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Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks vs Sysdig Secure 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:
 

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)
Sysdig Secure
Ranking in Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)
28th
Ranking in Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP)
18th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Container Security (21st), Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) (9th), AI Observability (28th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) category, the mindshare of Qualys TotalCloud is 2.2%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks is 2.7%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sysdig Secure is 2.9%, up from 2.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Qualys TotalCloud2.2%
Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks2.7%
Sysdig Secure2.9%
Other92.2%
Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP)
 

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.
MM
DevSecOps Engineer at a outsourcing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Runtime threat detection has improved and security teams prioritize real Kubernetes risks
The best feature Sysdig Secure offers is threat detection. The threat detection feature on Sysdig Secure stands out compared to other solutions I have seen or used because Sysdig sees the actual behavior inside the container or kernel and correlates it with Kubernetes infrastructure, which makes detection both earlier and more precise in a cloud-native environment. Sysdig Secure has positively impacted our organization by improving visibility into our Kubernetes environment and focusing on real risk, which has reduced alert noise, improved threat detection at runtime, and made vulnerability management more efficient by prioritizing issues that actually affect running workloads.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Qualys TotalCloud's most valuable feature is its ability to link clusters of assets, providing a clear model of deployments, vulnerabilities, and statuses."
"Qualys TotalCloud has significantly reduced our workload in terms of managing risks, helping us to be more efficient and save substantial resources."
"I would definitely recommend Qualys TotalCloud to other customers."
"I would rate Qualys TotalCloud ten out of ten."
"If someone were to ask me to review Qualys TotalCloud, I would summarize it as an end-to-end solution for cloud security with visibility and governance-grade controls without needing to manage multiple disconnected tools."
"The most valuable feature is extensibility."
"Qualys TotalCloud provides a single, prioritized view of risk, reducing the workload associated with consolidating multiple sources for risk prioritization."
"Vulnerability and threat detection and assessment of the criticality of the vulnerabilities exposed are most valuable."
"Previously with Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks, I deployed this product for one of my customers, and after three to four months, they said that previously they had around four hours of MTTR, and now it has reduced to just 15 to 20 minutes."
"The most valuable features I have found in Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks are those that we provided to customers in a stock environment, as we have done some POCs and tried to check how it can help different organizations, and this same solution has been positioned for multiple customers."
"I have seen several benefits from using Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks: It was easy to use and easy to migrate from the IBM platform."
"Overall, Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks is a technically strong product, and I rate it ten out of ten."
"Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks has impacted our organization positively by keeping our machines secure and our team using the dashboard to find issues quickly."
"The most beneficial aspect of Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks and Palo Alto in general is that there is a single platform for all cloud providers for securitization."
"I have absolutely seen improvements in our incident close rates, with mean time to detect and respond reduced significantly, sometimes by at least forty to fifty percent."
"The capabilities of Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks are valuable because it is the best product in the market."
"Sysdig Secure has many strong foundational features like compliance and benchmark, security, network access management, and vulnerability management."
"Sysdig Secure has positively impacted our organization by improving visibility into our Kubernetes environment and focusing on real risk, which has reduced alert noise, improved threat detection at runtime, and made vulnerability management more efficient by prioritizing issues that actually affect running workloads."
"I see Sysdig as the most comprehensive solution in comparison to its competitors."
"The proactiveness of the support has been fantastic. Every time we mention something in a meeting that we're trying to do, he proactively takes that as an investigation topic and looks into it. He'll provide the solution even though we might not have asked him to investigate it."
"The most valuable feature is the level of support that we get. Our solutions or customer success representative is very valuable. I see them as an extension of our security team."
"We appreciate this feature, especially when combined with CD monitoring. The implementation of requested features has been remarkable, such as scanning for compliance in CRM processes for the US government. We heavily rely on this feature to assess compliance with federal requirements."
"From a container-based standpoint, it offers excellent scalability to its users...I would tell those planning to use the solution that, from a container standpoint, it's excellent."
"I have not seen any stability issues so far."
 

