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Amazon Inspector vs Qualys TotalCloud comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

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

Amazon Inspector
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
27th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
IT Vendor Risk Management (6th)
Qualys TotalCloud
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
10th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
53
Ranking in other categories
Container Security (11th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (9th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (8th), SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) (2nd), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Vulnerability Management category, the mindshare of Amazon Inspector is 1.0%, down from 2.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Qualys TotalCloud is 1.2%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Vulnerability Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Qualys TotalCloud1.2%
Amazon Inspector1.0%
Other97.8%
Vulnerability Management
 

Featured Reviews

John D'Arcy - PeerSpot reviewer
Co-Founder, Professional AWS Cloud Architect at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
Automated vulnerability assessments continuously enhance security
The most valuable features probably are the ability to do automated vulnerability assessments, which it does with Amazon Inspector version two. It operates continuously, so as soon as resources are created, it scans them for vulnerabilities. This allows me to pinpoint potential security vulnerabilities and provide actionable recommendations relatively quickly. Larger enterprises usually use Inspector to gather all the vulnerabilities, the CVEs, across all accounts in an AWS organization. The enterprises I work for typically have many accounts in their organization, such as thousands of accounts where I am at the moment. It is a way to gather the vulnerabilities that are present on EC2 instances, container images, and Lambda functions.
reviewer2859021 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr Security Engineer at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees
Risk-based triage has transformed container security and now prioritizes high-impact threats
The best features Qualys TotalCloud offers currently include managing cloud infrastructure and container security while facing major challenges such as alert fatigue. Traditional vulnerability scanners flag hundreds of CVEs on short-lived Kubernetes containers, some of which have no internet exposure or are gone before we can even triage them. I leverage Qualys TotalCloud to move beyond static CVSS. I use it to implement runtime exposure, correlation risk reprioritization, and shift-left integration. This notifies developers to fix a base image upstream rather than patching live ephemeral instances. In my work with cloud and container security, the biggest operational hurdle was alert fatigue. I use Qualys to shift left from static CVSS severity to context-aware risk prioritization. I correlated raw vulnerability data with real-time risk factors such as public network exposure, active runtime execution, or overly permissive IAM roles. This allows us to immediately drop the priority of isolated containers and escalate lower-severity CVEs that sit on an exposed, high-risk path. We can map these findings directly back to our CI/CD pipelines so developers can patch the root base images upstream. We have drastically cut down the signal-to-noise ratio, saved a lot of manual hours doing triage work, and ensured engineering effort goes directly towards high-impact risk reduction.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The vulnerability discovery is valuable, and they also rank those vulnerabilities for you. So, you could rapidly attack some of the higher, severe vulnerabilities as they pop up, if they do pop up."
"The scalability of the solution itself is unparalleled."
"The findings dashboards are neat and easy to understand, offering clear demarcations for different types of findings and detailed insights into specific vulnerabilities and their associated instances. It is not a place where everything is dumped together. It offers an easy-to-understand layout."
"It is scanning the whole repository for any sort of vulnerabilities, so it allows us to be more confident in our DevSecOps and not put a lot of folks or attention to it."
"The automated vulnerability detection aspect is most valuable."
"The integration of Amazon Inspector with other AWS services has enhanced our security. Security Hub is a major asset because it allows us to centralize data from various AWS services. We can integrate third-party tools as well. It is just a single-click option."
"It operates continuously, so as soon as resources are created, it scans them for vulnerabilities."
"The most valuable feature of Amazon Inspector is the categorization of findings, which filters vulnerabilities by instance, container image, container repository, and Lambda function."
"One of the features I appreciate is the ability to generate daily reports without relying on anyone else."
"Qualys TotalCloud has helped us view our risk structure, vulnerabilities, and security posture."
"I found the initial setup user-friendly."
"The most valuable feature is extensibility."
"TotalCloud has been excellent in providing us with immediate access to all the products and features we need, such as CSPM, TruRisk Insights, and compliance reports, including CIS and HIPAA."
"Qualys TotalCloud provides unified vulnerability and threat assessment for IaaS and SaaS and a single prioritized view of risk, which helps reduce my workload by not having to combine multiple sources."
"I appreciate TotalCloud's real-time protection and remediation features. The remediation options include automated one-click remedies and custom changes that help manage vulnerabilities efficiently."
"The scalability is good as well. I would rate it ten out of ten."
 

