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Cybersecurity · head to head

Qualys VMDR vs Quantexa

Qualys VMDR logo

Qualys VMDR

Cybersecurity

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

From
$3/month
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Quantexa logo

Quantexa

Cybersecurity

Entity resolution and network analytics for financial crime investigation

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: 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.; Quantexa pricing is never published and lands in the seven figure range annually for a tier one deployment, so it is out of reach for mid-sized institutions no matter how well the analytics would fit.
  • They diverge on capability: Qualys VMDR covers Cloud Agent, Quantexa covers Entity resolution.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

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

Attributes where Qualys VMDR and Quantexa differ
AttributeQualys VMDRQuantexa
Starting price$3/monthOn request
Pricing modelsubscriptionquote
PlatformsWeb, Cloud, ApiWeb, Linux
Founded1999Unknown

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

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 Qualys VMDR

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

Only in Quantexa

  • Entity resolution
  • Network generation
  • Contextual monitoring
  • Investigation workspace
  • Data fusion
  • Deployment on customer cloud

What people use each for

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

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 Quantexa
  • PCI DSS external scanning where an approved scanning vendor report is a contractual requirementnot Quantexa
  • An estate spanning datacentre, multiple public clouds and endpoints that needs one vulnerability view rather than three toolsnot Quantexa
  • Organisations replacing a manual patch-verification process with agent-reported evidence that a fix actually landednot Quantexa

Quantexa

  • A bank whose AML alert backlog is dominated by false positives and wants network context to close them fasternot Qualys VMDR
  • Sanctions investigation where the sanctioned party is not the account holder but a connected director or shareholdernot Qualys VMDR
  • Merging customer records across retail, commercial and wealth divisions after an acquisition to see total exposurenot Qualys VMDR
  • A tax or benefits agency looking for organised fraud rings rather than individual claimantsnot Qualys VMDR

Where each one falls short

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

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.

Quantexa

  • Pricing is never published and lands in the seven figure range annually for a tier one deployment, so it is out of reach for mid-sized institutions no matter how well the analytics would fit.
  • Output quality is bounded by input data quality, and organisations without governed customer data spend the first phase of the programme fixing feeds rather than catching criminals.
  • Implementation typically requires a systems integrator and runs into quarters rather than weeks, so the business case has to survive a long period with no operational benefit.
  • The platform augments rather than replaces existing transaction monitoring, so you keep paying for the incumbent system alongside it and total compliance technology spend rises before it falls.
  • Skills are scarce; the platform needs people who understand both Spark scale data engineering and financial crime typologies, and those people are hard to recruit and easy to lose.

Pricing, plan by plan

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

Quantexa

On request
  • Quantexa Platform$undefined/year
    • Entity resolution and network generation
    • Deployed in customer cloud tenancy
    • Priced by data volume and use case count

Which should you pick?

Choose Qualys VMDR if

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

Choose Quantexa if

  • You need entity resolution.
  • You work on Web, Linux.
  • You also want network generation.
Quantexa review

Questions people ask

Is Qualys VMDR or Quantexa better?
Neither clearly leads. Qualys VMDR starts at $3/month and Quantexa at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Qualys VMDR or Quantexa?
Qualys VMDR starts at $3/month and Quantexa at On request.
Does Qualys VMDR or Quantexa run on more platforms?
Qualys VMDR runs on Web, Cloud, Api. Quantexa runs on Web, Linux.
What is Qualys VMDR best used for?
Qualys VMDR is most often used for a hybrid workforce where scheduled network scans miss most laptops and continuous agent-based assessment is the only way to get real coverage, pci dss external scanning where an approved scanning vendor report is a contractual requirement, an estate spanning datacentre, multiple public clouds and endpoints that needs one vulnerability view rather than three tools, organisations replacing a manual patch-verification process with agent-reported evidence that a fix actually landed. Of those, a hybrid workforce where scheduled network scans miss most laptops and continuous agent-based assessment is the only way to get real coverage and pci dss external scanning where an approved scanning vendor report is a contractual requirement are not what Quantexa is typically brought in for.
What can Qualys VMDR do that Quantexa cannot?
Qualys VMDR covers Cloud Agent, Scanner appliances, Authenticated scanning, TruRisk scoring. Quantexa covers Entity resolution, Network generation, Contextual monitoring, Investigation workspace.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

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.

Quantexa: Does Quantexa replace our transaction monitoring system?

No. It usually sits alongside it, adding network context to the alerts that system generates and to investigations.

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.

Quantexa: Where does our data go?

Into your own cloud tenancy in the normal deployment model. Quantexa does not require you to send customer data to a shared multi-tenant service.

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.

Quantexa: How is it priced?

Not publicly. Expect an annual subscription scaled by data volume and number of use cases, plus separate implementation cost.

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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