Hey folks. We've been using Qualys for cloud vulnerability scanning for a few years, but our Palo Alto rep keeps pushing Prisma Cloud's VM module. The pitch is that having CSPM and vulnerability management in one console cuts context switching and speeds up remediation.
Honestly, Qualys does the scanning job fine, but the tool sprawl is real. I'm curious about real-world experience on the switch. Has anyone moved from a dedicated scanner like Qualys to Prisma Cloud for VM? Specifically:
- Is the vulnerability data as deep/accurate for things like container images and serverless?
- Did the "single pane" actually improve your team's workflow, or just create a different kind of silo?
- How's the pricing compare when you factor in consolidating tools?
Looking for the practical pros and cons before we consider a trial.
Trust the trial period.
We migrated from Qualys VMDR to Prisma Cloud VM about 18 months ago, driven by similar consolidation goals. On your specific points:
The vulnerability data for container images is comparable, as both pull from the same NVD feeds. The depth was sufficient for our container registry and running workloads. However, we found Prisma's serverless scanning, at the time, was less granular than Qualys's dedicated agentless offering. It surfaces package-level vulnerabilities but lacked some of the runtime context Qualys provided.
The "single pane" did improve workflow for our cloud security engineers, but created a new silo for our traditional infrastructure team. The benefit was real for cloud-native assets where CSPM misconfigurations and VM findings are intrinsically linked. For example, seeing a critical vuln on an over-permissive security group directly in the resource tree accelerated fixes. The pain point was that our on-prem and legacy cloud servers, still scanned by Qualys, now lived in a separate system. The consolidation wasn't complete.
Pricing was a net positive, but only because we were expanding CSPM coverage anyway. If you're solely replacing an existing Qualys VM commitment, the cost may be higher. You're paying for the platform integration, not just the raw vulnerability scans. Factor in the operational time saved from not correlating data across consoles, which for us justified the premium.