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IBM Security Guardium DSPM vs Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 29, 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

IBM Security Guardium DSPM
Ranking in Data Security Posture Management (DSPM)
17th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto N...
Ranking in Data Security Posture Management (DSPM)
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
114
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (9th), Container Security (2nd), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (2nd), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) category, the mindshare of IBM Security Guardium DSPM is 1.1%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks is 10.7%, down from 16.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks10.7%
IBM Security Guardium DSPM1.1%
Other88.2%
Data Security Posture Management (DSPM)
 

Featured Reviews

DevidharsanJ - PeerSpot reviewer
Advisory Consultant at Fiserv
Comprehensive data monitoring has strengthened compliance and protected sensitive information
In terms of improvements for IBM Security Guardium DSPM, I believe there is potential for enhancement in the operational perspective, particularly in the user interface and the deployment of agents. I think they could benefit from having a singular agent that can be pushed directly from a centralized console instead of relying on Unix or Windows admins for deployment.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most important aspect of database activity monitoring is that it complies with the regulations, offering pre-built reports and numerous options in IBM Security Guardium DSPM to tune policies, along with various integrations such as with SIEM and ticketing products, making it a more compatible product compared to others."
"CSPM is the most valuable feature."
"With the query language, we can analyze logs and find out which IPs are malicious. It also provides a graphical representation. It provides the overall visibility and how the traffic is flowing. We can see where the malicious IP is and whether it is an insider threat or an outsider threat."
"Prisma Cloud saves a lot of manual effort that we had to do within our cloud organization."
"Prisma Cloud's inventory reporting is pretty good."
"The visibility on alerts helps you investigate more easily and see details faster."
"If you can configure it well, Twistlock is a lot better in providing you real-time statistics than Aqua Security."
"The product is quite good for providing multi-clouds or cross-cloud security from a single-pane -of-glass."
"Prisma Cloud has good integrations, provides the visibility and control we need, is far more reasonable for the customers cost-wise, and is a very good preventative tool for helping us identify misconfigurations, reduce false positives, and focus on the real risks in our cloud environment."
 

Cons

"In terms of improvements for IBM Security Guardium DSPM, I believe there is potential for enhancement in the operational perspective, particularly in the user interface and the deployment of agents."
"The automation must continue to become much smoother."
"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."
"Prisma Cloud's application security capabilities should be enhanced."
"We would like it to have more features from the risk and compliance perspectives."
"When it comes to protecting the full cloud-native stack, it has the right breadth. They're covering all the topics I would care about, like container, cloud configuration, and serverless. There's one gap. There could be a better set of features around identity management—native AWS—IAM roles, and service account management. The depth in each of those areas varies a little bit. While they may have the breadth, I think there's still work to do in flushing out each of those feature sets."
"The challenge that Palo Alto and Prisma have is that, at times, the instructions in an event are a little bit dated and they're not usable. That doesn't apply to all the instructions, but there are times where, for example, the Microsoft or the Amazon side has made some changes and Palo Alto or Prisma was not aware of them. So as we try to remediate an alert in such a case, the instructions absolutely do not work. Then we open up a ticket and they'll reply, "Oh yeah, the API for so-and-so vendor changed and we'll have to work with them on that." That area could be done a little better."
"If I were to improve Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks, I would enhance the integration with other vendors."
"While Prisma provides a lot of visibility, it also creates a ton of work."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"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."
"The cost was not on the higher side. Overall, the cost gets recovered with its implementation."
"Prisma Cloud is more expensive than Check Point CloudGuard."
"I wouldn't mind if it were cheaper. We are spending a fair amount of money on Prisma Cloud."
"The product is very expensive, but the cost is a necessary evil; I don't know how we could have any kind of cloud presence without this type of monitoring. The pricing is calculated by module and resource usage. Ultimately, it saves us money in the amount of time we would spend uncovering what it uncovers, and we might not make the required discoveries without it anyway. Prisma offers incredible value, though I wish it were cheaper."
"The pricing structure is easy to understand. Depending on the use case the pricing of the solution can be different. There are not any additional costs to the standard living fees."
"The pricing is good. They gave us some good discounts right at the end of the year based on the value that it brings, visibility, and the ability to build in cloud, compliance, and security within one dashboard."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business37
Midsize Enterprise22
Large Enterprise56
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Security Guardium DSPM?
The pricing of IBM Security Guardium DSPM is based on the number of database servers it covers. I am not sure if my customers express their opinions about the price of IBM Security Guardium DSPM, s...
What needs improvement with IBM Security Guardium DSPM?
In terms of improvements for IBM Security Guardium DSPM, I believe there is potential for enhancement in the operational perspective, particularly in the user interface and the deployment of agents...
What is your primary use case for IBM Security Guardium DSPM?
The usual use cases for IBM Security Guardium DSPM that I mostly work with are normal data protection, vulnerability assessment, database compliance scans, data classification, and database activit...
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 are able to easily see where our container vulnerabilities lie and and where cl...
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 ...
 

Also Known As

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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 Wiz, Palo Alto Networks, Varonis and others in Data Security Posture Management (DSPM). Updated: May 2026.
893,244 professionals have used our research since 2012.