Nuclei vs Qualys Scanner Appliance
Nuclei
nuclei.projectdiscovery.ioQualys Scanner Appliance
docs.qualys.comSide by side
| Figure | Nuclei | Qualys Scanner Appliance |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | — |
| Free plan | Yes | — |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | — | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | — |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | — |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 0 |
| Spec score · Network Vulnerability Scanners | 8.4 (#7) | 7.1 (#15) |
| Integrations | The project README lists Jira, Splunk, GitHub, Elastic, and GitLab integrations. | The scanner overview lists support for vaults including Secret Server, CyberArk, and Azure Key Vault, and for Thales HSM, HashiCorp, and BeyondTrust PBPS. |
| Purpose | Nuclei is a vulnerability scanner for probing applications, infrastructure, cloud platforms, and networks using YAML templates. | The appliance scans assets on internal or internet-facing networks for vulnerabilities and compliance issues. |
| Support | The open-source page says maintainers answer questions in Discord and template requests can be filed as GitHub issues. | The documentation directs users to Qualys Support for information about perimeter scanner subscription details. |
| Who it is for | The maker names security engineers and analysts, red teams, DevOps teams, bug bounty hunters, and penetration testers as Nuclei users. | Qualys describes the solution as suitable for organizations with large network infrastructure or regulatory requirements for internal scanning. |
Plans
In their own words
Nuclei
Nuclei is a free, open-source vulnerability scanner for applications, infrastructure, cloud platforms, and networks. It uses YAML templates to define checks, drawing on more than 6,500 community-contributed templates; users can also create custom templates. Bulk and parallel scans, multiple target formats, and inclusion and exclusion filters are supported. Modules cover HTTP, DNS, TCP, headless, JavaScript, code, and file scanning, and authentication options include HTTP basic authentication and JWT. Nuclei can run in CI/CD pipelines, including through GitHub Actions, and export SARIF results to GitHub Code Scanning. It is distributed under the MIT License and is primarily a standalone CLI tool, with installation options including Go, Homebrew, Docker, GitHub, downloadable binaries, and Helm. It is actively developed, but has no LTS or stable version, so updates may bring breaking changes. Some templates can fuzz or take actions that risk denial of service; these are tagged and excluded from default scans. The tool is intended for security engineers, analysts, red teams, DevOps teams, bug bounty hunters, and penetration testers.
Qualys Scanner Appliance
Qualys Scanner Appliance has no write-up on Specifiction yet; its figures are above.