baseline of iterative results was valuable to track changes and our rate of improvement while access to the API let us automate its use in our CI/CD pipeline for machine images."

"Qualys Web Application Scanning is accurate and provides minimal false positives."

"WAS gave us visibility into our externally exposed web applications and showed us vulnerabilities that we were not aware of and did not know how to test for."

"Key features include: Cloud-based, so the installation is not so tedious, easily deployed, highly scalable, and provides comprehensive reporting."

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

"It is a good product for website penetration testing to detect vulnerabilities."

"The most valuable feature of Qualys Web Application Scanning is the effective scanning that can be done."

"It combines both web application vulnerability management and internal vulnerability management on one platform and dashboard. Usually, you have to purchase separate tools."

More Qualys Web Application Scanning pros

"The initial setup for us was easy enough. We didn't face too many issues. Deployment took maybe 30 minutes. It's quite quick and doesn't cause too much trouble at the outset."

"It is a very robust solution."

"The reporting functionality is excellent."

"It uses a signature-based method to check for problems with your code and will provide an alert if anything is found."

"For our needs, Rapid7 was the ideal go-to tool."

"If a company needs an effective product for web scanning, I can recommend this product."

"It's very easy to use and user-friendly, and it does the job."

"Rapid7 MDR has positively impacted my organization by allowing me to discover vulnerabilities, both publicly known and zero-day, much faster and efficiently than I ever did in the past, ultimately saving the company a lot of money in compliance issues, fines, and possibly even lawsuits."

More Rapid7 InsightAppSec pros

Cons

"The product's pricing could be better."

"New features need to be added, specifically LLM-based solutions."

"We procured around 110 licenses for Web Application Scanning, but we have issues running concurrent scans."

"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."

"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."

"I have experience with adaptive scanning for single-page applications, which was not very effective."

"They should try to include business logic vulnerabilities in the scanner testing."

"The support could be faster."

More Qualys Web Application Scanning cons

"The reporting is definitely an aspect of the solution that's in need of some work. We found that we'd try to use widgets, but often getting them to work for us wasn't very clear. They need to be more user friendly or offer better instructions."

"In the future, if they can have integration with a lot of ticketing systems then it would be amazing."

"I would like more details of what the product can do."

"The interface should be a little bit easier to manage. Sometimes, the logic that they use is kind of strange."

"In terms of behavioral and pattern recognition, identifying complex attacks such as SQL, blind SQL, JSON, and LDAP injections often results in 94% false positives."

"There is room for improvement in the response time of customer service and support levels."

"Rapid7 InsightAppSec needs improvement in detecting phishing pages."

"While Rapid7 MDR is getting better with each update or version, it needs to enhance its zero-day detection for anomalous things without relying on third-party solutions like Vericode."

More Rapid7 InsightAppSec cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"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."

"We normally purchase an annual license."

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

"The product is expensive, at least initially, in comparison to other products in this category."

"It is an expensive platform."

"We are on an annual license for the solution and the pricing could be more affordable."

"From my perspective, it is a budget-friendly option."

More Qualys Web Application Scanning pricing and cost advice

"The price of this product is very cheap."

"Its price is competitive. It is not expensive."

"Rapid7 InsightAppSec is cheap."

"They offer a good price, but I don't remember its cost. It is fair as compared to the competition. We have opted for project-based licensing, not user-based. We can add any number of users. That doesn't matter. It is worth the money."

"I'm not sure how much it costs exactly, but I know it's expensive."

"I rate Rapid7 InsightAppSec’s pricing an eight out of ten."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Outsourcing Company

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

14%

Construction Company

10%

Government

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	12
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	6

Questions from the Community

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.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Qualys Web Application Scanning?

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Rapid7 InsightAppSec?

While Rapid7 InsightAppSec is getting better with each update or version, it needs to enhance its zero-day detection for anomalous things without relying on third-party solutions like Vericode. Hav...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Rapid7 InsightAppSec?

My main use case for Rapid7 is onboarding all new applications both built in house and third party acquired, where I run them through a sandbox environment and allow Rapid7 to conduct an initial sc...

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering Rapid7 InsightAppSec?

If you are looking for a solution that will help identify vulnerabilities and provide remediation tips for hardening your infrastructure, I think Rapid7 does an excellent job. While I do not know t...

