Softwr

Government · head to head

DemandStar vs Qualys VMDR

DemandStar logo

DemandStar

Government

Bid distribution network that is free for government agencies and charges the suppliers instead

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
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

  • Only DemandStar has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: DemandStar coverage is opt-in by agency, so a supplier paying for a state tier receives only participating agencies and must still monitor other portals for the rest.; 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: DemandStar covers Free for agencies, Qualys VMDR covers Cloud Agent.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

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

Attributes where DemandStar and Qualys VMDR differ
AttributeDemandStarQualys VMDR
Starting priceFree$3/month
Pricing modelFree for agencies, per year by geographic coverage for supplierssubscription
Free tierYesNo
PlatformsWebWeb, Cloud, Api
CategoryGovernmentCybersecurity
FoundedUnknown1999

Identical on both: 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 DemandStar

  • Free for agencies
  • Commodity code matching
  • eBidding
  • Plan holder lists
  • Supplier registration
  • Geographic subscription tiers

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.

DemandStar

  • A city purchasing officer who wants wider bid distribution without running a procurement to buy softwarenot Qualys VMDR
  • A contractor who works in three adjacent counties and wants notifications only for that footprintnot Qualys VMDR
  • An agency needing sealed electronic bid submission to replace paper deliveries to the clerknot Qualys VMDR
  • A supplier testing whether public sector work is viable before committing to a national subscriptionnot 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 DemandStar
  • PCI DSS external scanning where an approved scanning vendor report is a contractual requirementnot DemandStar
  • An estate spanning datacentre, multiple public clouds and endpoints that needs one vulnerability view rather than three toolsnot DemandStar
  • Organisations replacing a manual patch-verification process with agent-reported evidence that a fix actually landednot DemandStar

Where each one falls short

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

DemandStar

  • Coverage is opt-in by agency, so a supplier paying for a state tier receives only participating agencies and must still monitor other portals for the rest.
  • The free supplier tier charges around 5 US dollars per bid document download, which turns an apparently free plan into a metered one as soon as you actually pursue opportunities.
  • State pricing ranges from roughly 100 to 1,499 US dollars with the variation driven by agency density, so suppliers cannot predict cost from geography alone.
  • Because agencies pay nothing, they have little leverage over the roadmap and features are driven by what makes supplier subscriptions sell.
  • The brand is being folded into Euna OpenBid following the Euna Solutions consolidation, so suppliers and agencies should expect the name and portal to change.

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

DemandStar

Free
  • Government agencyFree
    • Post unlimited solicitations
    • Access the supplier network
    • eBidding and plan holder lists
  • Supplier freeFree
    • Bid notifications for one agency of your choice
    • Bid document downloads charged around 5 USD each
    • Supplier profile and registration
  • Supplier county$60/year
    • All participating agencies within one county
    • Unlimited bid document access for that county
    • Approximate rate, varies by county
  • Supplier state$100/year
    • All participating agencies within one state
    • Priced from around 100 to 1,499 USD depending on agency density

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 DemandStar if

  • You need free for agencies.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You also want commodity code matching.
DemandStar 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 DemandStar or Qualys VMDR better?
Neither clearly leads. DemandStar starts at Free and Qualys VMDR at $3/month, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, DemandStar or Qualys VMDR?
DemandStar has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for DemandStar and $3/month for Qualys VMDR.
Does DemandStar or Qualys VMDR run on more platforms?
DemandStar runs on Web. Qualys VMDR runs on Web, Cloud, Api.
Can I use DemandStar for free?
Yes. DemandStar has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Qualys VMDR starts at $3/month.
What is DemandStar best used for?
DemandStar is most often used for a city purchasing officer who wants wider bid distribution without running a procurement to buy software, a contractor who works in three adjacent counties and wants notifications only for that footprint, an agency needing sealed electronic bid submission to replace paper deliveries to the clerk, a supplier testing whether public sector work is viable before committing to a national subscription. Of those, a city purchasing officer who wants wider bid distribution without running a procurement to buy software and a contractor who works in three adjacent counties and wants notifications only for that footprint are not what Qualys VMDR is typically brought in for.
What can DemandStar do that Qualys VMDR cannot?
DemandStar covers Free for agencies, Commodity code matching, eBidding, Plan holder lists. Qualys VMDR covers Cloud Agent, Scanner appliances, Authenticated scanning, TruRisk scoring.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

DemandStar: Is DemandStar free for governments?

Yes, entirely. Agencies post solicitations and access the supplier network at no cost; suppliers fund the platform.

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.

DemandStar: What do suppliers pay?

Free for one agency with roughly 5 USD per document download, about 60 USD a year per county, 100 to 1,499 per state, and 2,699 for national coverage.

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.

DemandStar: Who owns DemandStar?

Euna Solutions, the public sector portfolio formerly known as GTY Technology, which also absorbed Bonfire and Ion Wave.

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.

DemandStar: Does it cover every agency?

No. Only agencies that have opted in, which is the main limitation for suppliers buying wide coverage.

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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