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Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks vs Rapid7 InsightCloudSec comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 11, 2026

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
5.3
Qualys TotalCloud enhances efficiency, reduces costs by 30-40%, and increases ROI by 10-20%, significantly saving time and resources.
Sentiment score
3.7
Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks boosts efficiency and ROI with XSOAR integrations, though ROI quantification can be challenging.
Sentiment score
6.0
Rapid7 InsightCloudSec saves costs, reduces risks, automates tasks, and streamlines compliance, enhancing security and operational efficiency.
It has saved about 90% of our time.
Senior Consultant at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
TotalCloud has generated overall savings of 30 to 40 percent across various departments.
Security Manager at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
CallStream helps us integrate and automate tasks.
Senior Security Consultant at CyberNxt Solutions LLP
The solution provides a good ROI, especially for regular customers, offering discounts for three-year licenses.
Senior Consultant at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
I don't think the tool in itself is very capable of doing that, but we have XSOAR and other tool integrations done on the platform, so this can be accomplished.
Technical Solutions Architect at IBM
By catching issues early, Rapid7 InsightCloudSec helps us prevent costly breaches or regulatory fines; for example, automating patching and misconfiguration audits can save thousands in operational overhead.
Site Reliability Engineer at a comms service provider with 501-1,000 employees
It provides a good security posture and helps handle misconfigurations and day-to-day remediations.
Senior Cloud Security Engineer at a educational organization with 10,001+ employees
I can confirm money and time savings with Rapid7 InsightCloudSec, as we can scan the entire IP range simultaneously instead of manually checking each asset for vulnerabilities.
Junior systems engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.0
Qualys TotalCloud's customer support is praised for expertise and responsiveness but occasionally faces response delays and inefficiencies.
Sentiment score
6.6
Cortex Cloud's customer service is praised for prompt, knowledgeable support and effective troubleshooting, earning high user ratings.
Sentiment score
4.9
Rapid7 InsightCloudSec customer service receives mixed reviews, excelling in responsiveness but needing improvement in communication and local presence.
They are helpful, respond to my queries, and can answer any question.
Developer at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Qualys's tech support is highly responsive, providing multiple ways to interact with them.
Service Manager, Security Operations at CDA IT SOLUTIONS
Qualys' customer service provides quality answers, but the response time is long, even though it is within the SLA.
Works at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
If I make it a high priority, they have resolved one query within 20 minutes.
Assistant Security Architect at Cloudnomics
If local Indian support cannot resolve an issue, global tech support aligns promptly within the agreed SLA.
Senior Consultant at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Fast response times and knowledgeable staff who understand the intricacies of the system.
Principle Cloud Architect at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
On a scale of 1 to 10, the customer support would be rated a 10, as responses are typically received within about half an hour to an hour when creating a ticket.
Senior Platform Engineer Lead at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
They have excellent support with internal Slack channels and are directly reachable through Teams.
Senior Cloud Security Engineer at a educational organization with 10,001+ employees
I interacted with customer support after an endpoint compromise incident, and they responded quickly and provided clear insights that were essential for resolving the situation.
Platform Engineer at Cedar Gate Technologies, LLC
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
Qualys TotalCloud excels in scalability but may need skilled management, adaptable for varying environments and large-scale deployments.
Sentiment score
4.5
Palo Alto's Cortex Cloud is scalable and efficient, with easy onboarding, but can be costly for higher licenses.
Sentiment score
5.8
Rapid7 InsightCloudSec is a scalable, adaptable SaaS tool providing reliable cloud visibility but may require specific configurations.
We started our organization about nine months back. We started with about 30 users, and we now have more than 100 users.
CIO at a venture capital & private equity firm with 11-50 employees
Our organization currently uses it to manage over 1200 web applications.
Analyst, Information Security at Infosys
It is absolutely scalable, and I would rate its scalability as nine out of ten.
retired at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
For stability, scalability, mean time to response, and potential incident investigation improvements, I would give it a nine or probably even a ten.
Business Development Team Lead at a tech vendor with 201-500 employees
Onboarding endpoints and assets on Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks is very easy.
Assistant Security Architect at Cloudnomics
The platform is able to auto-shut certain resources that are not in use through the agentless scan feature.
Technical Solutions Architect at IBM
I have not experienced performance issues as I add more assets, and everything operates smoothly within one console.
Junior systems engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.3
Qualys TotalCloud is praised for stability, boasting 99.9% uptime with minimal downtime and quickly resolved minor bugs.
Sentiment score
7.8
Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks is praised for its stability, reliability, and seamless security performance without latency or issues.
Sentiment score
8.0
Users are pleased with Rapid7 InsightCloudSec's stability, though some experience slight slowness due to its SaaS platform.
Overall, the support provided has been excellent.
Analyst, Information Security at Infosys
It is a stable solution, which is why we chose it.
CIO at a venture capital & private equity firm with 11-50 employees
Continuous monitoring is crucial to ensure system stability and avoid vulnerabilities or threats.
Developer at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
My impression of Cloud Runtime Security in stopping attacks in real-time is that I have never had an issue where it has let something through, causing an outage or concerns to the customer.
Business Development Team Lead at a tech vendor with 201-500 employees
However, now in Cortex Cloud, I have not seen any lag or buffer.
Assistant Security Architect at Cloudnomics
My evaluation of how stable and reliable Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks is very positive.
Technical Solutions Architect at IBM
Rapid7 InsightCloudSec works without any stability issues so far.
Junior Security Analyst at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees
 

