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Calico Cloud vs Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 1, 2026

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
5.3
Qualys TotalCloud effectively reduces costs and labor while enhancing asset visibility and risk management, boosting efficiency by up to 40%.
Sentiment score
7.0
Calico Cloud enhances ROI by optimizing network security, reducing costs, and improving operational efficiency and incident resolution.
Sentiment score
6.8
Prisma Cloud boosts productivity and security through automation, reducing vulnerabilities, saving time, and streamlining compliance for organizations.
We are able to scan all our assets with less human intervention and achieve overall effective outcomes.
Dns architect at a outsourcing company with 5,001-10,000 employees
It has saved about 90% of our time.
Senior Consultant at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
TotalCloud has generated overall savings of 30 to 40 percent across various departments.
Security Manager at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
We are able to reduce the number of times needed for debugging through the service graph and the recommendations for the micro-segmentation of their security tool, helping us identify necessary network policies.
DevOps Engineer at Heckerbella
Calico Cloud not only secures our network infrastructure but also assures that we are not incurring costs due to breaches, which is a significant factor in the ROI.
DevOps Engineer at Exponential Craft
It has reduced the time spent troubleshooting network connectivity issues, improved visibility into Kubernetes traffic, and helped us enforce consistent security policies across clusters.
Senior Systems Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
It eliminates the need for additional hardware, making it a financially and technically sound investment.
Partner at Quasys
There was a cost reduction. That was the benefit that we had visualized while evaluating Prisma Cloud as one of the possible solutions.
Technical Architect at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.7
Qualys TotalCloud support is knowledgeable but inconsistent, with some delays and varying service quality affecting customer satisfaction.
Sentiment score
6.4
Calico Cloud offers reliable support with strong vendor-management; user-friendly design minimizes reliance on documentation and support services.
Sentiment score
7.1
Prisma Cloud support quality varies; clients experience quick resolutions or slow responses, with satisfaction depending on region and support level.
They are helpful, respond to my queries, and can answer any question.
Developer at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Qualys's tech support is highly responsive, providing multiple ways to interact with them.
Service Manager, Security Operations at CDA IT SOLUTIONS
Qualys' customer service provides quality answers, but the response time is long, even though it is within the SLA.
Works at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Customer support is very good, and they have responded to us whenever we have encountered issues with the product.
Senior Systems Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Calico Cloud is quite a usable product.
DevOps Engineer at Heckerbella
I believe the relationship between vendors and our management team was effective.
DevOps Engineer at Exponential Craft
They can respond with technical documentation or pass on the case to the next level because it requires the development of a new feature or changing a feature due to a bug.
Technical Lead at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
Anywhere we raise a tech case, they revert back within an hour.
Cloud Security Engineer at a tech vendor with 201-500 employees
I would give them 10 out of 10.
Sector Manager at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.4
Qualys TotalCloud efficiently scales across multi-cloud environments, supporting diverse needs for small and large teams with minimal issues.
Sentiment score
6.8
Calico Cloud is praised for scalable and secure Kubernetes integration, effectively managing traffic and reinforcing its industry reputation.
Sentiment score
7.5
Prisma Cloud offers scalable, flexible multi-cloud support, efficiently accommodating large enterprises with performance, albeit needing credit purchases for optimal use.
We started our organization about nine months back. We started with about 30 users, and we now have more than 100 users.
CIO at a venture capital & private equity firm with 11-50 employees
Our organization currently uses it to manage over 1200 web applications.
Analyst, Information Security at Infosys
It is absolutely scalable, and I would rate its scalability as nine out of ten.
retired at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
We have not had issues with scalability.
DevOps Engineer at Heckerbella
It has over the years demonstrated its scalability and the adoption of products across the industry.
DevOps Engineer at Exponential Craft
Calico Cloud has scaled well with our Kubernetes environment and has many capabilities that make it easier to apply consistent security policies across multiple clusters.
Senior Systems Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
I would rate it a ten out of ten for scalability.
Cloud Security Support at a tech vendor with 501-1,000 employees
I would rate it a nine out of ten for scalability.
Cloud Security Engineer (Team lead) at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
The scalability of Prisma Cloud is good, covering both the front end and the back end.
Technical Lead at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.4
Qualys TotalCloud is praised for its stability, 99.9% uptime, reliable performance, and responsive support for resolving issues.
Sentiment score
8.3
Calico Cloud is widely praised for its stability, with unanimous agreement on its consistent and reliable performance.
Sentiment score
7.9
Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks is highly reliable and trustworthy, with minimal downtime and effective maintenance communication.
Overall, the support provided has been excellent.
Analyst, Information Security at Infosys
It has a lot of scanning mechanisms, which are agentless APIs, eBPF, and cloud agents, that are highly reliable.
Sr Security Engineer at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees
It is a stable solution, which is why we chose it.
CIO at a venture capital & private equity firm with 11-50 employees
I would rate it a ten out of ten for stability.
Cloud Security Engineer (Team lead) at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
We had issues whenever we were downloading the vulnerability report. It did not include all the information.
Cloud Security Support at a tech vendor with 501-1,000 employees
Once the issues were identified, Palo Alto applied the correct solutions to ensure high availability and scalability.
Technical Lead at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
 

