AuditCore vs Qualys
Qualys is the heavyweight enterprise vulnerability management platform — VMDR for infra, WAS for web apps, container security, cloud security, PCI ASV, attack surface management. Comprehensive, expensive, sales-led. AuditCore covers web/API/mobile/AI deeply at SMB pricing with self-serve setup.
The TL;DR
Pick AuditCore if: You're a SaaS / agency / web business under $50M revenue. You want self-serve, one-time pricing per site, no sales call. You need depth on web/API/mobile/AI plus per-standard compliance evidence. You don't have a corporate network with thousands of internal assets to manage.
Pick Qualys if: You're a Fortune 1000 / large enterprise. You need: corporate network vuln scanning at scale, cloud security posture management across AWS/Azure/GCP, container/Kubernetes security, attack surface management for external assets, PCI ASV-certified quarterly scans. You have a budget that supports $50K+/year and prefer one vendor for everything.
Run both: You're a mid-market company with both a corporate network (Qualys VMDR fits) AND a SaaS product (AuditCore fits). Or: you're using Qualys for the PCI ASV requirement and want a continuous-DAST scanner with better AI / mobile / WordPress coverage on the side.
Feature-by-feature comparison
Pricing accurate as of mid-2026. Qualys pricing is quote-based; figures from third-party reports (e.g. PeerSpot, Gartner Peer Insights).
| Feature | AuditCore | Qualys |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price Qualys is enterprise-priced; full platform deployments typically $20K-100K+/year. | $0 free, $29 paid (one-time per site) | $1,995/year for VMDR (95 IP), Web App Scanning add-on extra |
| Pricing model | One-time per site, unlimited rescans | Annual subscription per IP/asset + per-module add-ons |
| Free tier | yes (1-page audit) | 60-day trial, no permanent free tier |
| Setup time | <2 min | Days-weeks (asset onboarding, agent rollout, integrations) |
| Self-serve signup | no (sales-led) | |
| Web application DAST | yes (Qualys WAS, separate license) | |
| OWASP Top 10 coverage | ||
| BOLA / BFLA cross-role Qualys WAS does authenticated scanning; cross-role replay depth is lower. | ||
| GraphQL deep fuzzing | ||
| OpenAPI / Swagger fuzzing | ||
| Network vulnerability scanning (VMDR) Qualys VMDR is the strength — we don't compete here. | partial (nmap) | yes (industry-leading) |
| Asset inventory + classification | yes (Qualys CMDB) | |
| Cloud security posture (CSPM) | yes (TotalCloud) | |
| Container / K8s scanning | yes (Trivy) | yes (Qualys Container Security) |
| Attack surface management (ASM) | partial (subdomain discovery) | yes (CyberSecurity Asset Mgmt) |
| AI prompt-injection scanner Unique to AuditCore. | ||
| AI-readiness scanner Unique to AuditCore. | ||
| Mobile (APK / IPA) scanning | ||
| SEO audit included | yes (60+ checks) | |
| WordPress-specific tests | yes (11) | partial (generic) |
| PCI ASV scanner Qualys is one of the most-used ASVs globally. | yes (ASV-certified since PCI's inception) | |
| Per-standard compliance pages | yes (5 standards mapped) | yes (policy compliance module) |
| White-label PDF reports | yes (custom branding via reports module) | |
| API / programmatic access | yes (REST + MCP) | yes (REST) |
| Free Slack / community support | yes (Discord) | no (paid support tiers) |
Frequently asked questions
Is AuditCore a Qualys alternative?+
For web app security: yes, with comparable coverage on OWASP Top 10 + deeper coverage on AI / mobile / WordPress / SEO that Qualys doesn't try to do. For Qualys's full enterprise vuln management platform (VMDR + cloud + ASM + container + policy compliance + ASV): not really — Qualys is a 10-product platform, we're focused on web/API/mobile/AI scanning.
How does Qualys WAS compare specifically?+
Qualys WAS is their dedicated DAST product. Comparable to AuditCore on traditional OWASP Top 10. WAS wins on: integration with the rest of the Qualys platform (one console for vuln + web + cloud + container findings), SAML/SSO, enterprise RBAC. AuditCore wins on: AI prompt-injection (14 categories), AI-readiness, mobile binary, WordPress-specific, SEO, bot-vs-browser pricing detection, and price (one-time vs subscription).
Can AuditCore do PCI ASV scans?+
No, we're not an Approved Scanning Vendor. Qualys is one of the largest ASVs. If you need PCI 11.3.2 quarterly external scans, use Qualys (or another ASV: Trustwave, A-LIGN, etc.). Use AuditCore for: PCI 11.3.1 internal vulnerability scans, secure development verification (req 6), continuous change-driven re-scans. See our PCI DSS compliance page for the full mapping.
Will Qualys catch things AuditCore misses?+
Yes — network-layer vulns (your firewall config, internal IP services, IoT devices, network appliances) and cloud-posture issues (S3 misconfig, IAM over-privilege). AuditCore is web-app-focused; we won't replace VMDR or CSPM. The converse is also true: Qualys WAS won't catch the AI prompt-injection vulnerabilities in your LLM chatbot, won't analyze your APK's exported components, won't tell you that ChatGPT can't render your pricing page because of JS-only rendering. Different surfaces.
Is Qualys really that expensive?+
Their entry pricing (VMDR for 95 IPs at ~$2K/year) is accessible. The 'enterprise gets quoted $50K+' figure reflects realistic deployments: VMDR + WAS + Cloud Security + PCI ASV + Container + ASM, scaled to 1000s of assets. If you only need WAS for a few web apps, it's cheaper — but at that scale AuditCore is usually 5-20x cheaper for similar web coverage.
How does developer / CI workflow compare?+
AuditCore: GitHub Action one-liner, MCP server for Claude/Cursor IDE integration, REST API. Qualys: REST API, Jenkins plugin, Jira integration, ServiceNow integration. Qualys has deeper enterprise ITSM integration; AuditCore has cleaner developer-tool integration. Pick based on whether your security workflow lives in Jira/ServiceNow or in GitHub/IDEs.
What about reporting + dashboards?+
Qualys has more sophisticated dashboards (executive scorecards, trend reports, custom KPIs) — that's what enterprise buyers expect. AuditCore has clean per-scan PDFs + per-domain trend view + admin analytics for traffic attribution. If you need C-level board-ready KPI dashboards across 1000s of assets, Qualys. If you need readable per-site reports your dev team will actually act on, AuditCore.