Room For Improvement

Users recommend enhancing compliance, UI, integration, and reporting, improving security features, and optimizing pricing and navigation for Qualys TotalCloud.
Cortex Cloud's interface and costs challenge users, with needs for improved integration, efficiency, and identity management features.
Rapid7 InsightCloudSec needs UI/UX improvements, better third-party integration, enhanced reporting, and refined risk prioritization and detection capabilities.
Ideally, the scanner should automatically detect and scan all subdomains, even if not explicitly defined, ensuring comprehensive vulnerability assessment.
Analyst, Information Security at Infosys
Ideally, updates should be more immediate, enabling quicker implementation of solutions.
Project Lead at Persistent Systems
Our goal is to integrate all these functions into Qualys, creating a single dashboard for comprehensive security monitoring and management.
Senior Information Security Engineer at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Regarding the generative AI security tool, I know for sure it's Agentic.
Cybersecurity Analyst at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
The solution is quite premium in cost compared to alternatives such as Wiz.
Principle Cloud Architect at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
There is not a clear MSP model compared to other vendors such as CrowdStrike.
Business Development Manager For Palo Alto Networks at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Rapid7 InsightCloudSec already provides us real-time feedback loops, but if it also provides real-time feedback to the developers, then it would help the application shift left, meaning the security will shift left as well.
Site Reliability Engineer at a comms service provider with 501-1,000 employees
Rapid7 InsightCloudSec needs improvements such as AI-driven risk prioritization, proactive cloud risk modeling, advanced IAM privilege analysis, multi-cloud attack path mapping, pre-built automated hardening, defining stronger policy as code support, better container and serverless coverage, and cost optimization insight along with safe auto-remediation with rollback improvements.
Cybersecurity analyst at Cornerstone OnDemand
If you can improve the traditional detection rules to reflect current detection rules, it would make it significantly easier for us to manage, as we constantly need to check legacy rules to update or possibly turn them off. Updating the legacy rules should be a priority.
SOC analyst at a media company with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Setup Cost