Room For Improvement

Qualys TotalCloud needs UI/UX enhancements, better integrations, compliance reporting, Windows container security, AI threat prediction, and pricing clarity.
Calico Cloud users seek improvements in performance, resource efficiency, security features, and documentation for better user experience and system efficiency.
Prisma Cloud needs user interface, integration, automation, cost, and support improvements, with better multi-cloud support and visibility.
Ideally, the scanner should automatically detect and scan all subdomains, even if not explicitly defined, ensuring comprehensive vulnerability assessment.
Analyst, Information Security at Infosys
Ideally, updates should be more immediate, enabling quicker implementation of solutions.
Project Lead at Persistent Systems
Our goal is to integrate all these functions into Qualys, creating a single dashboard for comprehensive security monitoring and management.
Senior Information Security Engineer at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Adding a speech feature on top of it, such as a summarization of what has actually happened, would be useful for troubleshooting faster.
DevOps Engineer at Heckerbella
Having a searchable summary feature, such as a chatbot, could help users quickly resolve issues without having to read extensive documentation.
DevOps Engineer at Exponential Craft
The pricing, implementation cost, and licensing of Calico Cloud could be reduced.
Cloud architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
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.
Cyber Security Architect at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
Even though documentation was available, it took a while for a new person to understand what integration meant, what will be achieved after the integration, or how the integration needed to be done on the Azure or AWS side.
Technical Architect at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Having auto Defender upgrades so that we do not have to upgrade Defender manually would be helpful.
Cloud Security Support at a tech vendor with 501-1,000 employees
 

Setup Cost

Qualys TotalCloud offers competitive pricing for large enterprises, providing flexible, cost-effective solutions with comprehensive features and benefits.
Enterprise buyers find Prisma Cloud expensive but valuable, with flexible pricing benefiting multi-cloud enterprises despite additional costs.
Qualys TotalCloud's pricing is currently acceptable, it is becoming increasingly expensive.
Senior Manager at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Pricing is managed by our finance team; however, Qualys TotalCloud offers cost-effective licensing flexibility.
IT Manager at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Qualys TotalCloud is expensive, but it offers a premier solution with no headaches.
Vice President at Inspira Enterprise
They decided that the cost of implementing Calico Cloud outweighed the risk of not having it based on our industry needs.
DevOps Engineer at Exponential Craft
The licensing was payable with the best pricing based on what they are offering.
DevOps Engineer at Heckerbella
The cost was not on the higher side.
Technical Architect at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
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.
Cloud Security Engineer (Team lead) at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
The pricing for Prisma Cloud is high.
Technical Lead at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
 

