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Government · head to head

ClearGov vs Qualys VMDR

ClearGov logo

ClearGov

Government

Financial Transparency for Government

From
$200/month
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: ClearGov no pricing is published at any level, and the pricing page states no cost structure or model at all; 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: ClearGov covers Budget Visualization, Qualys VMDR covers Cloud Agent.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 30 August 2026.

Where they differ

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

Attributes where ClearGov and Qualys VMDR differ
AttributeClearGovQualys VMDR
Starting price$200/month$3/month
PlatformsWebWeb, Cloud, Api
CategoryGovernmentCybersecurity
Founded20141999

Identical on both: pricing model (subscription), 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 ClearGov

  • Budget Visualization
  • Financial Benchmarking
  • Capital Planning
  • Digital Budget Books
  • Public Dashboards
  • Tyler Munis
  • OpenGov
  • Excel

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.

ClearGov

  • municipal budget and financial transparencynot Qualys VMDR
  • government finance analytics and reportingnot Qualys VMDR
  • civic engagement and public recordsnot 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 ClearGov
  • PCI DSS external scanning where an approved scanning vendor report is a contractual requirementnot ClearGov
  • An estate spanning datacentre, multiple public clouds and endpoints that needs one vulnerability view rather than three toolsnot ClearGov
  • Organisations replacing a manual patch-verification process with agent-reported evidence that a fix actually landednot ClearGov

Where each one falls short

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

ClearGov

  • No pricing is published at any level, and the pricing page states no cost structure or model at all
  • No cost driver such as population, budget size or user count is named
  • The only routes to a figure are an email address and a demo booking

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

ClearGov

$200/month
  • Transparency$200/month
    • Budget Visualization
    • Benchmarking
    • Public Dashboards

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 ClearGov if

  • You need budget visualization.
  • You also want financial benchmarking.
ClearGov 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 ClearGov or Qualys VMDR better?
Neither clearly leads. ClearGov starts at $200/month and Qualys VMDR at $3/month, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, ClearGov or Qualys VMDR?
ClearGov starts at $200/month and Qualys VMDR at $3/month.
Does ClearGov or Qualys VMDR run on more platforms?
ClearGov runs on Web. Qualys VMDR runs on Web, Cloud, Api.
What is ClearGov best used for?
ClearGov is most often used for municipal budget and financial transparency, government finance analytics and reporting, civic engagement and public records. Of those, municipal budget and financial transparency and government finance analytics and reporting are not what Qualys VMDR is typically brought in for.
What can ClearGov do that Qualys VMDR cannot?
ClearGov covers Budget Visualization, Financial Benchmarking, Capital Planning, Digital Budget Books. Qualys VMDR covers Cloud Agent, Scanner appliances, Authenticated scanning, TruRisk scoring.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

ClearGov: How much does ClearGov cost?

ClearGov pricing is not published; you must schedule a demo or contact [email protected] to request pricing information.

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.

ClearGov: Does ClearGov offer a free trial?

ClearGov does not publish a free trial option; pricing inquiry and trial availability must be discussed through a demo request with their sales team.

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.

ClearGov: What is ClearGov's pricing model?

ClearGov appears to operate on a custom, quote-based pricing model; costs are tailored to specific municipalities based on population size, features, and implementation requirements.

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.

ClearGov: How do I get a ClearGov pricing quote?

Visit cleargov.com and click the demo scheduling button, or email [email protected]; provide details about your municipality size and required features for an accurate quote.

Source
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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