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Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks vs Symantec Cloud Workload Protection 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
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
53
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (10th), Container Security (11th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (9th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (8th), SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) (2nd), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (7th)
Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto N...
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 Security Posture Management (CSPM) (2nd), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (2nd), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (2nd)
Symantec Cloud Workload Pro...
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (31st)
 

Mindshare comparison

Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks10.1%
Wiz12.5%
Microsoft Defender for Cloud6.7%
Other70.7%
Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP)
Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Symantec Cloud Workload Protection0.8%
Microsoft Defender for Cloud10.1%
Wiz8.5%
Other80.6%
Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
 

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.
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.
Mahadi Ma - PeerSpot reviewer
Engineer at M.Tech
Has a good active directory feature and good technical support
One area for improvement in Symantec Cloud Workload Protection is integration. Other features that could be improved are defense control and encryption, particularly in the USB. For example, users should be able to control the USB and have the capability of blocking and allowing USB reading and writing. Having a USB encryption feature in Symantec Cloud Workload Protection would also be very useful. An additional feature I'd like to see in the next release of Symantec Cloud Workload Protection is more advanced defense on mobile devices such as iOS and Android. For example, even offline or with no internet connection, it would be good if the solution could defend devices against malware and ransomware.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"My experience with using TruRisk to mitigate noise from raw CVEs has been extremely effective."
"Qualys TotalCloud has significantly improved our organization by automating our reporting processes, reducing the time spent on report creation from two hours to less than fifteen to twenty minutes."
"Once you have your vulnerabilities fixed and your patches pushed out using Qualys TotalCloud, then you are able to eliminate threats and cyber risk."
"One of Qualys' best features is its categorization, which allows us to see the types of assets, their security postures, and the AI-powered version of the tool."
"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."
"The best feature would be the ability to create policies. It is easy to control and update policies as required."
"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."
"Qualys TotalCloud is overall the best tool available in the market for scanning purposes."
"The most valuable feature is the closed VPN connection, which provides better performance than traditional VPN boxes. For example, let's say a user in New York State normally connects in the East, but if they travel to the UK, they can connect to the same portal, which automatically redirects to any VPN gateway. We can control traffic based on Active Directory groups instead of the user's IP. That means a user in New York can access his application based on his user ID and AD group access when he travels to the UK or anywhere else."
"The policies that come prepackaged in the tool have been very valuable to us. They're accurate and they provide good guidance as to why the policy was created, as well as how to remediate anything that violates the policy."
"The reporting, dashboarding, and filtering capabilities which provide reports we can present to our senior staff are the most helpful features of Prisma Cloud (Annual Contract)."
"The most valuable features of Prisma Cloud are its cloud security posture management and cloud workload protection capabilities."
"We are provided with a single tool to protect all of our cloud resources and applications without having to manage and reconcile compliance reports."
"Prisma Cloud's most important feature is its auto-remediation."
"We haven't had an issue with the product for over a year."
"The features of Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks are overall satisfying, although I would like to verify some aspects."
"It will read various logs, diagnose what is wrong, and then alert you."
"The most valuable features in Symantec Cloud Workload Protection are endpoint protection and active directory features. The active directory features in the product are very good, and in terms of security, the most valuable feature in Symantec Cloud Workload Protection is threat defense or threat protection."
"This is a very good tool for cloud protection."
"Symantec Cloud Workload Protection is a stable solution and it offers very good protection for organizations."
 

