Considering market presence, cloud coverage, compliance support and usability here are the top 10 CSPM vendors that can help your organization minimize security risks and maintain a secure cloud ecosystem across IaaS, Saas, and PaaS environments:
Market presence
All vendors except CloudGuard CSPM are cloud-native application protection platforms (CNAPPs) that offer a broader, unified solution that includes workload protection, threat detection, and application security.
These software can drill down into specific resources across your VMs, containers, and Kubernetes clusters running in cloud services such as AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud.
Additionally, CNAPP vendors can take a proactive approach by automating remediation. For example, if a security risk or vulnerability is discovered such as unencrypted S3 buckets for public access, CNAPP solutions will automatically alert you and provide remediation workflows.
Cloud coverage
All vendors cover the largest hyperscalers’ clouds: AWS, Azure, and GCP.
Organizations considering various CSPM vendors should verify that vendors cover all of the cloud platforms they use to standardize configuration risks across the several cloud platforms.
Compliance support
CSPM vendors can help reduce security gaps by continuously monitoring, detecting, and mitigating vulnerabilities. This helps adhere to legal compliances such as GDPR, HIPAA, and PCI-DSS.
Read more: DSPM vendors, open-source CSPM tools, and cloud data security tools.
Disclaimer: Review insights (below) come from users’ experiences shared in Reddit, Gartner , and G2.
CSPM vendors reviewed
Cloud security posture management (CSPM) vendors help organizations maintain a robust security posture across their cloud infrastructure. They are critical to supporting data security posture management (DSPM) practices. These solutions:
- Constantly monitor your cloud infrastructure and resources.
- Identify insecure configurations in cloud infrastructure (AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud).
- Check if your cloud ecosystem is properly configured following current industry standards (e.g., KPIs in ISO 27001 compliance).
To help organizations choose the right solution, we’ve reviewed the top CSPM vendors, highlighting their strengths, limitations, and usability to guide informed decision-making:
Scrut Automation
Scrut Automation is a security and compliance automation platform that helps organizations leverage CSPM best practices.
It scans for and monitors misconfigurations in public cloud accounts such as AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud Platform, and automatically assesses your cloud setups against 150+ CIS benchmarks.
Scrut Automation provides seamless Jira integrations for controlling DevOps pipelines. Users can create Jira tickets directly from the Scrut platform for misconfigurations and add them to the assignees’ pipeline.
It is commonly used by SMBs and startups in regulated areas including technology, healthcare, finance, and SaaS.
Pros:
- Support: Effective support from experienced teams for certifications like ISO 27001, SOC 1, SOC 2, HIPAA, and GDPR.
- Seamless integration: Integrates smoothly with tools like AWS, Slack, Jira, and cloud infrastructure.
- Ease of use: The intuitive interface makes it easy to track compliance checks.
Cons:
- Customization limits: Pre-built templates may not fully meet the needs of organizations with complex requirements.
- UI improvements needed: Document search functionality could be improved (e.g., searching within document content, not just titles).
- Limited initial guidance: Initial navigation of complex features is limited.
Wiz
Wiz provides comprehensive cloud coverage across hybrid environments, including AWS, GCP, Azure, OCI, Alibaba Cloud, and VMware vSphere. It offers over 2,300 cloud misconfiguration rules, continuous CIS and compliance monitoring across 150 frameworks, Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) scanning, and real-time threat detection.
If your focus is on cloud hygiene, misconfiguration prevention, and modern CNAPP capabilities rather than threat detection/prevention Wiz is likely to be a better fit for your organization.
Distinct features:
- The Wiz ‘Attack Path Analysis‘ tool enables teams to map misconfigurations that may risk data assets such as application output files or databases and documents.
- The Wiz ‘Security Graph‘ tool allows teams to prioritize misconfigurations based on operational, business, cloud, and data contexts, reducing alert fatigue.
Pros:
- UI: Intuitive UI Inventory access and search out-of-the-box frameworks/config rules/controls.
- Visibility: Wiz provides comprehensive visibility into cloud environments.
- Integrations: Seamless integrations with third-party tools.
Cons:
- Reporting: Compliance reporting is basic and limited, with insufficient data for audits.
Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) is a crucial component of Microsoft Defender for Cloud. CSPM delivers insights into the security state of your resources and workloads.
Defender for Cloud continuously compares your resources to the security requirements set for your Azure subscriptions, AWS accounts, and GCP projects. Based on these evaluations, Defender for Cloud generates security recommendations.
When you enable Defender for Cloud in an Azure subscription, the Microsoft Cloud Security Benchmark (MCSB) compliance standard is enabled by default, generating recommendations.
Defender for Cloud provides the following CSPM offerings:
- Defender for Cloud offers basic multi-cloud CSPM capabilities for free. These capabilities are enabled by default for subscriptions and accounts connected with Defender for Cloud.
