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CloudPassage vs Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 1, 2026

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Qualys TotalCloud
Sponsored
Ranking in Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)
8th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
46
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (10th), Container Security (11th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (9th), SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) (2nd), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (7th)
CloudPassage
Ranking in Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)
41st
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (25th)
Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto N...
Ranking in Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
114
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (7th), Container Security (2nd), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (2nd), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) category, the mindshare of Qualys TotalCloud is 2.0%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of CloudPassage is 0.8%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks is 7.6%, down from 11.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks7.6%
Qualys TotalCloud2.0%
CloudPassage0.8%
Other89.6%
Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2859021 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr Security Engineer at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees
Risk-based triage has transformed container security and now prioritizes high-impact threats
The best features Qualys TotalCloud offers currently include managing cloud infrastructure and container security while facing major challenges such as alert fatigue. Traditional vulnerability scanners flag hundreds of CVEs on short-lived Kubernetes containers, some of which have no internet exposure or are gone before we can even triage them. I leverage Qualys TotalCloud to move beyond static CVSS. I use it to implement runtime exposure, correlation risk reprioritization, and shift-left integration. This notifies developers to fix a base image upstream rather than patching live ephemeral instances. In my work with cloud and container security, the biggest operational hurdle was alert fatigue. I use Qualys to shift left from static CVSS severity to context-aware risk prioritization. I correlated raw vulnerability data with real-time risk factors such as public network exposure, active runtime execution, or overly permissive IAM roles. This allows us to immediately drop the priority of isolated containers and escalate lower-severity CVEs that sit on an exposed, high-risk path. We can map these findings directly back to our CI/CD pipelines so developers can patch the root base images upstream. We have drastically cut down the signal-to-noise ratio, saved a lot of manual hours doing triage work, and ensured engineering effort goes directly towards high-impact risk reduction.
it_user854058 - PeerSpot reviewer
Lead Information Security Engineer
It helped us be more aware of what our security posture is, but not all of the features work in my environment
I would say CloudPassage is very useful for certain things. If you just want a few modules then focus on what you need and negotiate the price based on the individual module, rather than looking at the whole thing, because I didn't find all the modules very useful. Also, use Splunk in combination with it if you want reporting. I would give CloudPassage at least a seven out of 10. I rate it on the high-end because of the customer support - I've never seen any support that is comparable to that, it's very good, excellent. The support staff actually care, they actually follow up; it's very nice. And CloudPassage really listens to its customers. The product itself is very nice if you're only looking to check off your compliance requirements, but if you're looking for more of dashboarding and things like that, CloudPassage is improving but it's not quite there.
reviewer2776578 - PeerSpot reviewer
Cyber Security Architect at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
Image scanning has supported consistent security practices during cloud deployment
On a scale of ten, we would say people are happy with Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks for the part we use. People are okay with it. We probably would give an eight. We don't give ten because if we don't use the other parts of Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks, it's because it was difficult to implement from an operational point of view. We could have deployed the runtime monitoring with Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks, but within our organization at our company, it was very difficult to find who would be the owner for the alerts. People have other tools and in the end, we don't use the full capabilities of a product that we pay for. It's partially related to the difficulty to integrate Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks runtime in our company's support process. We don't use the real-time monitoring part of Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks. We don't know about the automated remediation feature of Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Generally, Qualys is very good at detections, whether on cloud or on-prem, and the agent allows deployment on both infrastructures, providing continuous monitoring of your assets, which is a key selling point for us."
"TruRisk Insights is the most important innovation they've released this year."
"Qualys TotalCloud provides unified vulnerability and threat assessment for IaaS and SaaS and a single prioritized view of risk, which helps reduce my workload by not having to combine multiple sources."
"CSPM is currently the most used feature, and we are enjoying the new feature, FlexScan, which is valuable for Internet-facing VMs."
"Qualys TotalCloud's most valuable features are its cloud security posture management, Kubernetes, and container security capabilities."
"I appreciate TotalCloud's real-time protection and remediation features. The remediation options include automated one-click remedies and custom changes that help manage vulnerabilities efficiently."
"I would recommend Qualys TotalCloud to other users because it is cost-efficient and has a good return on investment."
"Qualys TotalCloud is overall the best tool available in the market for scanning purposes."
"Key features are the Software Vulnerability Assessment and the CSM, which is the configuration check."
"Our scores let us know when to trigger workflow to go out in a patch, it has reduced the amount of time we had to take to manually verify software and check our updates, and it helped us be more aware of what our security posture is."
"CloudPassage allowed us to implement changes that affected hundred of servers within our environments in seconds."
"Policies are very easy to manage on a day-to-day basis."
"This solution helped us by allowing us to schedule and fix things. This is not an easy thing if you're managing 1,000 plus resources."
"I have not seen any limitations. Everything is customizable. You can do whatever you want, defining the reporting and custom use cases. They recently updated the UI, so it's much better than before."
"One of the main reasons we like Prisma Cloud so much is that they also provide an API. You can't expect to give someone an account on Prisma Cloud, or on any tool for that matter, and say, "Go find your things and fix them." It doesn't work like that... We pull down the information from the API that Prisma Cloud provides, which is multi-cloud, multi-account—hundreds and hundreds of different types of alerts graded by severity—and then we can clearly identify that these alerts belong to these people, and they're the people who must remediate them."
"I was looking for a vulnerability scanner and I was looking for one place in which I could find everything. This tool not only does vulnerability scanning, but it also gives me an asset management tool."
"What I found most valuable in Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks is the VAS, such as the web application and API security. I feel that VAS adds a lot of value, mainly because it gives visibility through the application layer and threat detection features."
"It provides good visibility and control regardless of the complexity."
"The product provides very good network security."
"The most valuable feature of Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks is the CSPM, which we use the most. Additionally, the investigation and alerts are useful, and the creation of queries."
 

