Qualys Recognized as a Leader in the 2026 Forrester Wave™ for CNAPP

Qualys’ Key Takeaways Selecting the right security platform is no longer just a technical decision; it’s a strategic imperative. For Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) and cloud security leaders, the market is flooded with vendors promising total visibility and single-pane-of-glass simplicity. Cutting through the noise demands rigorous, objective analysis.  For The Forrester Wave™: Cloud-Native Application Protection Solutions (CNAPP), Q1 2026, […]

Qualys Recognized as a Leader in the 2026 Forrester Wave™ for CNAPP

Kunal Modasiya, Senior Vice President, Product Management, GTM and Growth

February 19, 2026 - 7 min read

Table of Contents

• Qualys Key Takeaways
• The Significance of This Forrester Wave
• Why We Believe Qualys Resonated in This Evaluation
• Looking Ahead
• Frequently Asked Questions

Qualys’ Key Takeaways

• Qualys Named a Leader: Recognized as one of only three leaders in The Forrester Wave™: Cloud-Native Application Protection Solutions (CNAPP), Q1 2026.

• Unified Platform: “Qualys has been actively expanding its platform to cover CSPM, CIEM, and even SaaS security posture management (SSPM) use cases.”

• Pricing Transparency: Qualys received the highest possible score in the Pricing Flexibility and Transparency criterion. We believe this is based on the QFlex™ model that offers single-SKU flexibility, allowing businesses to shift usage between capabilities without any procurement friction.

• Agentic AI & Copilot Capabilities: Received the highest possible score in the agentic AI and copilots criterion, which Qualys believes is due to our Cyber Risk Marketplace and purpose-built cyber risk agents.

• Comprehensive CWP Scanning: Qualys FlexScan™ achieved maximum possible scores (5/5) in both Agent-based and Agentless CWP criteria.

Selecting the right security platform is no longer just a technical decision; it’s a strategic imperative. For Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) and cloud security leaders, the market is flooded with vendors promising total visibility and single-pane-of-glass simplicity. Cutting through the noise demands rigorous, objective analysis.

For The Forrester Wave™: Cloud-Native Application Protection Solutions (CNAPP), Q1 2026, in a crowded market, the firm identified the 14 most significant providers in the market. They didn’t just look at features; they researched, analyzed, and scored each vendor against a strict set of criteria across two categories – current offering and strategy – including partner ecosystem and other criteria that support customer needs. Customer feedback is also assessed. Qualys was named as one among only three leaders after this exhaustive assessment.

We believe this recognition is a testament to Qualys’ continued focus on delivering an integrated, enterprise-grade CNAPP platform—one built to operate at hybrid-cloud scale, respond to modern AI-driven threats in real time, and evolve without adding cost or operational friction.

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The Significance of This Forrester Wave

The Forrester Wave™ offers a roadmap to help create a shortlist of vendors who don’t just claim to secure the cloud but have been verified to do so effectively by a leading industry analyst firm. We believe this Forrester evaluation reflects a clear shift in how CNAPP platforms are being assessed.

Recent cloud misconfiguration–driven breaches and supply chain attacks have shown that risk now spans cloud infrastructure, identities, containers, APIs, serverless workloads, and emerging AI surfaces. Point solutions can no longer keep pace. Organizations need unified visibility, continuous risk prioritization, compliance remediation, and real-time detection and response across all cloud layers.

The analysis uncovers three trends that signal where the CNAPP market is heading. Forrester suggests “CNAPP customers using this evaluation to inform a purchase decision should consider”:

The vendor’s CNAPP pricing model: Vendors have started silently increasing prices by unbundling CNAPP components and charging for them separately.

The level of integration between components: Showing the same (often brandable) logo at the top left-hand corner of admin user interfaces does not mean that the product components have been harmonized in terms of design principles, policy management, and auditing.

The vendor’s update frequency, quality, and related communication: Customer references said that even larger vendors provide unpredictable frequency and quality, with CNAPP updates often riddled with bugs and regressions.”

Why We Believe Qualys Resonated in This Evaluation

According to Forrester’s evaluation, Qualys received the highest possible marks in nine criteria, including those noted below.

Integrated CNAPP Built on a Single Platform

Qualys received the highest possible scores in the CNAPP administrator management criterion, with Forrester’s evaluation citing that “Administrative user management (role-based access control, organizational hierarchy, and subtenant organization setup) is robust.” We believe this assessment is based on the evaluation of administrator management criteria powered by the Qualys Enterprise TruRisk Platform and the integration of all CNAPP submodules including CSPM, agent-based/agentless CWP, agentic AI, and container runtime protection through a single administrative backend with unified RBAC, identity federation, audit logging, and policy management—reducing operational complexity and enabling consistent governance at scale. Pricing Flexibility and Transparency

Qualys received the highest possible score in this criterion, with Forrester’s report noting that “pricing flexibility is above par.” We believe this assessment was based on the flexibility of the Qualys QFlex™ licensing model that provides a single-SKU license across the entire CNAPP platform, with the ability to reallocate or shift usage between capabilities as needs evolve—without renegotiation or procurement delays.

Partner Ecosystem

Qualys received the highest score in this criterion. With almost half of revenue driven through partners, we believe this assessment was influenced by the strength of Qualys’ ecosystem—including the Managed Risk Operations Center (mROC) program—which helps customers proactively manage exposures, misconfigurations, and vulnerabilities, complementing traditional SOC services with preventive risk operations.

FlexScan™: Comprehensive Coverage Without Tradeoffs

Qualys was one of only two vendors that received the maximum possible (5/5) scores in both the “Agent-based” and “Agentless CWP” criteria. We believe these scores were influenced by Qualys’ FlexScan capabilities that uniquely combine cloud agent–based assessment with snapshot, API-based, and network-based scanning—giving organizations flexible deployment options while maintaining the most comprehensive TruRisk and exposure coverage in the market.

Agentic AI for Unified Risk Management

Forrester recognized Qualys with the highest possible score in the ‘agentic AI and copilots’ criterion. We believe this reflects Qualys’ approach that extends beyond copilots through its Cyber Risk Marketplace, enabling organizations to “hire” purpose-built cyber risk agents—such as agents focused on discovery, prioritization, and remediation—across the full risk lifecycle. Users can review agents’ ratings from other users on the marketplace before adopting them, and they operate within the platform, accelerating investigation and response without introducing new tools or silos.

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