- Defender Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) plan—The optional premium Defender for Cloud Security Posture Management plan includes additional security posture features such as:
- Agentless VM security risk scanning
- Attack path analysis
- Risk prioritization
- External Attack Surface Management (EASM)
- Authorization management (CIEM)
We recommend Microsoft Defender for Cloud to companies heavily invested in Microsoft’s Azure ecosystem. However, businesses that use AWS and GCP and looking to consolidate security operations into a single platform can also choose Microsoft Defender for Cloud.
Pros:
- Comprehensive security: Cross-cloud protection for Azure, AWS, and GCP environments with email and application protection, including phishing and malware prevention.
- Integrations: Seamless integration with Microsoft tools and Azure ecosystem.
- Features: Detailed security recommendations and patch management.
Cons:
- Initial setup: Complex deployment process, especially for multi-cloud environments.
- Alerts: False positive alerts.
- Non-Azure integration: Less robust support for non-Azure environments.
- Pricing:
- Expensive for some users, especially smaller organizations.
- Cost challenges with the pay-as-you-go model for large-scale deployments.
CloudGuard CSPM
CloudGuard CNAPP stands out for its cross-platform management, ease of integration, and comprehensive security posture management. It’s particularly well-suited for enterprises managing complex multi-cloud environments.
It’s cloud compliance and governance capabilities automatically conform to regulatory standards while allowing for easy policy customization. CloudGuard provides compliance assessment status reports on your security and compliance posture.
CloudGuard’s privileged identity protection capabilities enforce just-in-time privilege escalation. This allows users to limit actions to IAM users and roles, and audit and analyze them for suspicious activity
Pros:
- Comprehensive security features:
- Includes modules like posture management, workload protection, and network security.
- Offers features like GSL Builder, a sandbox that enables users to define posture management rules, which help identify and address misconfigurations.
- Threat prevention: Effectively detects vulnerabilities and misconfigurations with proactive remediation and compliance.
Cons:
- Customization:
- Limited customization options for certain features.
- Some dashboards, like the Critical Infrastructure Exposure Dashboard, are not user-editable.
- Feature limitations: Some additional features require manual configuration of custom rules.
- Cloud-specific gaps: Less functional in Linux-dominant environments.
SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security
SentinelOne Singularity is an enterprise cybersecurity platform that provides unified prevention, detection, and response.
The platform is well-suited for containerized and Kubernetes-based environments, multi-cloud setups, and teams seeking prioritized actionable alerts.
Pros:
- Kubernetes and container security: Detailed Kubernetes Security Posture Management (KSPM) that scans for configuration changes in container images.
- Agentless vulnerability management: Uses a Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) to prioritize risks effectively.
- Seamless CI/CD and IaC integration: Supports GitLab infrastructure as code (IaC) scanning and integrates into CI/CD pipelines.
- Threat remediation: One-click threat remediation across various platforms like AWS, Kubernetes, VMs, and Docker.
Cons:
- False positives: A relatively high rate of false positives in threat detection.
- Feature complexity: The wide range of features makes it difficult to use the platform.
Lacework
Lacework is a cloud security services company that automates cloud security. Lacework provides native cloud infrastructure compliance and security for DevOps, workloads, and containers.
Pros:
- Comprehensive features: Supports integration with container registries for pre-deployment vulnerability scans.
- Threat intelligence: Detailed network diagrams (polygraphs) for security intelligence and reporting.
- Integrations: Integrates seamlessly with major cloud providers like AWS and Azure.
Cons:
- Integrations: Lacks GitHub and CI/CD integrations.
- Remediation guidance: Documentation is often limited to manual steps,
- Customer support: Lacework’s support is slow and ineffective.
CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security
Falcon Cloud Security continually monitors your cloud resources for misconfigurations, and vulnerabilities with threat intelligence on over 230 adversaries.
Distinct feature: Falcon Cloud Security works similarly to an EDR solution; it monitors network conditions, identifies threats, and proactively implements repair to keep your network safe. cal.
If you’re already heavily invested in CrowdStrike’s ecosystem and need solid detection/prevention capabilities at a reasonable cost, Falcon CSPM could suffice.
Pros:
- Integration with CrowdStrike Stack: Works seamlessly if you are already invested in CrowdStrike’s platform (e.g., Falcon XDR).
- Price point: Generally considered cost-effective compared to Wiz.
- Agent deployment: Flexible options for deploying on container workloads with minimal performance impact.
- Cyber threat detection & prevention: Strong at threat detection and prevention, especially for serverless workloads.
Cons:
- UI/UX: Considered less user-friendly compared to Wiz.
- Feature gaps: Lags behind in:
- Agentless scanning capabilities (e.g., vulnerability scanning without requiring sensors on workloads).