Qualys TotalCloud is costly but offers value and integration, ideal for enterprises despite higher pricing.
Rapid7 InsightCloudSec offers competitive, cost-efficient cloud security management with reasonable pricing, seamless licensing, and straightforward setup.
Qualys TotalCloud's pricing is currently acceptable, it is becoming increasingly expensive.
Senior Manager at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Pricing is managed by our finance team; however, Qualys TotalCloud offers cost-effective licensing flexibility.
IT Manager at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Qualys TotalCloud is expensive, but it offers a premier solution with no headaches.
Vice President at Inspira Enterprise
The solution is costly, with high-end capabilities suitable for enterprises.
Senior Consultant at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Today, it is smart and easy to calculate the licenses.
Cloud Security Manager at T-Systems International GmbH
It is cheaper.
Senior Cloud Security Engineer at a educational organization with 10,001+ employees
The more numbers you have, the less costly the product becomes, as licensing operates on volume.
Junior systems engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
While it was not overly expensive, I do wish for more discounts for bulk purchases since we have implemented it widely across our cloud security posture.
Platform Engineer at Cedar Gate Technologies, LLC
 

Valuable Features

Qualys TotalCloud enhances risk management with misconfiguration detection, TruRisk integration, continuous monitoring, automation, and seamless integration for IaaS and SaaS.
Cortex Cloud enhances security management with AI-driven threat detection, automation, and seamless CI/CD integration, reducing response times significantly.
Rapid7 InsightCloudSec enhances security with frameworks, threat detection, automation, and AI log searches, boosting efficiency and response speed.
This view of risk helps reduce the work we would have to do to combine multiple sources to prioritize risk.
Works at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
It will help cybersecurity professionals monitor the cloud and find vulnerabilities.
Developer at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
We are enjoying the new feature, FlexScan, which is valuable for Internet-facing VMs.
Senior Consultant at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
AI/ML aids in anticipating remediation for misconfigurations and vulnerabilities, and automatic remediation can be easily configured.
Senior Consultant at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks has reduced the time spent on incident investigations, and if I had to estimate, I would say it has cut our investigation time in half.
Sr. Compliance Analyst at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
This simplifies the management of shared responsibility among different people and entities, allowing you to use one single tool instead of having dozens of different tools to orchestrate and integrate.
Business Development Manager For Palo Alto Networks at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Using Rapid7 InsightCloudSec alongside our ManageEngine patch management module positively impacts my organization by scanning assets deeply and providing all identified vulnerabilities, from zero-day to any vulnerabilities on an asset, addressing those that ManageEngine might not identify.
Junior systems engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Rapid7 InsightCloudSec has helped us save thirty percent time in our log retrievals, and it completely changed log searching, making it really fast when we search for logs, with no prior knowledge required.
Site Reliability Engineer at a comms service provider with 501-1,000 employees
Rapid7 InsightCloudSec positively impacts my organization by integrating tightly with my existing vulnerability management process and workflows, particularly in creating a new project and implementing trigger-based scanning.
Assistant Vice President for Security Operation Center at Sohar International Bank
 

Categories and Ranking

Qualys TotalCloud
Sponsored
Ranking in Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)
7th
Ranking in Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP)
6th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
41
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (10th), Container Security (11th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (7th), SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) (2nd)
Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto N...
Ranking in Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)
9th
Ranking in Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP)
7th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.7
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (15th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (9th), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (9th), Software Supply Chain Security (6th), Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM) (5th), Application Security Posture Management (ASPM) (5th), Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) (4th)
Rapid7 InsightCloudSec
Ranking in Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)
19th
Ranking in Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP)
16th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Management (18th), AI Observability (13th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) category, the mindshare of Qualys TotalCloud is 1.9%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks is 2.1%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Rapid7 InsightCloudSec is 1.3%, down from 1.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Qualys TotalCloud1.9%
Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks2.1%
Rapid7 InsightCloudSec1.3%
Other94.7%
Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)
 

