Flow Security vs Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks comparison

Flow Security and Palo Alto Networks are both solutions in the Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) category. Flow Security is ranked #20, while Palo Alto Networks is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.5. Flow Security holds a 0.4% mindshare in DSPM, compared to Palo Alto Networks’s 13.5% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Flow Security users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 98% of Palo Alto Networks users who would recommend it.

Flow Security

Read 1 Flow Security review

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360 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto N...

Read 111 Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks reviews

23,407 Views
8,661 Comparison Views

98% willing to recommend

Flow Security

Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto N...

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 24, 2025

Prisma Cloud and Flow Security are competitors in the cybersecurity sector offering cloud security solutions. Prisma Cloud has an advantage in support and integration, while Flow Security is noted for its feature richness and ROI potential.

Features: Prisma Cloud includes integrated security solutions, threat prevention, and extensive integration capabilities. Flow Security offers advanced data protection, risk management, and a focus on data-centric security.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Prisma Cloud provides an easy deployment process and comprehensive customer support. Flow Security has a slightly more complex deployment but compensates with responsive customer service and detailed implementation guidance.

Pricing and ROI: Prisma Cloud generally requires a lower initial cost, appealing to budget-conscious businesses while still offering good ROI. Flow Security may have higher upfront costs but provides long-term value for data-sensitive businesses with its specialized features.

To learn more, read our detailed Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) Report (Updated: October 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Data Security Posture Management (DSPM)

October 2025

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Helped 870,623 peers since 2012

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

Flow Security

Ranking in Data Security Posture Management (DSPM)

20th

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Database Security (20th)

Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto N...

Ranking in Data Security Posture Management (DSPM)

2nd

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

111

Ranking in other categories

Web Application Firewall (WAF) (8th), Container Security (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (2nd), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) category, the mindshare of Flow Security is 0.4%, down from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks is 13.5%, down from 20.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks	13.5%
Flow Security	0.4%
Other	86.1%

Data Security Posture Management (DSPM)

Featured Reviews

reviewer2231631

Chief Information Security Officer at a computer software company with 51-200 employees

It gives us a risk report that helps us refine our process management by highlighting where we might be exposed

Flow's distinctive capability to analyze both data at rest and data in motion grants us the ability not only to get full visibility and classification of the data within our managed databases but also to visualize the data flows both within and beyond our environment. This enables us to achieve a comprehensive understanding of all our sensitive data, even as it traverses through applications, shadow databases, and external services such as third-party entities and SaaS applications. What we aspire to achieve with Flow is extended visibility into the external services themselves, which will allow us to see the data they contain.

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Mohammad Qaw

Senior Security Consultant at helpag

It gives you one console to see all of your assets, review their configurations, and build your processes

Most customers use Prisma Cloud for visibility and compliance. Prisma has so many features, but many organizations do not use them. They primarily use the visibility part to connect all their cloud accounts and hosts for visibility to see if they are missing any security controls or if they have any misconfigurations. You can connect it to cloud environments such as Azure, AWS, Oracle Cloud, Alibaba, etc., or to an on-prem data center. Prisma Cloud gives you so many options to automate processes related to your daily operations. When it comes to cybersecurity, you can automate things with their existing APIs. They also have out-of-the-box integrations with many solutions. I have not seen any limitations. Everything is customizable. You can do whatever you want, defining the reporting and custom use cases. They recently updated the UI, so it's much better than before.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Before implementing Flow Security, we had no mechanism to alert us when third-party contractors were accessing sensitive data or moving it to locations with lower security. Now we know precisely where the data is stored and can assess the risk when someone wants to develop something. Flow Security lowers our risk of a data breach."

"Integration is very easy. And because it supports security that spans multi- and hybrid-cloud environments, it's very easy to use."

"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."

"Prisma Cloud's most important feature is its auto-remediation."

"I like the scanning features provided by Prisma Cloud, including the image scan and source scan."

"Prisma Cloud's comprehensive platform offers a range of features, including runtime security and vulnerability assessments, through its Prisma Cloud Compute component."

"Prisma Cloud's real-time detection and monitoring of our entire system is the most useful."

"I like Prisma's ability to integrate with other tools. We can integrate it with Jira so that when Prisma triggers an alert, it opens a ticket in Jira. That was a big selling point for the product. There's a feature called the guest custom template that allows you to trigger alerts in Jira based on the template. That can also be added as a feature on Jira."

"Syslog CLIs are the best feature."

More Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks pros

Cons

"It provides a good overview of our infrastructure, but I need more end-to-end visibility, and SaaS is one of the gaps."

"We'd like to have more native integration with clouds and additional security checks in the future."