- Combination analysis (e.g., evaluating CVSS scores alongside exposure risks like public-facing assets).
- Vulnerability prioritization: Seen as weaker than competitors, especially in visualizing attack paths and understanding risk context.
Orca Security
Orca’s platform includes numerous cloud-based security capabilities, such as vulnerability management, compliance, workload protection, and posture management. The platform includes 65 pre-defined auditing frameworks and standards.
Pros:
- Efficient risk prioritization: Focuses on critical vulnerabilities and provides actionable insights.
- Wide feature set: Includes compliance management, vulnerability assessment, entitlement management, and IaC/code security.
- Efficient risk prioritization: Focuses on critical vulnerabilities and provides actionable insights.
- Integrations: Strong integration capabilities, e.g., with Jira for ticketing.
Cons:
- Scalability: Primarily targeted for ease of use but might not be as scalable for large enterprises.
- Slow compliance module: Long loading times and delayed updates for compliance features.
- Limited endpoint capabilities: No agent-based solution for non-cloud devices
- API and query limits: Restrictions on fetching data (e.g., 10,000 alerts per CVE).
Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks
Prisma Cloud is a cloud-native security platform (CNSP) with security and compliance coverage—for apps, data, and other cloud-native technologies.
Prisma Cloud CSPM modules:
- Cloud asset inventory: Prisma Cloud analyzes and normalizes disparate of every deployed resource.
- Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) scanning: Prisma Cloud enables users to scan IaC templates for vulnerabilities
- User and Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA): Prisma Cloud’s UEBA module analyzes millions of audit events and utilizes machine learning to identify unusual behavior that may indicate account breaches or insider threats.
- Automated investigation and response: Prisma Cloud provides automated remediation, detailed forensics
- Malware detection: Prisma Cloud uses the ‘WildFire malware prevention service’ to detect and protect against file-based attacks in S3 buckets, both known and unknown.
Pros:
- Granular and scalable cloud security: Supports scalable cloud environments, offering granular control and flexible policies.
- Comprehensive compliance: Effective support for compliance standards (GDPR, LGPD, SoX, CIS, etc.) with detailed alerts and automatic remediation.
- Integrated security features: Wide range of tools for cloud security posture management (CSPM), workload protection (CWPP), application security, and compliance monitoring.
- Training resources: Access to Palo Alto’s partner portal (“Beacon”) for learning Prisma Cloud’s features.
Cons:
- High costs: Expensive pricing model
- False positives: High volume of false positives
- Complex customization: Policy customization using Resource Query Language (RQL) language is not intuitive for non-technical users.
Aqua Security
Aqua Security is a cloud-native application protection platform (CNAPP) that detects and prevents threats across the cloud-native application lifecycle using a single, integrated platform.
With seamless integrations into the CI/CD pipeline, frequent updates, and granular access control support for enterprise-scale deployments, Aqua is a strong choice for large-scale companies.
Pros:
- Integration capabilities: Seamlessly integrates with CI/CD pipelines like Jenkins, GitLab, and Docker.
- Detailed reporting: Clear visibility into policy violations and risks with actionable reporting.
- Runtime protection: Effectively monitors containers to detect configuration drift and prevent exploits.
- Active development: Frequent updates and proactive threat intelligence.
- Enterprise readiness: Centralized role-based access control (RBAC), and auditing for large deployments.
Cons:
- Learning curve: It is difficult to navigate advanced modules without prior experience.
- False positives: Scanners generate false positives.
- Documentation gaps: Inconsistent or unclear documentation.
- Limited features in some areas:
- Missing functionalities, such as supporting specific platforms (e.g., Windows VMs, Tomcat applications).
- Lack of full isolation control or microservices support.
Cloud security posture management (CSPM) is a growing industry for security compliance and vulnerability management tools that are required to secure computing environments. CSPM solutions are also part of the secure access service edge (SASE) technology market, which also includes:
These vendors monitor cloud services, apps, containers, and infrastructure to discover and address misconfigurations or policies.
Furthermore, CSPM vendors can develop customized solutions that often resolve issues automatically based on administrator-defined rules.
The problem: According to industry reports, over 80% of surveyed companies operate in multi-cloud environments.
As businesses increasingly adopt cloud technologies, the challenge of securing dynamic, adaptable, and often multi-cloud environments has grown exponentially.
How CSPM vendors can help: CSPM vendors look at workloads to see what’s going on and provide context, allowing organizations to determine which vulnerabilities or risks are most critical. These technologies assist companies to determine which threats are real and which are important.
Source: Palo Alto Networks.
CSPM vendors can close security gaps by continuously monitoring, detecting, and mitigating vulnerabilities across IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS platforms. This helps:
- reducing the attack surface
- adhering to regulatory compliances like as GDPR, HIPAA, and PCI-DSS
- ensuring business continuity while also protecting sensitive data