Featured Reviews

RO
IT Security Expert at Alior Bank S.A.
Unified risk scoring has improved our cloud visibility and simplifies remediation priorities
Qualys TotalCloud provides unified vulnerability and threat assessment across both IAS and SaaS. This solution provides a single prioritized view of risk, which helps reduce the work I would have to do. We are no longer based on CVSS; we are based on Qualys risk scoring, which is based on CVSS plus internal findings made by Qualys, and then assigns its own score. The TruRisk insight feature has found a small number of assets with high vulnerability scores, though I am cautious since some information is classified. Qualys TotalCloud has positively impacted our bank's performance, and we have definitely seen benefits after implementing this solution.
SJ
Technical Solutions Architect at IBM
Cloud security has improved as AI-driven runtime protection detects threats and reduces incidents
In my opinion, Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks could be improved or enhanced in various ways. I don't have an idea about that yet because for that you actually need to use two or three different other tools to make a basic comparison. If you ask me how good the tool is, I would fairly rate it quite high. The tool is very popular, and customers can already see that it is one of the cloud leaders in the security space. The platform had a very good feature which provides documentation links about how to use a specific feature on the UI. It takes you to the proper documentation page where it suggests what to do and tells you about the steps that need to be done for a resource deployment. My thoughts about improving the product which I believe could greatly aid vendors is that it used to be a very user-friendly tool, but now they have incorporated everything under one umbrella. It has XDR, XSOAR, and Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks. Before, we used to have separate modules and separate environments for each of these capabilities or features. Right now, it is a little complex and users would take their own time to know the tool better. This is something that would have been way better, but I would say there would be different opinions on this. Talking about user-friendliness, it has decreased now.
Arun Babu - PeerSpot reviewer
SOC analyst at a media company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Daily endpoint monitoring has improved investigations and saved time but detection rules still need tuning
It is important to note that Rapid7 InsightCloudSec's features are not 100% precise, but I find about 70% of the time it is satisfactory. I would like to suggest that you improve it to be more precise, ideally making it 100% if possible. Some cases in Rapid7 InsightCloudSec indicate that the log is not enough, as they mostly just generate alerts, and the synchronization between data connectors is often problematic, particularly in terms of not being in sync always, especially between the AD and Rapid7 alerts, which generates numerous false positives. Additionally, the traditional rules should be updated, as this is a main point worth mentioning since we spend a lot of time fine-tuning these traditional rules. I suggest improving the legacy detection rules. If there are any authentication cases, such as impossible travel activity where a user has their SharePoint hosted in a different location, Rapid7 can often trigger alerts, creating confusion as we cannot fine-tune it properly. Another issue is with honeypot access. We sometimes lack necessary logs because Defender's advanced threat protection scanning gets detected as honeypot activity by Rapid7, leading to annoying and noisy alerts that we need to constantly close. If you can improve the traditional detection rules to reflect current detection rules, it would make it significantly easier for us to manage, as we constantly need to check legacy rules to update or possibly turn them off. Updating the legacy rules should be a priority.
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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) solutions are best for your needs.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
17%
Construction Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise30
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise8
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Qualys TotalCloud?
To be totally honest, I do not have any best features because I have had a bad experience using this tool, especially...
What is your primary use case for Qualys TotalCloud?
My main use case for Qualys TotalCloud is vulnerability management and exposure management. I use this tool to evalua...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks?
I am not fully aware of the pricing and licensing of Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks. The pricing is also based on...
What needs improvement with Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks?
In my opinion, Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks could be improved or enhanced in various ways. I don't have an idea...
What is your primary use case for Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks?
The usual use cases for Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks that I have been working with mostly are as simple as dete...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Rapid7 InsightCloudSec?
The pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Rapid7 InsightCloudSec are reasonable, and since our organization is growi...
What needs improvement with Rapid7 InsightCloudSec?
I would say that because Rapid7 InsightCloudSec does not have automatic patching capabilities, it provides recommenda...
What is your primary use case for Rapid7 InsightCloudSec?
In my role, my main use case for Rapid7 InsightCloudSec is for vulnerability management, where I scan my machines to ...
 

Also Known As

Qualys TotalCloud with FlexScan
No data available
DivvyCloud
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Information Not Available
Fannie Mae, 3M, PizzaHut, Spotify, Autodesk, Discovery
Find out what your peers are saying about Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks vs. Rapid7 InsightCloudSec and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.