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Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks vs VMware Aria Automation comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto N...
Ranking in Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)
23rd
Ranking in Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM)
7th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.4
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (38th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (17th), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (16th), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (14th), Software Supply Chain Security (14th), Application Security Posture Management (ASPM) (9th), Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) (9th)
VMware Aria Automation
Ranking in Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)
19th
Ranking in Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM)
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
171
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Management (3rd), Configuration Management (7th), Network Automation (6th)
 

Featured Reviews

Nuno-Santos - PeerSpot reviewer
Cybersecurity Analyst at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Has improved real-time threat detection and unified cloud protection through AI and automation
Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks is creating some confusion in terms of names because this is recent. They changed the names of the products and are now clarifying their offer. The family of the products is not easy to follow because it's very recent. Regarding the generative AI security tool, I know for sure it's Agentic. Based on my experience with Palo Alto, I can suggest what Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks could make better or what additional functions could be added. This is the best tool in the market. It's not the time to tell what they could do better because it's a recent tool. The market is now adopting it. Our experience doesn't show that they need to do more.
Le Quang Long - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Engineer at BIDV - Ngân hàng TMCP Đầu tư & Phát triển Việt Nam
Significantly streamlined operations with good automation that helps with simplifying workflows
It helps me build a big catalog and provide it to my end users. It helps us automate the workflow of creating many VMs and the TensorFlow key method. I do not meet many people to operate it live beforehand. It operates for both of my products, but as a product, it is complicated to integrate and automate with other products.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The AI and automation features in detecting and responding to high-risk threats are impressive; it's one of the best tools regarding AI technology and unifies security in one platform in real-time, improving vulnerability analysis, incident response, and compliance reporting."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"The most valuable features are that it's multi-tenant and the ability for scale."
"The product is stable."
"One of the most valuable features is lifecycle management. It allows my teams to create, manage, and retire all of our infrastructure objects in the data center."
"We can connect between multiple VMs in a matter of seconds."
"We've seen that typically, the people who are provisioning VDIs and server VMs can now utilize most of their time towards other projects and moving the environment forward, instead of just hammering out virtual machines all day."
"We have also found it to be intuitive and user-friendly. It's something that, because it has the workflows that are very easily graphed out - you can follow what it's doing, it's very picturesque, you can see what it's doing easily - it's something that you can hand over to a user who is not familiar with it and they can wrap their brain around it pretty quickly."
"The product is very user-friendly."
"We have it deployed in a highly-available environment and scalability is nice because we just had another ESX host and then we are able to increase the capacity."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"The upgrade process 6.x to 7.3 was a significant effort. I'm hoping that 7.3 to the next version is much smoother."
"The stability on the 6.2 version is very bad. It crashes. VMware tech support knows the IIS component is a bit buggy."
"We would like them to improve the automation part. This is an upcoming area that we would like to focus on."
"I would like to see a simpler way of provisioning it. As is, we can automate the provisioning of a VM, however, when it comes to the external IPs, that is outside of VMware. But that has to be automated as well. If there was a way for us to have the virtual machines connect to switches that are external to VMware, that would be great. That way, it would handle the entire workflow from creation and provisioning of a VM to the connectivity to the external IP addresses which allow our customers to have access to the VM. Currently, that IP configuration has to be done manually."
"I'm not wanting any particular feature; but there should be cost reductions. VMware comes at a high cost, and that's why we are in the process of transitioning to a more affordable alternative."
"It is complex to use for new users. It should have automated tools or drag-and-drop functionality."
"They should concentrate on navigation and service improvements."
"Automation or scripting should be simplified so that administrators who are not experts can have a better grasp of automation."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"It is an open-source product."
"There is confusion between licensing levels. There are three different licensed versions of vRealize Automation, and there are different things which can happen in each of them."
"SaltStack is an open-source product."
"The solution is free of cost."
"The solution has helped to increase infrastructure, agility, speed, and provisioning in the time to market."
"vRealize automation really should be a front door to the whole VMware suite of products."
"A simplified version for small businesses would be good."
"So much can be done with the Open Source side, and especially for smaller shops. I personally think the pricing for Enterprise is hard to justify."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Performing Arts
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise130
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks?
The solution is costly, with high-end capabilities suitable for enterprises. It is less affordable for startups or small-scale vendors.
What needs improvement with Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks?
Regarding areas for improvement, the tool performs its functions well, but frequent name changes across Palo Alto Networks products can be frustrating for technical teams who must continually adapt...
What is your primary use case for Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks?
Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks serves as our primary tool for understanding our assets and performing API integration between our multi-cloud infrastructure, specifically AWS and Azure, to gain...
What's the difference between VMware vRA (automation) and vROps (operations)?
vROP is a virtualization management solution from VMWare. It is efficient and easy to manage. You can find anything you need from the software interface. It provides complete visibility over applic...
Is there any way to try VMware Aria Automation for free?
When it comes to VMware Aria Automation, you have three choices for free runs: Hands-on Lab (HOL) Advanced lab A free trial I cannot describe in detail the second and third options as my company ...
Which sectors can benefit the most from VMware Aria Automation?
I was looking at VMware Aria Automation case studies recently and I got the impression that three main kinds of companies were using it most often: Social organizations Financial institutions and ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
VMware vRealize Automation, vRA, VMware DynamicOps Cloud Suite, SaltStack
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Rent-a-Center, Amway, Vistra Energy, Liberty Mutual
Find out what your peers are saying about Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks vs. VMware Aria Automation and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,114 professionals have used our research since 2012.