Qualys (NASDAQ:QLYS) versus Braze (NASDAQ:BRZE) Head to Head Analysis

Braze (NASDAQ:BRZE) and Qualys (NASDAQ:QLYS) are both mid-cap technology companies, but which is the superior investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their valuation, dividends, risk, institutional ownership, analyst recommendations, earnings and profitability.

Volatility & Risk

Braze has a beta of 0.88, indicating that its share price is 12% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Qualys has a beta of 0.62, indicating that its share price is 38% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Braze and Qualys”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Braze	$834.24 million	3.43	-$131.29 million	($1.03)	-24.66
Qualys	$702.98 million	9.12	$198.32 million	$5.78	32.06

Qualys has lower revenue, but higher earnings than Braze. Braze is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Qualys, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares Braze and Qualys’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Braze	-13.55%	-16.11%	-8.86%
Qualys	29.38%	37.52%	19.41%

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent recommendations and price targets for Braze and Qualys, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Braze	1	1	20	0	2.86
Qualys	1	12	2	2	2.29

Braze presently has a consensus price target of $38.21, indicating a potential upside of 50.45%. Qualys has a consensus price target of $173.87, indicating a potential downside of 6.16%. Given Braze’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, equities research analysts clearly believe Braze is more favorable than Qualys.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

90.5% of Braze shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 99.3% of Qualys shares are owned by institutional investors. 12.5% of Braze shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 0.7% of Qualys shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Summary

Qualys beats Braze on 9 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Braze

Braze, Inc. operates a customer engagement platform that provides interactions between consumers and brands worldwide. The company offers Braze software development kits that automatically manage data ingestion and deliver mobile and web notifications, in-application/in-browser interstitial messages, and content cards; REST API that can be used to import or export data or to trigger workflows between Braze and brands' existing technology stacks; Partner Data Integrations, which allow brands to sync user cohorts from partners; Data Transformation, in which brands can programmatically sync and transform user data; and Braze Cloud Data Ingestion that enables brands to harness their customer data. It also offers classification products, including segmentation that can define reusable segments of consumers based upon attributes, events, or predictive propensity scores; segment insights, which allows customers to analyze how segments are performing relative to each other across a set of pre-selected key performance indicators; and predictive suite that allows customers to identify groups of consumers that are of critical business value. In addition, the company provides Canvas, an orchestration tool that allows customers to create journeys, mapping out multi-steps, and cross-channel messaging experiences; campaigns, which allows customers to send one set of single-channel or multi-channel messages to be delivered to customers in a particular user segment; event and API triggering; marketing pressure management; and reporting and analytics. Further, it offers personalization products, such as liquid templating platform, connected content platform, content blocks, intelligent timing and channel, personalized variant, and AI item recommendations, and catalogs; and action products. The company was formerly known as Appboy, Inc. and changed its name to Braze, Inc. in November 2017. Braze, Inc. was incorporated in 2011 and is headquartered in New York, New York.

About Qualys

Qualys, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides cloud-based platform delivering information technology (IT), security, and compliance solutions in the United States and internationally. It offers Qualys Cloud Apps, which include Cybersecurity Asset Management and External Attack Surface Management; Vulnerability Management, Detection and Response; Web Application Scanning; Patch Management; Custom Assessment and Remediation; Multi-Vector Endpoint Detection and Response; Context Extended Detection and Response; Policy Compliance; File Integrity Monitoring; and Qualys TotalCloud, as well as Cloud Workload Protection, Cloud Detection and Response, Cloud Security Posture Management, Infrastructure as Code, and Container Security. The company's integrated suite of IT, security, and compliance solutions delivered on its Qualys' Enterprise TruRisk Platform enables customers to identify and manage IT assets; collect and analyze IT security data; discover and prioritize vulnerabilities; quantify cyber risk exposure; recommend and implement remediation actions; and verify the implementation of such actions. It also provides asset tagging and management, reporting and dashboards, questionnaires and collaboration, remediation and workflow, big data correlation and analytics engine, and alerts and notifications that enable clients to detect vulnerabilities, and measure and remediate cyber risk. The company offers its solutions to enterprises, government entities, and small and medium-sized businesses in various industries, including education, financial services, government, healthcare, insurance, manufacturing, media, retail, technology, and utilities through its sales teams, as well as through its network of channel partners, such as security consulting organizations, managed service providers, resellers, cloud providers, and consulting firms. Qualys, Inc. was incorporated in 1999 and is headquartered in Foster City, California.