Open-Source Alternatives to Qualys Cloud Platform

Prowler is a cloud security assessment tool that performs over 300 checks against AWS, Azure, GCP, and Kubernetes infrastructures. Aligning with CIS benchmarks, it evaluates cloud environments for compliance and security vulnerabilities. Prowler is a critical resource for cloud security practitioners and auditors aiming to enhance the security posture of their cloud deployments through comprehensive and automated assessments.

ScoutSuite is a multi-cloud security auditing tool that assesses the security posture of cloud environments like AWS, Azure, GCP, Alibaba Cloud, and Oracle Cloud. It collects configuration data through cloud provider APIs and analyzes this data for potential security risks and misconfigurations. The tool outputs findings in an easy-to-read HTML report, highlighting issues such as overly permissive access controls. ScoutSuite is valued for its ability to provide a comprehensive security overview across multiple cloud platforms.

CloudFox is a tool for identifying exploitable attack paths within cloud infrastructures. It enumerates IAM permissions, secrets, and network exposure to uncover potential vulnerabilities in AWS and Azure environments. Written in Go, CloudFox helps security professionals assess the security posture of cloud deployments by revealing misconfigurations and access control weaknesses. The tool is essential for cloud security audits and penetration testing.

Steampipe is an open-source tool from Turbot that lets you query cloud infrastructure, SaaS services, and more using standard SQL. Rather than learning dozens of CLI tools and API formats, you write SQL queries against a unified schema powered by PostgreSQL. With over 140 plugins covering AWS, Azure, GCP, Kubernetes, GitHub, Slack, and many others, Steampipe provides a single pane of glass for infrastructure visibility. Its compliance frameworks (called Mods) include pre-built benchmarks for CIS, NIST, PCI DSS, and SOC 2, making it a powerful tool for both security auditing and operational troubleshooting. Steampipe also supports dashboards for visualization and can export results in JSON, CSV, or markdown.

Trivy is a comprehensive vulnerability scanner capable of analyzing containers, filesystems, git repositories, and Kubernetes configurations. It generates Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) and identifies vulnerabilities by matching known CVEs against the scanned components. Designed for ease of use, Trivy integrates seamlessly into CI/CD pipelines, enabling continuous security assessments. Its broad coverage and support for multiple formats make it a versatile tool for maintaining security across diverse environments.

CloudSploit is an open-source security configuration scanner for cloud environments, including AWS, Azure, GCP, and Oracle Cloud. It detects misconfigurations and security risks by analyzing cloud service settings against best practices. Written in JavaScript, CloudSploit is used by security teams to identify vulnerabilities in cloud infrastructure and ensure compliance with security standards. Its comprehensive coverage makes it a critical tool for cloud security monitoring.

Stratus Red Team is Datadog's open-source adversary emulation tool specifically designed for cloud environments. While tools like CALDERA focus on endpoint and network attacks, Stratus Red Team provides granular, atomic attack techniques for AWS, Azure, GCP, and Kubernetes — mapped directly to the MITRE ATT&CK Cloud Matrix. Each technique is self-contained: Stratus handles all prerequisite infrastructure setup (creating test IAM roles, S3 buckets, EC2 instances), executes the attack technique, and then cleans up. This makes it ideal for purple team exercises where you need to validate that your cloud detection rules actually fire when specific attack patterns occur. Techniques cover initial access (stolen credentials, malicious Lambda layers), persistence (backdoor IAM users, modified trust policies), privilege escalation (IAM policy manipulation), and impact (S3 ransomware simulation). The CLI-based interface supports warm-up, detonate, and revert phases for repeatable testing.