Cons

"Regarding improvements to Qualys TotalCloud, I suggest that user navigation can be enhanced because initially, many users found it complicated and had trouble understanding the platform due to information being spread across multiple tabs."
"The cloud licensing unit system is unclear, especially since "units" aren't well-defined."
"TotalCloud could improve its scanning of niche devices like Wi-Fi dongles and USB modems because they are often untested. It covers everything else, like laptops, mobile devices, and Bluetooth IoT devices. They can improve on the small IoT devices because hackers and testers use these."
"In a future release, I suggest that zero-day vulnerabilities should be predicted in advance using AI technologies. The system is not 100% secure yet, so proactive threat hunting could be enhanced to be more proactive than the current system."
"With the growing integration of AI, I would like Qualys to enhance its service offerings to better accommodate AI-related risks."
"There is room for improvement in vulnerability scanning, particularly for PaaS environments. Currently, Qualys does not have full access to these instances, which limits its effectiveness."
"Although TotalCloud is a helpful tool, some of its advanced features are still under development."
"Their customer support needs improvement."
"Of all the advertised functions, I only find two things that really work in my environment, even though I wanted to use all of them. They're not flexible enough to be used."
"In the CSM module the policies are really hard to work with it. It is not very flexible at all. I would suggest that they change that. Right now, the scan is based on the group that the server is in. What happens if the server is in multiple groups?"
"The reports and graphs are unintuitive."
"Anything outside of the software vulnerability management and the CSM, things like the GhostPort, need some improvement. The dashboard is in beta. It looks really good, I wish it would come out of beta."
"It would be nice Prisma Cloud merged its modules for CSPM and infrastructure as code. It would simplify the pricing and make it easier for customers to evaluate the solution because there are different modules, and you need to add it to your subscription separately."
"There are hundreds of built-in policies for AWS and Azure, but GCP and Oracle are not covered as much as AWS. There is a lot of work to do on that part. There is, obviously, a tiny bit of favoritism towards AWS because it has the most market share."
"There should be some kind of automation, AI incorporation, and bot system. All these would add value."
"I don't have any specific notes for improvement; however, if they could continue to focus more on giving users the ability to create custom policies and configurations, that would be ideal."
"It provides all the cloud details but is not entirely linked to the compute model."
"The alignment of Twistlock Defender agents with image repositories needs improvement."
"We don't give ten because if we don't use the other parts of Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks, it's because it was difficult to implement from an operational point of view."
"The UX part of Prisma's user interface could be simplified and the metrics tool should be highlighted more."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Qualys TotalCloud is cost-efficient and was selected for its value compared to other products."
"Qualys TotalCloud is expensive."
"Its price seems higher compared to other tools, but it is worth it. If they could adjust the pricing and make it comparable with other tools, that would be great."
"While Qualys TotalCloud's pricing is currently acceptable, it is becoming increasingly expensive and may soon be considered overpriced."
"As a middle management member, I do not have direct pricing knowledge, but based on the knowledge from our meetings, its pricing is competitive."
"The pricing is comparable. It is built into our other product, so I cannot piecemeal it. It is a part of our subscription."