Cons

"The other point is that the reporting features of Inspector need improvement. For example, I am in an organization with millions of CVEs, and getting an overview of all this is challenging."
"It has automated vulnerability assessment, yet I seek more flexibility in defining custom vulnerability checks tailored to my needs, which is more difficult."
"It has a limited scope. So, AWS Inspector primarily focuses on the security of the EC2 instance. So, if your architecture includes other AWS services, then you may need to use additional tools for your comprehensive security assessment. So that is one con. Another is, like, we have a dependency on agents."
"One major area for improvement is remediation. My team works on remediating findings over time, likely using available patches. However, easier integration with Amazon's patching services would be very helpful."
"There is room for improvement in the scanning capabilities. I'd like to see broader coverage in terms of the vulnerabilities detected."
"The false positive rate of Amazon Inspector is a little high, and it is not covering all different applications and scanning."
"One area for improvement in Amazon Inspector is the automation aspect."
"There are challenges associated with the interdependencies in AWS services, like requiring an Active Directory for other services, resulting in additional charges."
"In TotalCloud, I would suggest improvements in policy checks to cater to various inventory types like VPCs, subnets, S3 buckets, or IAMs. There is a lack of data segregation according to criticality or inventory."
"It has been working very well, but it would be helpful if the dashboard could generate reports tailored to specific compliance needs. For example, in India, we have to comply with RBI and SEBI guidelines. It w"
"Their customer support needs improvement."
"Areas that need improvement in every solution include the remediation part. The remediation steps should be simple enough for everyone to understand."
"The support is not up to the mark and seems to be overburdened."
"There is room for improvement in vulnerability scanning, particularly for PaaS environments. Currently, Qualys does not have full access to these instances, which limits its effectiveness."
"Qualys's ticketing system can be confusing when assigning tasks to individuals, and support could be improved by offering instant call solutions with engineers in addition to ticket replies."
"Qualys TotalCloud needs to enhance its scanning capabilities in the IP domain, as it currently lacks the functionality to resolve IPs to their corresponding domain names."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The lowest cost would be around $10 for a few small accounts, however, for thousands of accounts, it could be around $5000 to $6000 dollars per month."
"It's priced according to market standards for its services."
"The pricing is very transparent and clear."
"It is scaled as you go. There are probably a certain number of scans per month, and there are tiers. If you're under a certain tier, it is free. The second level is pennies, and then all the way up to like a million. So, it has a tiered pricing program. They're pretty good with your initial scanning, and there is room to scale based on being affordable, but it is fairly cheap. There are no additional costs. They pretty much think about it as a pay-per-scan type model."
"The pricing for TotalCloud is attractive and competitive in the market. Given the features, especially the dashboard, I have no concerns regarding pricing."
"It isn't cheap, but it's reasonable. It helps us to manage things with very few resources."
"TotalCloud's price is about right where I would expect it to be."
"Qualys TotalCloud offers competitive pricing given its comprehensive suite of features, including integration, assessment, remediation, and detection capabilities, all within a single platform."
"Qualys TotalCloud offers cost-effective licensing flexibility."
"Qualys TotalCloud is cost-efficient and was selected for its value compared to other products."
"Qualys TotalCloud is expensive."
"Although Qualys TotalCloud is relatively expensive due to its unique automation features, its cost-effectiveness is rated an eight out of ten, with ten being the most costly."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Construction Company
6%
Comms Service Provider
18%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise38
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon Inspector?
I am not honestly sure about the pricing side of Amazon Inspector, but that is taken care of by a separate team. I believe it's cheaper than the other third-party solutions.
What needs improvement with Amazon Inspector?
They might launch support for third-party environments in the next version regarding the best features in Amazon Inspector from my perspective. The false positive rate of Amazon Inspector is a litt...
What is your primary use case for Amazon Inspector?
I mostly use Amazon Inspector for vulnerability scanning on AWS native applications. For hybrid applications, we have different security scanners.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Qualys TotalCloud?
I was not involved in pricing, setup cost, and licensing, but I can say that the setup was fast, within a quarter, and it scales well with a stable infrastructure. I think it is highly dynamic.
What needs improvement with Qualys TotalCloud?
In terms of improvements, the features we are using in Qualys TotalCloud are working in the best optimal way, and I do not have any suggestions for them.I chose a rating of nine out of ten because ...
What is your primary use case for Qualys TotalCloud?
I have been using Qualys TotalCloud for the last eight months to scan the hardware and the virtual devices in our infrastructure.Our main use case for Qualys TotalCloud is to secure our multi-cloud...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Qualys TotalCloud with FlexScan
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

betterment, caplinked, flatiron, university of nutri dame
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon Inspector vs. Qualys TotalCloud and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
917,433 professionals have used our research since 2012.