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IBM Security Guardium DSPM vs Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 29, 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

IBM Security Guardium DSPM
Ranking in Data Security Posture Management (DSPM)
17th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto N...
Ranking in Data Security Posture Management (DSPM)
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
114
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (9th), Container Security (2nd), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (2nd), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) category, the mindshare of IBM Security Guardium DSPM is 1.1%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks is 10.7%, down from 16.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks10.7%
IBM Security Guardium DSPM1.1%
Other88.2%
Data Security Posture Management (DSPM)
 

Featured Reviews

DevidharsanJ - PeerSpot reviewer
Advisory Consultant at Fiserv
Comprehensive data monitoring has strengthened compliance and protected sensitive information
In terms of improvements for IBM Security Guardium DSPM, I believe there is potential for enhancement in the operational perspective, particularly in the user interface and the deployment of agents. I think they could benefit from having a singular agent that can be pushed directly from a centralized console instead of relying on Unix or Windows admins for deployment.
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

"The most important aspect of database activity monitoring is that it complies with the regulations, offering pre-built reports and numerous options in IBM Security Guardium DSPM to tune policies, along with various integrations such as with SIEM and ticketing products, making it a more compatible product compared to others."
"It gives us a central location to see what the security posture is like for multiple cloud providers."
"Visibility is a key feature. Integration with other technologies across the board, whether they are Palo Alto technologies, Windows technologies, or cloud technologies, is probably the biggest thing."
"The framework to configure controls is pretty good; it's pretty sophisticated. We can implement a fair amount of testing for a fair number of controls."
"You can also integrate with Amazon Managed Services. You can also get a snapshot in time, whether that's over a 24-hour period, seven days, or a month, to determine what the estate might look like at a certain point in time and generate reports from that for vulnerability management forums."
"This solution will ensure that we've got a more secure environment, mitigating any sort of bad actors coming in and either destroying or disrupting the environment."
"My impression of Prisma Cloud was pretty good; it's an amazing tool that gives the whole view of your container environment and connection with multiple platforms, such as Splunk, and it is a good solution."
"Prisma Cloud's most valuable feature is its user identification capabilities."
"I've been really pleasantly surprised with how Prisma Cloud is, over time, covering more and more of the topics I care about, and listening to customer feedback and growing the product in the right directions."
 

Cons

"In terms of improvements for IBM Security Guardium DSPM, I believe there is potential for enhancement in the operational perspective, particularly in the user interface and the deployment of agents."
"A couple of exporting functionalities should be more user-friendly because if I want to export something, I can get a lot of data visible to that particular CSV."
"In terms of securing cloud-native development at build time, a lot of improvement is needed. Currently, it's more a runtime solution than a build-time solution. For runtime, I would rate it at seven out of 10, but for build-time there is a lot of work to be done."
"Getting new guys trained on using the solution requires some thought. If someone is already trained on Palo Alto then he's able to adapt quickly, but if someone is coming from another platform such as Fortinet, or maybe he's from the system side, that is where we need some help."
"We would like it to have more features from the risk and compliance perspectives."
"Palo Alto should work on ease-of-use and the user-friendliness to be more competitive with some competing products."
"The alignment of Twistlock Defender agents with image repositories needs improvement."
"The user interface should be improved and made easier."
"There should be some kind of automation, AI incorporation, and bot system. All these would add value."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"It is fairly priced. However, its price can be better so that small banks or small organizations can afford it and adopt it to secure their environment and data."
"The pricing is good. They gave us some good discounts right at the end of the year based on the value that it brings, visibility, and the ability to build in cloud, compliance, and security within one dashboard."
"Prisma Cloud is more expensive than some other solutions, but when we consider all of its use cases, the cost averages out."
"Almost all the CSPM tools are pretty expensive."
"Prisma Cloud is affordable."
"Prisma Cloud licensing works on credits."
"One thing we're very pleased about is how the licensing model for Prisma is based on work resources. You buy a certain amount of work resources and then, as they enable new capabilities within Prisma, it just takes those work resource units and applies them to new features. This enables us to test and use the new features without having to go back and ask for and procure a whole new product, which could require going through weeks, and maybe months, of a procurement process."
"The cost depends on the pricing model. Compared to other solutions, the cost isn't that bad."
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893,244 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business37
Midsize Enterprise22
Large Enterprise56
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Security Guardium DSPM?
The pricing of IBM Security Guardium DSPM is based on the number of database servers it covers. I am not sure if my customers express their opinions about the price of IBM Security Guardium DSPM, s...
What needs improvement with IBM Security Guardium DSPM?
In terms of improvements for IBM Security Guardium DSPM, I believe there is potential for enhancement in the operational perspective, particularly in the user interface and the deployment of agents...
What is your primary use case for IBM Security Guardium DSPM?
The usual use cases for IBM Security Guardium DSPM that I mostly work with are normal data protection, vulnerability assessment, database compliance scans, data classification, and database activit...
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 are able to easily see where our container vulnerabilities lie and and where cl...
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 valuable feature and their speed of integration is very good. The initial setup was ...
 

Also Known As

Polar Security
Prisma Public Cloud, RedLock Cloud 360, RedLock, Twistlock, Aporeto
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
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 Wiz, Palo Alto Networks, Varonis and others in Data Security Posture Management (DSPM). Updated: May 2026.
893,244 professionals have used our research since 2012.