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Government · head to head

Palantir Gotham vs Qualys VMDR

Palantir Gotham logo

Palantir Gotham

Government

Data Integration for Defense & Intelligence

From
$10000/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: Palantir Gotham no pricing information published; enterprise product requiring direct sales engagement; 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: Palantir Gotham covers Data Integration, Qualys VMDR covers Cloud Agent.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 30 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Palantir Gotham and Qualys VMDR actually diverge.

Attributes where Palantir Gotham and Qualys VMDR differ
AttributePalantir GothamQualys VMDR
Starting price$10000/month$3/month
Pricing modelquotesubscription
PlatformsDesktop, WebWeb, Cloud, Api
CategoryGovernmentCybersecurity
Founded20031999

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 Palantir Gotham

  • Data Integration
  • Pattern Analysis
  • Link Analysis
  • Geospatial Analysis
  • Collaboration
  • Intelligence Databases
  • Classified Systems
  • GIS

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.

Palantir Gotham

  • Citizen Servicesnot Qualys VMDR
  • Records Managementnot Qualys VMDR
  • Public Safetynot Qualys VMDR
  • Civic Engagementnot 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 Palantir Gotham
  • PCI DSS external scanning where an approved scanning vendor report is a contractual requirementnot Palantir Gotham
  • An estate spanning datacentre, multiple public clouds and endpoints that needs one vulnerability view rather than three toolsnot Palantir Gotham
  • Organisations replacing a manual patch-verification process with agent-reported evidence that a fix actually landednot Palantir Gotham

Where each one falls short

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

Palantir Gotham

  • No pricing information published; enterprise product requiring direct sales engagement

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

Palantir Gotham

$10000/month
  • Enterprise$10000/month
    • Data Integration
    • Analysis Tools
    • Collaboration

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 Palantir Gotham if

  • You need data integration.
  • You work on Desktop, Web.
  • You also want pattern analysis.
Palantir Gotham 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 Palantir Gotham or Qualys VMDR better?
Neither clearly leads. Palantir Gotham starts at $10000/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, Palantir Gotham or Qualys VMDR?
Palantir Gotham starts at $10000/month and Qualys VMDR at $3/month.
Does Palantir Gotham or Qualys VMDR run on more platforms?
Palantir Gotham runs on Desktop, Web. Qualys VMDR runs on Web, Cloud, Api.
What is Palantir Gotham best used for?
Palantir Gotham is most often used for citizen services, records management, public safety, civic engagement. Of those, citizen services and records management are not what Qualys VMDR is typically brought in for.
What can Palantir Gotham do that Qualys VMDR cannot?
Palantir Gotham covers Data Integration, Pattern Analysis, Link Analysis, Geospatial Analysis. Qualys VMDR covers Cloud Agent, Scanner appliances, Authenticated scanning, TruRisk scoring.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Palantir Gotham: How much does Palantir Gotham cost?

Palantir Gotham does not publish pricing information on its website. As an enterprise analytics platform, costs are determined through direct sales consultation tailored to organizational scope and requirements.

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.

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.

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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