Qualys TotalCloud CNAPP secures leader status in the Forrester Wave™ Q1 2026 evaluation, receiving maximum scores in nine criteria while surpassing strong performers Palo Alto Networks, CrowdStrike, Trend Micro, Aqua Security, Tenable, and others.
(Isstories Editorial):- Foster City, California Feb 26, 2026 (Issuewire.com) – Qualys, Inc. (NASDAQ: QLYS) today announced that independent research and advisory firm Forrester Research has named Qualys a Leader in The Forrester Wave: Cloud-Native Application Protection Solutions (CNAPP), Q1 2026 — an authoritative evaluation of the 14 most significant CNAPP vendors in the market. Qualys is one of only three companies to achieve Leader status, alongside Wiz and Sysdig, while six well-established competitors — Palo Alto Networks, Trend Micro, Aqua Security, CrowdStrike, Tenable, and Orca Security — were classified as Strong Performers. Five additional vendors, including Microsoft, Rapid7, and Fortinet, were categorized as Contenders.
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Nine Highest-Possible Scores Across Critical Evaluation Criteria
Forrester’s evaluation assessed vendors across current offering, strategy, and customer feedback dimensions. Qualys received the highest possible marks in nine criteria spanning these dimensions, reflecting the maturity and integration of the Qualys Enterprise TruRisk Platform and its CNAPP submodules. Among the standout findings:
Pricing Flexibility and Transparency: Qualys received the highest possible score in this criterion, reflecting its QFlex single-SKU licensing model. Unlike competitors such as Palo Alto Networks and Trend Micro — both of whom received lower scores in this area — QFlex allows enterprises to reallocate usage across all CNAPP capabilities without renegotiation, directly addressing what Forrester identified as a growing industry issue of vendors silently unbundling and repricing CNAPP components.
Agentic AI and Copilots: Forrester awarded Qualys the highest possible score in this rapidly emerging criterion. Qualys’ Cyber Risk Marketplace enables organizations to deploy purpose-built cyber risk agents — focused on discovery, prioritization, and remediation — across the full risk lifecycle. This marketplace-based approach to agentic AI outscored competitors including CrowdStrike, Tenable, and Orca Security in this criterion.
FlexScan — Agent-Based and Agentless CWP: Qualys was one of only two vendors evaluated to receive maximum (5/5) scores in both agent-based and agentless cloud workload protection criteria. Its FlexScan technology uniquely combines cloud agent-based assessment with snapshot, API-based, and network-based scanning, providing comprehensive TruRisk and exposure coverage across hybrid environments. Several Strong Performers, including Aqua Security and Trend Micro, scored lower in one or both of these critical CWP dimensions.
Partner Ecosystem: With nearly half of revenue driven through channel partners, Qualys received the highest possible score in the partner ecosystem criterion. Its Managed Risk Operations Center (mROC) program helps customers proactively manage exposures, misconfigurations, and vulnerabilities — complementing traditional SOC services with preventive risk operations. This partner depth outpaced competitors including Palo Alto Networks, CrowdStrike, and Orca Security in this criterion.
“The CNAPP market is at an inflection point where feature breadth alone is no longer enough,” said Kunal Modasiya, Senior Vice President, Product Management, GTM and Growth at Qualys. “Buyers are demanding platform coherence, pricing transparency, and operational maturity. We believe this Forrester Wave Leader recognition validates that Qualys TotalCloud CNAPP is built to deliver on all three — at enterprise scale, in real time, and without adding cost or friction to our customers’ security operations.”
The Q1 2026 evaluation reflects a heightened focus on three trends shaping enterprise cloud security purchasing decisions: CNAPP pricing transparency, the depth of integration between platform components, and the consistency of product update quality. Qualys addressed all three directly — with its unified administrative backend integrating CSPM, agent-based and agentless CWP, agentic AI, and container runtime protection through a single RBAC and policy management layer. Forrester’s evaluation noted that this administrative coherence is “robust,” and that Qualys actively expands its platform coverage to include SSPM use cases. Customer feedback highlighted that Qualys listens and responds with platform enhancements, a characteristic that enabled Qualys to achieve above-average customer feedback scores relative to several strong performer competitors.
The full report, The Forrester Wave: Cloud-Native Application Protection Solutions, Q1 2026, is available at qualys.com. Organizations seeking to evaluate CNAPP platforms can use this report as an independent, analyst-verified guide to shortlist vendors that have been rigorously assessed against enterprise-grade security requirements.
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