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Bridgecrew vs Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks comparison

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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

Qualys TotalCloud
Sponsored
Ranking in Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
8th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
43
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (11th), Container Security (12th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (8th), SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) (2nd), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (7th)
Bridgecrew
Ranking in Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
28th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto N...
Ranking in Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
10th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.7
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (16th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (10th), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (8th), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (10th), Software Supply Chain Security (6th), Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM) (5th), Application Security Posture Management (ASPM) (5th), Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) category, the mindshare of Qualys TotalCloud is 1.7%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Bridgecrew is 0.7%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks is 1.9%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Qualys TotalCloud1.7%
Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks1.9%
Bridgecrew0.7%
Other95.7%
Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
 

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.
DanielSieradski - PeerSpot reviewer
DevOps Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Multi-cloud, good scanning, and offers extensive guides
The challenge is that they charge you per resource. We had an issue where Google Cloud was generating secrets for our application configurations by the hundreds, which we would be charged by Bridgecloud. Our price would have surged to an insane amount due to the automatically generated secrets that we don't even use for anything, which isn't part of our security concern. What we would like to know is if there is a way that we could exclude those from our resources so that we're not billed for that. We don't monitor that. They ignored me for a month through four emails asking about that. They were just totally unresponsive. Then after a month, I said, "I guess you don't want our business." And they responded, "Oh, we're sorry to hear that." I'd say "You're sorry to hear that? Why didn't you respond to any of my emails?" If you're trying to pay them less money, then they want to get rid of you. They don't want to talk to you. That's what it came across as. It's not like we weren't looking at spending thousands of dollars a month with them. We just weren't looking at spending $8,000 versus $2,000. That was a bit frustrating. Generally, I do like their product. It's a useful product. It's good. We wanted to use it. However, since they blew us off, it left a bad taste in our mouths. Their sales team needs a little bit of a jostle to get themselves together. We'd like to see better monitoring and the ability to deny certain resources from being scanned.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Qualys TotalCloud provides a single, prioritized view based on requirements such as identifying the most vulnerable assets and calculating the average time to remediate vulnerabilities."
"The platform's unified view of the organization proves particularly valuable for leadership team meetings."
"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."
"I like the web API security and IoT scanning features the most. The user-friendly design of TotalCloud's interface enables customers to navigate it and use its full potential easily"
"I would definitely recommend Qualys TotalCloud to other customers."
"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."
"While automatic inventory detection upon connection is a helpful feature, a truly valuable capability would be assessing an environment's security posture against Azure and CIS best practices."
"The most valuable feature is extensibility."
"In cases where they have automatic remediations, you can click a button and it'll just fix the configuration for you."
"New users don't have too many problems with the product. They have a lot of training documentation around it."
"With any Palo Alto product that they put out, they typically have a very extensive amount of documentation behind it, and their technical account management team is almost unrivaled."
"The software itself is good software and does great things."
"The capabilities of Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks are valuable because it is the best product in the market."
"Overall, Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks is a technically strong product, and I rate it ten out of ten."
"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 seen several benefits from using Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks: It was easy to use and easy to migrate from the IBM platform."
"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."
"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."
"From a technical standpoint or pricing, Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks is a stronger solution in the market at the moment compared to other products from ConnectWise or Symantec."
 

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."
"Qualys TotalCloud needs to improve its accuracy for non-Windows operating systems."
"To improve the user experience, reporting could be simplified for better comprehension by end users and project managers, facilitating issue resolution."
"The vulnerability part is good, but the policy compliance module needs improvement because it involves a lot of manual work. Specifically, the remediation part of the controls requires enhancements."
"The price is very expensive, actually."
"The response part of the Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) module can be improved."
"I would appreciate additional integration options to connect Qualys TotalCloud with our other vulnerability management tools."
"Qualys TotalCloud needs to enhance its scanning capabilities in the IP domain, as it currently lacks the functionality to resolve IPs to their corresponding domain names."
"However, since they blew us off, it left a bad taste in our mouths."
"Before the Palo Alto acquisition, BridgeCrew had a reputation of them not being the best, however, since having that additional support from Palo Alto, I haven't heard of any issues."
"The biggest issue that I see companies run into is that they immediately think that, "Oh, this solution will be right, simply due to the name." But that's the same issue Splunk runs into. People will immediately jump to Splunk being the best SIEM tool, just because they're the largest. When in reality, QRadar, LogRhythm, and all these other ones are performing similar functions and would actually fit better in some people's environments. Therefore, it's important a company does its homework and does not assume one size fits all."
"We'd like to see better monitoring and the ability to deny certain resources from being scanned."
"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."
"Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks is creating some confusion in terms of names because this is recent."
"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."
"The negative aspects or areas for improvement in the product include the fact that the cost might be a bit high, which challenges commercials, but not technically."
"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."
"As per my experience with Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks, the UI could be simpler."
"The pricing is high, making ROI challenging to justify, especially during transitions between solutions."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Qualys TotalCloud is expensive, but it offers a premier solution with no headaches."
"Qualys TotalCloud is cost-efficient and was selected for its value compared to other products."
"Although Qualys TotalCloud is relatively expensive due to its unique automation features, its cost-effectiveness is rated an eight out of ten, with ten being the most costly."
"The pricing for TotalCloud is attractive and competitive in the market. Given the features, especially the dashboard, I have no concerns regarding pricing."
"As a middle management member, I do not have direct pricing knowledge, but based on the knowledge from our meetings, its pricing is competitive."
"It isn't cheap, but it's reasonable. It helps us to manage things with very few resources."
"Qualys TotalCloud offers competitive pricing given its comprehensive suite of features, including integration, assessment, remediation, and detection capabilities, all within a single platform."
"While Qualys TotalCloud's pricing is currently acceptable, it is becoming increasingly expensive and may soon be considered overpriced."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Performing Arts
24%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Construction Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
17%
Construction Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Outsourcing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise31
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise4
 

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...
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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...
 

Also Known As

Qualys TotalCloud with FlexScan
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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Rapyd, BetterHelp, Brex, People.ai, Globality
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Find out what your peers are saying about Bridgecrew vs. Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.