Analyzing Qualys (NASDAQ:QLYS) and HubSpot (NYSE:HUBS)

Qualys (NASDAQ:QLYS) and HubSpot (NYSE:HUBS) are both technology companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, analyst recommendations, risk, profitability, dividends, valuation and earnings.

Volatility and Risk

Qualys has a beta of 0.6, meaning that its share price is 40% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, HubSpot has a beta of 1.24, meaning that its share price is 24% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings for Qualys and HubSpot, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Qualys	1	11	3	2	2.35
HubSpot	3	19	12	0	2.26

Qualys presently has a consensus target price of $173.87, suggesting a potential downside of 11.64%. HubSpot has a consensus target price of $264.97, suggesting a potential upside of 18.97%. Given HubSpot’s higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe HubSpot is more favorable than Qualys.

Earnings & Valuation

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

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Qualys	$669.12 million	10.17	$198.32 million	$5.78	34.04
HubSpot	$3.13 billion	3.55	$45.91 million	$2.83	78.70

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

Profitability

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

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Qualys	29.38%	37.52%	19.41%
HubSpot	4.26%	8.66%	4.47%

Insider & Institutional Ownership

99.3% of Qualys shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 90.4% of HubSpot shares are held by institutional investors. 0.7% of Qualys shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 3.7% of HubSpot shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Summary

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

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.

About HubSpot

HubSpot, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides a cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) platform for businesses in the Americas, Europe, and the Asia Pacific. The company's CRM platform includes Marketing Hub, a toolset for marketing automation and email, social media, SEO, and reporting and analytics; Sales Hub offers email templates and tracking, conversations and live chat, meeting and call scheduling, lead and website visit alerts, lead scoring, sales automation, pipeline management, quoting, forecasting, and reporting; Service Hub, a service software designed to help businesses manage, respond, and connect with customers; and Content Management Systems Hub enables businesses to create new and edit existing web content. It offers Operations Hub, which is designed to unify customer data, automate business processes, data cleanup, and provide customer insights and connections; and Commerce Hub, a B2B commerce suite. In addition, the company provides professional services to educate and train customers on how to utilize its CRM platform; and customer success, as well as phone and/or email and chat-based support services. It serves mid-market business-to-business companies. The company was incorporated in 2005 and is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts.