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Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks vs ORION Security comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 3, 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
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
55
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (5th), Container Security (8th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (7th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (6th), SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) (2nd), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (6th)
Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto N...
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.7
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (20th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (10th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (10th), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (8th), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (9th), Software Supply Chain Security (6th), Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM) (6th), Application Security Posture Management (ASPM) (5th), Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) (4th)
ORION Security
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (21st), Insider Risk Management (13th), AI Security (18th)
 

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.
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.
Dvir Dahan - PeerSpot reviewer
Information Security Specialist at Tufin
Data protection has become automated and AI now simplifies managing sensitive information
By using ORION Security, we experience false positives, and we are working with the team every week to fine-tune the system. They listen to us for every feature request and everything we need. We work very closely to mitigate all false positives, but they still occur at approximately 10 to 20 percent. In terms of areas for improvement, false positives continue to occur, and the data categorization and sensitivity label level of alerts could be improved. We receive some alerts marked as critical and high, but they are not critical or high for our organization. This aspect can improve, including the alert severity levels.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Once you have your vulnerabilities fixed and your patches pushed out using Qualys TotalCloud, then you are able to eliminate threats and cyber risk."
"Qualys TotalCloud has great accuracy and reliability, as it is a very complete program with tools that help experts understand the vulnerabilities of today."
"Qualys TotalCloud has positively impacted our organization by helping us save time and manage all assets and remediation, allowing us to achieve quarterly and half-yearly goals."
"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."
"This scoring system eliminates the need for us to do any manual effort because the scores help us prioritize our remediation vulnerability strategy."
"Qualys TotalCloud has positively impacted my organization by providing visibility into the environment."
"Qualys TotalCloud's most valuable feature is its agent versatility."
"My main use case for Qualys TotalCloud is to find misconfiguration in the cloud, and I am focused on identifying misconfiguration in cloud configuration."
"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."
"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."
"Overall, Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks is a technically strong product, and I rate it ten out of ten."
"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."
"The capabilities of Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks are valuable because it is the best product in the market."
"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 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."
"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."
"With Orion, setup was fast, the insights are actually useful, and we are not drowning in false alerts."
"ORION Security helps me manage sensitive data when it moves across endpoints, browsers, SaaS, email, cloud tools, and AI, and we control almost everything and see almost everything, including emails, the browser, the AI agent, external storage, or network shares."
 

Cons

"In TotalCloud, I would suggest improvements in policy checks to cater to various inventory types like VPCs, subnets, S3 buckets, or IAMs. There is a lack of data segregation according to criticality or inventory."
"Overall, we are satisfied with it. However, the response part of the Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) module can be improved. It is not yet in place according to requirements; it is not completely available even though the module has been released."
"Qualys' customer service provides quality answers, but the response time is long, even though it is within the SLA."
"The support is not up to the mark and seems to be overburdened."
"The patching process with Qualys Patch Management, which is part of TotalCloud, does not cover installing certain prerequisites on the servers or workstations. This shortcoming means we must rely on SCCM when any service stack updates or additional prerequisites are needed."
"Regarding improvements to Qualys TotalCloud, I suggest that user navigation can be enhanced because initially, many users found it complicated and had trouble understanding the platform due to information being spread across multiple tabs."
"I chose a rating of nine out of ten because there is a complex interface that sometimes overwhelms new engineers."
"The onboarding process is a bit difficult. In the initial phase, it is very difficult to understand the features, what the dashboard contains, and what criteria they are using."
"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."
"Some aspects of the GUI can be confusing and make it difficult for me to find certain options or navigate where needed."
"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."
"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."
"Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks is creating some confusion in terms of names because this is recent."
"From the commercial perspective, we have some limitations because Palo Alto has a minimum number of users of endpoints set at 200, which is quite high for the Italian market."
"The pricing is high, making ROI challenging to justify, especially during transitions between solutions."
"In my opinion, Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks can be improved by addressing forensic information collection and storage, although I cannot suggest specific things right now, based on what customers might need."
"By using ORION Security, we experience false positives, and we are working with the team every week to fine-tune the system."
"Granular alert customization would be helpful."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Qualys TotalCloud is expensive."
"The pricing is comparable. It is built into our other product, so I cannot piecemeal it. It is a part of our subscription."
"TotalCloud's price is about right where I would expect it to be."
"The cost is high, but it meets our organizational needs."
"It isn't cheap, but it's reasonable. It helps us to manage things with very few resources."
"Qualys TotalCloud is cost-efficient and was selected for its value compared to other products."
"Qualys TotalCloud is expensive, but it offers a premier solution with no headaches."
"Qualys TotalCloud offers cost-effective licensing flexibility."
Information not available
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
18%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
15%
Construction Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Outsourcing Company
24%
Construction Company
19%
Healthcare Company
8%
Transportation Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise39
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise4
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Qualys TotalCloud?
We purchased Qualys TotalCloud for GCP and Azure as well. It is comparatively better than others regarding pricing. T...
What needs improvement with Qualys TotalCloud?
I am unsure about how Qualys TotalCloud can be improved. I do not have anything else to add about the needed improvem...
What is your primary use case for Qualys TotalCloud?
My main use case for Qualys TotalCloud is telemetry, although I am unsure about the specifics. A quick specific examp...
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 ...
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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Orion Security DLP?
I am not aware of the pricing for ORION Security. I am not part of the pricing and contract process.
What needs improvement with Orion Security DLP?
By using ORION Security, we experience false positives, and we are working with the team every week to fine-tune the ...
What is your primary use case for Orion Security DLP?
ORION Security is used for data leak prevention.
 

Also Known As

Qualys TotalCloud with FlexScan
No data available
No data available
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks vs. ORION Security and other solutions. Updated: October 2026.
921,523 professionals have used our research since 2012.