See all answers

Comparisons

Checkmarx SAST vs Qualys Web Application Scanning

Compared 8% of the time

SonarQube vs Qualys Web Application Scanning

Compared 7% of the time

Veracode vs Qualys Web Application Scanning

Compared 6% of the time

GitHub vs Qualys Web Application Scanning

Compared 6% of the time

OWASP Zap vs Qualys Web Application Scanning

Compared 5% of the time

More Qualys Web Application Scanning Competitors

Invicti vs Rapid7 InsightAppSec

Compared 14% of the time

Veracode vs Rapid7 InsightAppSec

Compared 13% of the time

PortSwigger Burp Suite Enterprise Edition vs Rapid7 InsightAppSec

Compared 12% of the time

AppCheck vs Rapid7 InsightAppSec

Compared 12% of the time

StackHawk vs Rapid7 InsightAppSec

Compared 10% of the time

More Rapid7 InsightAppSec Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Qualys Web Application Scanning

September 2026

Download Qualys Web Application Scanning product report

Buyer's Guide

Rapid7 InsightAppSec

September 2026

Download Rapid7 InsightAppSec product report

Also Known As

Qualys WAS

InsightAppSec

Overview

Qualys Web Application Scanning offers advanced vulnerability management, progressive scheduling, and seamless integration with DevOps environments. Its user-friendly design enables enterprises to enhance security with comprehensive scanning and detailed forensic insights.

Qualys Web Application Scanning addresses enterprise-level security challenges by providing robust solutions for vulnerability management, penetration testing, and compliance checks. While easing the navigation process, it supports risk mitigation with precise risk ratings, minimal false positives, and detailed reporting. However, it faces challenges with its complex interface, authenticated scanning, and automation features. Integrating smoothly with CI/CD pipelines, it is suitable for continuous and automated scanning, adapting to diverse company requirements.

What are the standout features of Qualys Web Application Scanning?

Progressive Scheduling: Enables efficient management of scanning activities, optimizing for time-sensitive scenarios.
Vulnerability Management: Offers robust identification and management of vulnerabilities across various applications.
Integration with DevOps: Seamlessly integrates with CI/CD pipelines, supporting rapid development cycles.
Risk Ratings: Provides precise risk assessments, crucial for prioritizing security efforts.
Engaging Dashboard: Offers an intuitive interface for navigating security tasks efficiently.

What benefits or ROI should users look for in Qualys Web Application Scanning reviews?

Scalability: Supports enterprise needs with a design adaptable to diverse security demands.
Risk Mitigation: Detailed alerts and forensic insights aid in reducing potential threats.
Comprehensive Reporting: Facilitates informed decision-making with clear, concise reports.
Penetration Testing: Enhances security assessments with ongoing evaluation capabilities.

Organizations across sectors like education, banking, and international data centers leverage Qualys Web Application Scanning for conducting penetration testing, scanning web applications, and managing vulnerabilities. It aids in audit security and compliance, identifying threats, and generating user-friendly reports, making it a valuable asset for maintaining strong security postures.

Qualys

Rapid7 InsightAppSec is a cloud-based security tool offering robust web scanning capabilities with a user-friendly interface and seamless integration. It enhances dynamic application security testing through customizable modules, providing comprehensive reports and remediation guidance.

InsightAppSec delivers dynamic application security testing with features like Attack Replay and a centralized dashboard for vulnerability insights. It supports flexible deployment options and simplifies scheduling frequent scans. The tool's intuitive graphical interface and extensive scanning coverage make it valuable for identifying vulnerabilities in web applications, APIs, and e-commerce sites, ensuring compliance. However, improvements are needed in detection accuracy, reporting options, and integrations with external tools like WAF and ticketing systems. There is a need for better scan management, support for mobile applications, customized reporting options, pricing flexibility, improved support, and AI integration.

What are the key features of InsightAppSec?

Seamless Integration: Easily integrates within SDLC for automated scans.
User-Friendly Interface: Offers an intuitive graphical experience.
Robust Web Scanning: Provides extensive vulnerability scanning of web applications and APIs.
Customizable Attack Modules: Tailors testing to meet specific security needs.
Attack Replay: Facilitates re-testing of potential vulnerabilities for accuracy.
Centralized Dashboard: Offers comprehensive insights into vulnerabilities.

What benefits should users look for?

Comprehensive Reports: Delivers detailed insights into security vulnerabilities.
Remediation Guidance: Provides actionable advice to fix identified vulnerabilities.
Scalability: Supports growth by handling increased demands efficiently.
Extensive Coverage: Ensures thorough security testing across multiple platforms.
Flexible Deployment: Adapts to different operational environments.

Industries rely on InsightAppSec for vulnerability scanning to secure web applications, APIs, and e-commerce platforms. Its integration within the SDLC aids in automating scans during development. While limitations exist with certain tool integrations, its cloud-based engine and effective reporting make it essential for internal and external application security assurance.

Rapid7

Sample Customers

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.

CenterPoint Energy, CPA Australia, Hypertherm, First American Financial Corporation, Rackspace

Buyer's Guide

Application Security Tools

September 2026

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