Cons

"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."
"The areas in the solution that have room for improvement include the UI/UX design, which should be improved, and they should integrate more artificial intelligence into the product."
"Qualys's ticketing system can be confusing when assigning tasks to individuals, and support could be improved by offering instant call solutions with engineers in addition to ticket replies."
"The cost of Qualys TotalCloud is high and could be more competitive."
"Regarding technical support from Qualys, they respond, but the response time can be too long. Sometimes we need to wait weeks for solutions to simple questions."
"Qualys' customer service provides quality answers, but the response time is long, even though it is within the SLA."
"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."
"Some major banks and insurance companies require an on-premises solution for comprehensive vulnerability management, which TotalCloud does not offer."
"From the commercial perspective, we have some limitations because Palo Alto has a minimum number of users of endpoints set at 200, which is quite high for the Italian market."
"In my opinion, Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks can be improved by addressing forensic information collection and storage, although I cannot suggest specific things right now, based on what customers might need."
"Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks is creating some confusion in terms of names because this is recent."
"Overall, I rate Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks as an eight out of ten. I think that it could improve on price, as I know that the Google solution has the best price, and this is one of the conditions."
"Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks is not the cheapest solution in the market, but I know that is the best solution for SOC and Cloud once have all tools to connect cloud issues with SOC procedures, because we are partners with T-Systems."
"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."
"Some aspects of the GUI can be confusing and make it difficult for me to find certain options or navigate where needed."
"The pricing is high, making ROI challenging to justify, especially during transitions between solutions."
"Perhaps, it could support more custom implementations, as our company utilizes custom implementations rather than standard ones. Configuring it requires a deep understanding and adjustment to our specific needs, which took some time. Other than that, I'm unsure about potential improvements. We were considering the possibility of compartmentalizing their tools. Currently, in Sysdig Secure, they bundle multiple features, and we are unable to use them individually. For instance, if we only need compliance scanning, we have to deploy the entire secure package. This is because of the way their agent functions, but I can't delve into more details."
"The solution needs to improve overall from a CSPM standpoint since they can't compete with Wiz or Orca."
"The dashboard could be more simple and show the more important issues that are detected first. We'd like to be able to set it up so more important issues show up more prominently in the dashboard."
"I give it an eight because of the bugs, specifically the fix version bug where sometimes there is no fix version shown, and I wish Sysdig Secure would create a customizable UI that orders features by importance to enhance user experience."
"Banks and financial institutions cannot use Sysdig Secure because it doesn't sell SaaS-hosted versions for under two hundred working nodes."
"Reporting can definitely be better. Live dashboards should be configurable for a longer period of time rather than 30 days. Being able to go back in time to compare six months ago to today would be valuable."
"Sysdig Secure needs to scale more for complete cloud-native coverage."
"There was a security concern related to a specific feature. While the feature itself was promising, it posed a challenge. The situation revolved around code scanning. If your source code is hosted within your own premises, say on Bitbucket, you naturally wouldn't want your code to be accessible to external parties beyond your company. Keeping your code base private is a standard practice. However, in the case of code scanning using Sysdig Secure, they copy your code to their SaaS platform. This posed an issue for us. When we inquired about this, their response acknowledged the concern. In an upcoming release, they plan to enable code scanning within your on-premises environment through the assistance of an agent. This change is already in progress. While this tool stands out compared to existing solutions in the market, it's important to note that there are still some limitations to consider. Another drawback we encountered relates to our expertise with Kubernetes. The tool can monitor Kubernetes audit logs, triggering alerts and notifications. However, it falls short in terms of taking direct action based on these alerts. There are different methods of event capture, including through system labels and system calls, as well as via Kubernetes audit events. Notably, at the system level, Sysdig Secure can both detect and respond to events, allowing actions like blocking and warning. This proactive approach is effective at the system call level. However, when it comes to monitoring Kubernetes audit events, Sysdig Secure can only notify without being able to execute any further actions. It can't block access or containers. The vendor likened their role to that of a monitoring camera, observing events and sending notifications without the capacity to intervene. This limitation applies to Kubernetes audit events. Given that everything operates within our system, there is a workaround available: configuring system-level policies to block containers as necessary."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is comparable. It is built into our other product, so I cannot piecemeal it. It is a part of our subscription."
"Qualys TotalCloud offers competitive pricing given its comprehensive suite of features, including integration, assessment, remediation, and detection capabilities, all within a single platform."
"Qualys TotalCloud is cost-efficient and was selected for its value compared to other products."
"Qualys TotalCloud is expensive, but it offers a premier solution with no headaches."
"Qualys TotalCloud offers cost-effective licensing flexibility."
"The pricing for TotalCloud is attractive and competitive in the market. Given the features, especially the dashboard, I have no concerns regarding pricing."
"I am not sure about the pricing. From what I understand, it is a bit on the higher side, but I do not have the exact numbers."
"Qualys TotalCloud offers good pricing that is affordable and competitive with the market. Our partnership also provides us with additional benefits."
Information not available
"In comparison to other cloud solutions, it's reasonably priced. However, when compared to in-house built open-source projects, it might be considered somewhat costly. The cost depends on whether someone sees the support provided by Sysdig as an advantage or if it's deemed unnecessary. Personally, I find the support to be excellent and consider it a good value."
"Sysdig is competitive. The quality matches the pricing. Obviously, everyone wants things to be cheaper, but if you're realistic, you acknowledge that quality service comes with a price. Sysdig is the gold standard for Kubernetes, and I wouldn't choose anything else. We live in Kubernetes. Everything is containerized, so that means a lot to us, and we're willing to make an investment."
"The solution's pricing depends on the agents...In short, the price depends on the environment of its user."
"I am always going to say that it could be a little bit cheaper. I do feel that it is a little bit on the expensive side."
"It is quite costly compared to other tools."
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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
16%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
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 Business6
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise5
 

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 needs improvement with Sysdig Secure?
Sysdig Secure works well for us, but there are a few areas for improvement, such as the alerting and notification sys...
What is your primary use case for Sysdig Secure?
Our primary use case for Sysdig Secure is runtime threat detection and vulnerability management.
What advice do you have for others considering Sysdig Secure?
My advice for others looking into using Sysdig Secure is to clearly define your primary use case before getting start...
 

Also Known As

Qualys TotalCloud with FlexScan
No data available
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Information Not Available
SAP Concur, Goldman Sachs, Worldpay, Experian, BigCommerce, Arkose Labs, Calendly, Noteable, Bloomreach. More here: https://sysdig.com/customers/
Find out what your peers are saying about Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks vs. Sysdig Secure and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.