Cons

"It is already perfect, but they can bring some newer dashboards and customization options for the dashboard. It would be great to be able to include on-prem assets on the dashboard."
"In terms of improvement, remediation still belongs to the cloud team, which is one of the issues we faced with Qualys TotalCloud."
"The cost of Qualys TotalCloud is high and could be more competitive."
"It has been working very well, but it would be helpful if the dashboard could generate reports tailored to specific compliance needs. For example, in India, we have to comply with RBI and SEBI guidelines. It w"
"The support is not up to the mark and seems to be overburdened."
"The downside is only in container security, but it has not been a long time since they introduced these models."
"There is a lack of data segregation according to criticality or inventory."
"From a downside perspective, the UI is not user-friendly and feels dated compared to other tools like Prisma Cloud."
"We would like to have the detections be more contemporaneous. For example, we've seen detections of an overprivileged user or whatever it might be in any of the hundreds of Prisma policies, where there are 50 minutes of latency between the event and the alert."
"The innovation side of the solution could be more efficient and more detailed."
"We have discovered that Prisma is not functioning properly with GCP."
"Prisma Cloud's dashboards should be customizable. That's very important. Other similar solutions are more elastic so you have the power to create customized dashboards. In Prisma Cloud, you cannot do that."
"The information presented in the UI sometimes doesn't look intuitive enough."
"The alignment of Twistlock Defender agents with image repositories needs improvement."
"We face some GUI issues related to new permissions for AWS. So far, we don't have any automation to complete them through the GUI. We have to manually update the permissions. Our customers have faced some issues with that."
"The feedback that we have given to the Palo Alto team is that the UI can be improved. When you press the "back" button on your browser from the Investigate tab, the query that you're working on just disappears. It won't keep the query on the "back" button."
"One area for improvement in Symantec Cloud Workload Protection is integration."
"One area for improvement in Symantec Cloud Workload Protection is integration. Other features that could be improved are defense control and encryption, particularly in the USB. For example, users should be able to control the USB and have the capability of blocking and allowing USB reading and writing. Having a USB encryption feature in Symantec Cloud Workload Protection would also be very useful."
"In the future, we may need to use features that are only available in one of the competing products."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing for TotalCloud is attractive and competitive in the market. Given the features, especially the dashboard, I have no concerns regarding pricing."
"TotalCloud's price is about right where I would expect it to be."
"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 competitive pricing given its comprehensive suite of features, including integration, assessment, remediation, and detection capabilities, all within a single platform."
"As a middle management member, I do not have direct pricing knowledge, but based on the knowledge from our meetings, its pricing is competitive."
"While Qualys TotalCloud's pricing is currently acceptable, it is becoming increasingly expensive and may soon be considered overpriced."
"Qualys TotalCloud is expensive, but it offers a premier solution with no headaches."
"The pricing is comparable. It is built into our other product, so I cannot piecemeal it. It is a part of our subscription."
"If a competitor came along and said, "We'll give you half the price," that doesn't necessarily mean that's the right answer, at all. We wouldn't necessarily entertain it that way. Does it do what we need it to do? Does it work with the things that we want it to work with? That is the important part for us. Pricing wasn't the big consideration it might be in some organizations. We spend millions on public cloud. In that context, it would not make sense to worry about the small price differences that you get between the products."
"Prisma Cloud is quite scalable. In our current licensing model, we're able to heavily extend our cloud workload and onboard a lot of customers. It really helps, and it is on par with other solutions."
"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."
"Prisma Cloud is affordable."
"The pricing is competitive. From what I have seen in the past, it is on par with the others."
"We are encountering some resistance in the African market regarding the cost of Prisma Cloud."
"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."
"The licensing cost for Symantec Cloud Workload Protection is paid yearly."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
18%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise38
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business37
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise58
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Qualys TotalCloud?
I was not involved in pricing, setup cost, and licensing, but I can say that the setup was fast, within a quarter, an...
What needs improvement with Qualys TotalCloud?
In terms of improvements, the features we are using in Qualys TotalCloud are working in the best optimal way, and I d...
What is your primary use case for Qualys TotalCloud?
I have been using Qualys TotalCloud for the last eight months to scan the hardware and the virtual devices in our inf...
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...
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Also Known As

Qualys TotalCloud with FlexScan
Prisma Public Cloud, RedLock Cloud 360, RedLock, Twistlock, Aporeto
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Amgen, Genpact, Western Asset, Zipongo, Proofpoint, NerdWallet, Axfood, 21st Century Fox, Veeva Systems, Reinsurance Group of America
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