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, […]
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Qualys Recognized as a Leader in the 2026 Forrester Wave™ for CNAPP
[Image: Kunal Modasiya]
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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**Looking Ahead**
To us, this recently published Forrester Wave reinforces a broader market truth: CNAPP success is no longer defined by feature breadth alone, but by platform coherence, pricing transparency and efficiency, and operational maturity.
As cloud, AI, and software supply-chain risks continue to converge, organizations need security platforms that unify risk, enable action, and scale with confidence.
That’s the direction we believe Forrester is signaling—and the direction Qualys remains committed to delivering.
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**Frequently Asked Questions**
Q: What is the Forrester Wave™ for CNAPP?
A: The Forrester Wave™ is an objective evaluation of top vendors in the Cloud-Native Application Protection Solutions market, scoring them on current offering and strategy.
Q: How does Qualys FlexScan™ improve cloud security?
A: FlexScan™ combines multiple assessment methods—agent-based, snapshot, API, and network scanning—to provide flexible, zero-tradeoff visibility into cloud workloads.
Q: What makes the Qualys QFlex™ pricing model different?
A: QFlex™ is a flexible, single-SKU model that allows enterprises to reallocate value across different security capabilities without needing new contracts or procurement cycles.
Forrester does not endorse any company, product, brand, or service included in its research publications and does not advise any person to select the products or services of any company or brand based on the ratings included in such publications. Information is based on the best available resources. Opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to change. For more information, read about Forrester’s objectivity here.
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[Original source](https://blog.qualys.com/product-tech/2026/02/17/qualys-recognized-as-a-leader-in-the-2026-forrester-wave-for-cnapp)