"It isn't cheap, but it's reasonable. It helps us to manage things with very few resources."
"The cost is high, but it meets our organizational needs."
"CloudPassage is a little bit on the expensive side. So my suggestion is that the company lower its price point a wee bit or sell modules, separate them in modules, because I only find two things that are useful to me, yet I pay for four or five modules. It didn't seem like it was a fair deal."
"We also evaluated VMware NSX, but the pricing and features available in a CloudPassage implementation were decisive in deciding to go with CP."
"The purchasing process was easy and quick. It is a very economical solution."
"From my exposure so far, they have been really flexible on whatever your current state is, with a view to what the future state might be. There's no hard sell. They "get" the journey that you're on, and they're trying to help you embrace cloud security, governance, and compliance as you go."
"Prisma Cloud is remarkably expensive."
"The pricing and licensing are expensive compared to the other offerings that we considered."
"The price is high. In the future, when there are more competitors at the same level with different clouds, maybe the position will be different."
"Its licensing cost depends on the type of license such as the business license or the enterprise license. The enterprise license is costlier than the business license, but we get more visibility and more modules. If you have a multi-cloud environment and subscribe to each cloud's native CSPM tool, it is costly. If you are using a single tool like Prisma Cloud, with a single license, you can monitor all environments, such as Google Cloud, Azure, AWS, and Oracle Cloud. The cost of Prisma Cloud is less than the cost of subscribing to the CSPM tool of each cloud provider. This is where Prisma Cloud can save costs."
"This solution is good for a company with at least 400 people that must be connected remotely. For smaller companies, it can be too expensive."
"Prisma Cloud is more expensive than some other solutions, but when we consider all of its use cases, the cost averages out."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
16%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
14%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Construction Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise35
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business37
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise58
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Qualys TotalCloud?
In terms of improvement, remediation still belongs to the cloud team, which is one of the issues we faced with Qualys...
What is your primary use case for Qualys TotalCloud?
My main use case for Qualys TotalCloud is regarding the cloud visibility that we were not having previously. Previous...
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What is your primary use case for Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks?
Prisma Cloud helps support DevSecOps methodologies, making those responsibilities easier to manage.
What Cloud-Native Application Protection Platform do you recommend?
We like Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks, since it offers us incredible visibility into our entire cloud system. We...
What do you think of Aqua Security vs Prisma Cloud?
Aqua Security is easy to use and very manageable. Its main focus is on Kubernetes and Docker. Security is a very valu...
 

Also Known As

Qualys TotalCloud with FlexScan
CloudPassage Halo
Prisma Public Cloud, RedLock Cloud 360, RedLock, Twistlock, Aporeto
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Citrix
Amgen, Genpact, Western Asset, Zipongo, Proofpoint, NerdWallet, Axfood, 21st Century Fox, Veeva Systems, Reinsurance Group of America
Find out what your peers are saying about CloudPassage vs. Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
914,938 professionals have used our research since 2012.