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Government · head to head

CivicPlus vs Qualys VMDR

CivicPlus logo

CivicPlus

Government

Civic Engagement Technology

From
On request
Free plan
No
Full reviewWebsite
Qualys VMDR logo

Qualys VMDR

Cybersecurity

Cloud-delivered vulnerability management licensed per asset, using scanner appliances and a lightweight agent.

From
$3/month
Free plan
No
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: CivicPlus no public pricing tiers, rates, or cost information available; Qualys VMDR licensing is per asset and each capability is its own subscription, so patch management, endpoint detection, web application scanning, container security and policy compliance are separate line items, and the platform demonstrated in a proof of concept is rarely the platform in the quote.
  • They diverge on capability: CivicPlus covers Government Websites, Qualys VMDR covers Cloud Agent.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 30 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which CivicPlus and Qualys VMDR actually diverge.

Attributes where CivicPlus and Qualys VMDR differ
AttributeCivicPlusQualys VMDR
Starting priceOn request$3/month
Pricing modelquotesubscription
PlatformsWeb, Ios, AndroidWeb, Cloud, Api
CategoryGovernmentCybersecurity
Founded20011999

Identical on both: free tier (No), user rating (Not yet rated).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in CivicPlus

  • Government Websites
  • Agenda Management
  • Mass Notifications
  • Online Forms
  • Social Media Management
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • GovDelivery

Only in Qualys VMDR

  • Cloud Agent
  • Scanner appliances
  • Authenticated scanning
  • TruRisk scoring
  • Asset inventory
  • Patch Management
  • Cloud connectors
  • Container sensor

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

CivicPlus

  • Municipal government softwarenot Qualys VMDR
  • City website managementnot Qualys VMDR
  • Recreation management for local governmentnot Qualys VMDR

Qualys VMDR

  • A hybrid workforce where scheduled network scans miss most laptops and continuous agent-based assessment is the only way to get real coveragenot CivicPlus
  • PCI DSS external scanning where an approved scanning vendor report is a contractual requirementnot CivicPlus
  • An estate spanning datacentre, multiple public clouds and endpoints that needs one vulnerability view rather than three toolsnot CivicPlus
  • Organisations replacing a manual patch-verification process with agent-reported evidence that a fix actually landednot CivicPlus

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

CivicPlus

  • No public pricing tiers, rates, or cost information available
  • Requires direct contact with sales team for pricing estimates
  • No free trial or freemium tier option listed

Qualys VMDR

  • Licensing is per asset and each capability is its own subscription, so patch management, endpoint detection, web application scanning, container security and policy compliance are separate line items, and the platform demonstrated in a proof of concept is rarely the platform in the quote.
  • Ephemeral cloud instances consume asset entitlement until they age out of inventory, so an autoscaling group that creates and destroys hosts hourly can burn licence capacity on machines that existed for minutes, and controlling that means tuning purge policies rather than tuning the cloud.
  • Authenticated scanning produces materially better results than unauthenticated, but it requires storing and rotating privileged credentials for every target platform, which is a security project in its own right, and teams that skip it receive reports full of unconfirmed potential findings that nobody trusts.
  • The console is a set of modules with separate interfaces, search syntaxes and report engines, so an analyst moving between vulnerability management, policy compliance and web application scanning learns each one, and cross-module reporting usually ends in a spreadsheet or a script against the API.
  • The tool surfaces findings far faster than any organisation can remediate them, and it does not solve the ownership problem: without an agreed prioritisation policy and a named owner in IT operations, a first scan producing tens of thousands of findings becomes a dashboard that everyone learns to ignore.

Pricing, plan by plan

CivicPlus

On request

No published plan breakdown. See the CivicPlus review.

Qualys VMDR

$3/month
  • VMDR$3/month
    • Per asset
    • Vulnerability scanning
    • Detection
  • VMDR+$5/month
    • All VMDR features
    • Advanced analytics
    • Cloud integration
  • VMDR Complete$7/month
    • All VMDR+ features
    • Threat intel
    • Response automation

Which should you pick?

Choose CivicPlus if

  • You need government websites.
  • You work on Web, Ios, Android.
  • You also want agenda management.
CivicPlus review

Choose Qualys VMDR if

  • You need cloud agent.
  • You work on Web, Cloud, Api.
  • You also want scanner appliances.
Qualys VMDR review

Questions people ask

Is CivicPlus or Qualys VMDR better?
Neither clearly leads. CivicPlus starts at On request and Qualys VMDR at $3/month, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, CivicPlus or Qualys VMDR?
CivicPlus starts at On request and Qualys VMDR at $3/month.
Does CivicPlus or Qualys VMDR run on more platforms?
CivicPlus runs on Web, Ios, Android. Qualys VMDR runs on Web, Cloud, Api.
What is CivicPlus best used for?
CivicPlus is most often used for municipal government software, city website management, recreation management for local government. Of those, municipal government software and city website management are not what Qualys VMDR is typically brought in for.
What can CivicPlus do that Qualys VMDR cannot?
CivicPlus covers Government Websites, Agenda Management, Mass Notifications, Online Forms. Qualys VMDR covers Cloud Agent, Scanner appliances, Authenticated scanning, TruRisk scoring.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

CivicPlus: What does CivicPlus cost?

CivicPlus uses a custom pricing model with no published rates. Interested organizations must fill out a form and speak with a technology strategist to receive a pricing estimate based on specific needs.

Source
Qualys VMDR: Agent or scanner: which do I need?

Usually both. The agent covers endpoints and servers you control and gives continuous data; scanners cover devices you cannot install an agent on, such as network gear, printers and appliances, and provide the external perimeter view.

CivicPlus: Does CivicPlus offer different pricing for different sized municipalities?

Yes, CivicPlus pricing is customized based on organization size and the specific products selected from their portfolio (websites, recreation management, utility billing, etc.).

Source
Qualys VMDR: Does it patch as well as detect?

Yes, through the Patch Management module, which is a separate subscription using the same agent. Core VMDR detects and prioritises but does not deploy fixes.

CivicPlus: How do I request pricing from CivicPlus?

Visit civicplus.com/pricing to fill out a form or call 888-228-2233 to speak with a technology strategist about your municipality's requirements and receive a custom estimate.

Source
Qualys VMDR: How are assets counted for licensing?

By the number of assets in inventory, which includes cloud instances and containers depending on the modules in use. Short-lived cloud assets count until they are purged, so purge settings directly affect what you consume.

Qualys VMDR: Can I keep the data in a specific region?

Yes. Qualys operates several regional platform instances and you choose which one your subscription lives on. Moving between them later is not trivial, so decide before onboarding.

Qualys VMDR: Does it scan web applications?

Web Application Scanning is a separate module licensed per application, not part of core VMDR, and it is a dynamic scanner with the usual limits around authenticated flows in single-page applications.

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