"The UI is the worst."

"This solution is more AWS and Azure-centric. It needs to be more specific on the GCP side, which they are working on."

"The automation capabilities are growing each day, but the problem is that the updates are not that frequent. There are some services on Amazon that have come out with updates, and Azure is also getting up to date. But Prisma takes some time to follow. There's a time gap that Prisma inherits from these clouds. I understand why it takes some time, but that time should be reduced."

"They need to improve the API gateway."

"They should improve the user experience."

"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."

"They can improve the integrations into the SDLC lifecycle."

More Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

"I wouldn't mind if it were cheaper. We are spending a fair amount of money on Prisma Cloud."

"Prisma Cloud Enterprise is a costly solution. You need a license for all the components. At the same time, you have everything under one roof, so I think it's still justified."

"Prisma Cloud licensing works on credits."

"Prisma Cloud is more expensive than Check Point CloudGuard."

"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."

"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."

"I don't know a better way to do it, but their licensing is a little confusing. That's due to the breadth of different types of technologies they are trying to cover. The way you license depends on where you're securing. When they were Twistlock it was a simple licensing scheme and you could tell what you were doing. Now that they've changed that scheme with Palo Alto, it is quite confusing. It's very difficult to predict what your costs are going to be as you try to expand coverage."

"Prisma Cloud is a high-end enterprise solution, making it quite expensive."

More Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

13%

University

10%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

14%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	34
Midsize Enterprise	20
Large Enterprise	58

Questions from the Community

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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.

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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...

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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 ...

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Compared 59% of the time

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Compared 41% of the time

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Compared 10% of the time

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Compared 7% of the time

CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security vs Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks

Compared 5% of the time

Aqua Cloud Security Platform vs Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks

Compared 4% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Database Security

October 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks

September 2025

Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks report

Download Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks product report

Also Known As

No data available

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

Overview

Flow is a data security platform that combines Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) together with real-time detection and response to data security violations. Flow is not just your cloud security tool with a data scanning utility. It is the only platform that analyzes both data at rest and data in motion. By also following and analyzing all data flows in runtime, the platform enables security teams to regain control over all their data, including shadow data stores and applications across all cloud, on-prem, and SaaS environments.

Flow’s deep analysis of the organization’s data journey from origin to destination allows security teams to automatically catalog all their sensitive data (e.g. PII, PHI, PCI); visualize data flows; detect and remediate data risks; and effectively respond in real-time to data violations by providing the full context: who, what, when, where and why.

Flow Security

Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks provides comprehensive cloud-native security solutions. It covers dynamic workload identity, automated forensics, and multi-cloud protection, ensuring robust security across diverse cloud platforms.

Prisma Cloud delivers advanced capabilities for managing cloud security across AWS, Azure, and GCP platforms. It offers dynamic workload identity creation, real-time monitoring, and seamless integration into CI/CD pipelines. With automation, centralized dashboards, and enhanced visibility, users effectively manage security misconfigurations and vulnerabilities. While optimizing cloud environments through runtime protection and compliance, Prisma Cloud faces challenges with its navigation, pricing, and limited automation capabilities. Users seek improvements in API security, role-based access controls, and documentation quality, emphasizing the need for enhanced customization and reporting features.

What are the important features of Prisma Cloud?

Dynamic Workload Identity: Enables unique workload identities for security purposes.
Automated Forensics: Offers detailed insights into threats and incidents automatically.
Runtime Protection: Provides ongoing detection and blocking of suspicious activities.
Multi-Cloud Security: Protects environments on AWS, Azure, and GCP simultaneously.
Compliance Management: Assists in meeting regulatory standards across cloud platforms.

What benefits or ROI should users consider in reviews?

Enhanced Security Posture: Strengthens cloud defense lines with proactive monitoring.
Centralized Dashboard: Offers unified oversight of multiple cloud environments.
Efficient Misconfiguration Handling: Quickly identifies and addresses security lapses.
Seamless CI/CD Integration: Integrates security within development workflows.
Improved Visibility: Provides transparent insights into security operations and alerts.

Industries like finance and telecom rely on Prisma Cloud for managing cloud security posture and container security. Teams utilize its capabilities across hybrid and multi-cloud settings to ensure compliance and robust threat protection. Features like misconfiguration detection and runtime monitoring are critical in promoting security objectives in these sectors.

Palo Alto Networks

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

Amgen, Genpact, Western Asset, Zipongo, Proofpoint, NerdWallet, Axfood, 21st Century Fox, Veeva Systems, Reinsurance Group of America

Buyer's Guide

Data Security Posture Management (DSPM)

October 2025

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