Valuable Features

Qualys TotalCloud enhances cloud security with risk prioritization, automation, and visibility, boosting efficiency in vulnerability management and remediation.
Calico Cloud leverages eBPF for performance, enhances Kubernetes security, and provides advanced network management with intuitive UI and micro-segmentation.
Prisma Cloud enhances cloud security with real-time monitoring, automation, and CSPM for effective DevOps and multi-cloud protection.
This view of risk helps reduce the work we would have to do to combine multiple sources to prioritize risk.
Works at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
It will help cybersecurity professionals monitor the cloud and find vulnerabilities.
Developer at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
We are enjoying the new feature, FlexScan, which is valuable for Internet-facing VMs.
Senior Consultant at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
You create policies to prevent someone from logging into a particular container, and since it has its native container security interface, this helps protect against unauthorized access or damage in the cloud.
DevOps Engineer at Exponential Craft
Calico Cloud is a portable tool that can work with different types of Kubernetes clusters, it greatly facilitates deployment in different projects.
Cloud architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Overall, it has helped our platform and DevOps team deploy changes with greater confidence, respond to incidents more quickly, and maintain a more secure and reliable Kubernetes environment.
Senior Systems Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Its ability to centralize and address security vulnerabilities across these diverse environments makes it a crucial and decisive element within the Prisma Cloud ecosystem.
Partner at Quasys
For CWP, the runtime protection is the most valuable feature. Every tool does vulnerability monitoring through tools such as Qualys, but the additional feature we get here is runtime protection in CWP.
Cloud Security Engineer at a tech vendor with 201-500 employees
It is as easy as registering a new subscription to AWS, and you start seeing all that data.
Technical Architect at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Categories and Ranking

Qualys TotalCloud
Sponsored
Ranking in Container Security
11th
Ranking in Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP)
7th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
46
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (10th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (9th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (8th), SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) (2nd)
Calico Cloud
Ranking in Container Security
28th
Ranking in Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP)
19th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
AI Observability (22nd)
Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto N...
Ranking in Container Security
2nd
Ranking in Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP)
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
114
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (7th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (2nd), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) category, the mindshare of Qualys TotalCloud is 2.4%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Calico Cloud is 0.6%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks is 10.1%, down from 14.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks10.1%
Qualys TotalCloud2.4%
Calico Cloud0.6%
Other86.9%
Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP)
 

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.
Olakunle Obasoro - PeerSpot reviewer
DevOps Engineer at Exponential Craft
Security posture has become visible and container risks are managed proactively
Regarding improvements for Calico Cloud, there is a need to build agentic security systems. I believe Calico Cloud is progressing towards this, and I believe they can enhance their teaching methods to facilitate adoption. Documentation needs continuous improvement. It is good and easy to read, but it can get better. Having a searchable summary feature, such as a chatbot, could help users quickly resolve issues without having to read extensive documentation. At the moment, I do not believe there are more improvements needed, but as mentioned earlier, there should be a focus on better documentation, possibly by embedding chatbot features that could respond to user prompts effectively.
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.
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915,287 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
16%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
No data available
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise35
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business37
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise58
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Qualys TotalCloud?
In terms of improvement, remediation still belongs to the cloud team, which is one of the issues we faced with Qualys...
What is your primary use case for Qualys TotalCloud?
My main use case for Qualys TotalCloud is regarding the cloud visibility that we were not having previously. Previous...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Calico Cloud?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Calico Cloud was determined by management who evaluated the...
What needs improvement with Calico Cloud?
I think there are a couple of issues with Calico Cloud, at least during the first time I used it more intensively. On...
What is your primary use case for Calico Cloud?
My main use case for Calico Cloud was primarily cloud network security. An unfortunate aspect of cloud architecture i...
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...
 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
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 Calico Cloud vs. Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
915,287 professionals have used our research since 2012.