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Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks vs Tenable.io Container Security 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Qualys TotalCloud
Sponsored
Ranking in Container Security
8th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
54
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (5th), 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)
Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto N...
Ranking in Container Security
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
114
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (11th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (4th), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (3rd), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (5th)
Tenable.io Container Security
Ranking in Container Security
26th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Container Security category, the mindshare of Qualys TotalCloud is 1.8%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks is 7.3%, down from 10.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tenable.io Container Security is 1.1%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Container Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks7.3%
Qualys TotalCloud1.8%
Tenable.io Container Security1.1%
Other89.8%
Container Security
 

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.
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.
AS
Cyber Security Architect at a security firm with 201-500 employees
Detailed container image reports have improved vulnerability insight and support secure operations
Most valuable are the reports that are quite good, particularly the detailed ones for container image scanning. Tenable.io Container Security is giving me the vulnerability information of Docker images and the information about software bill of materials. However, my challenge at this time is that I am using all these solutions with GitLab Ultimate, and it does not support integration, so I am doing some alternate arrangements which are giving me operational complexity because I need to introduce something else instead of GitLab Ultimate. That is the primary concern regarding the benefits of real-time visibility into my containerized application security status.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Qualys TotalCloud has great accuracy and reliability, as it is a very complete program with tools that help experts understand the vulnerabilities of today."
"The dashboards are particularly valuable as they offer a comprehensive view of the environment, highlighting any misconfigurations."
"Its excellent graphical interface makes the scanning process simple."
"Qualys TotalCloud's most valuable features are its cloud security posture management, Kubernetes, and container security capabilities."
"One of the most valuable features of Qualys TotalCloud is FlexScan, which is specifically for internet-facing VMs. We found this feature to be very useful. It was a key differentiator for us."
"I appreciate Qualys TotalCloud's ability to onboard any type of device with ease, including containers."
"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."
"I would recommend Qualys TotalCloud to other users because it is cost-efficient and has a good return on investment."
"The product is quite good for providing multi-clouds or cross-cloud security from a single-pane -of-glass."
"My impression of Prisma Cloud was pretty good; it's an amazing tool that gives the whole view of your container environment and connection with multiple platforms, such as Splunk, and it is a good solution."
"I would rate Prisma Cloud a ten out of ten."
"Its ease of integration is valuable because we need to get the solution out of the door quickly, so speed and ease matter."
"The policies that come prepackaged in the tool have been very valuable to us. They're accurate and they provide good guidance as to why the policy was created, as well as how to remediate anything that violates the policy."
"One of the things that we have been able to do with Prisma Cloud is that we have been able to generate real-time alerts and share them with our technology team, and the turnaround time between us identifying a security gap and then closing it has gone down drastically, as we have reduced the timeline by 30%."
"The ability to monitor the artifact repository is one of the most valuable features because we have a disparate set of development processes, but everything tends to land in a common set of artifact repositories. The solution gives us a single point where we can apply security control for monitoring. That's really helpful."
"It supports the multi-cloud environment beautifully."
"Most valuable are the reports that are quite good, particularly the detailed ones for container image scanning."
"It is a scalable solution. Scalability-wise, it is a good solution."
"Tenable.io detects misconfiguration when you deploy a Docker or Kubernetes container. It's much better to remedy these issues during deployment instead of waiting until the container is already in the production environment."
"The strong security provided by the product in the container environment is its most valuable feature."
"By using Nessus, we are able to finish testing with assured results, in half the time."
"Currently, I haven't implemented the solution due to its deprecation by the site. However, I can highlight some benefits of Tenable Cloud Security, a cybersecurity solution with various features for scanning vulnerabilities in both cloud environments and on-premises container security."
"Nessus scanner is very effective for internal penetration testing."
"It helps us secure our applications from the build phase and identify the weaknesses from scratch."
 

Cons

"There should be improvement from a dashboard perspective when collecting and showcasing data to lead management."
"Qualys's ticketing system can be confusing when assigning tasks to individuals, and support could be improved by offering instant call solutions with engineers in addition to ticket replies."
"With the growing integration of AI, I would like Qualys to enhance its service offerings to better accommodate AI-related risks."
"The cloud licensing unit system is unclear, especially since "units" aren't well-defined."
"Qualys TotalCloud can be improved in the integration piece, especially with ServiceNow, where there's a bidirectional sync integrated, as there is no native capability from Qualys that can give monitoring metrics of how many assets came in and how many failed or were not properly reconciled or combined."
"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."
"The support process is inefficient due to the excessive number of replies required when submitting tickets."
"Although TotalCloud is a helpful tool, some of its advanced features are still under development."
"The IM security has room for improvement."
"They are missing some compatibility details in their documentation."
"We have discovered that Prisma is not functioning properly with GCP."
"It does not provide runtime security or protection for Windows Server. It is currently lacking in terms of Windows environment."
"I don't have any specific notes for improvement; however, if they could continue to focus more on giving users the ability to create custom policies and configurations, that would be ideal."
"We face some GUI issues related to new permissions for AWS. So far, we don't have any automation to complete them through the GUI. We have to manually update the permissions. Our customers have faced some issues with that."
"Currently, custom reports are available, but I feel that those reports are targeting just the L1 or L2 engineers because they are very verbose. So, for every alert, there is a proper description, but as a security posture management portal, Prisma Cloud should give me a dashboard that I can present to my stakeholders, such as CSO, CRO, or CTO. It should be at a little bit higher level. They should definitely put effort into reporting because the reporting does not reflect the requirements of a dashboard for your stakeholders. There are a couple of things that are present on the portal, but we don't have the option to customize dashboards or widgets. There are a limited set of widgets, and those widgets don't add value from the perspective of a security team or any professional who is above L1 or L2 level. Because of this, the reach of Prisma Cloud in an organization or the access to Prisma Cloud will be limited only to L1 and L2 engineers. This is something that their development team should look into."
"This could be one input that its pricing could be adjusted with respect to other competitors regarding any new features that could be added or improvements to be made in Prisma Cloud (Annual Contract)."
"The solution’s pricing could be improved."
"I believe integration plays a crucial role for Tenable, particularly in terms of connecting with other products and various container solutions like Docker or Kubernetes. It seems that in future updates, enhanced integration is something I would appreciate. Currently, there is integration with Docker, but when it comes to Kubernetes or other container solutions, it appears to be a challenge, especially with on-prem scanners."
"I feel that in certain areas this product has false positives which the company should work on."
"The stability and setup phase of the product are areas with shortcomings where improvements are needed."
"However, my challenge at this time is that I am using all these solutions with GitLab Ultimate, and it does not support integration, so I am doing some alternate arrangements which are giving me operational complexity because I need to introduce something else instead of GitLab Ultimate."
"Tenable.io Container Security should improve integration modules. It should also improve stability."
"I feel that in certain areas this product has false positives which the company should work on. They should also try to include business logic vulnerabilities in the scanner testing. Finally, the vulnerability assessment feature should be increased to other hardware devices, apart from firewalls."
"They need to work on auto-remediation so it's easier for the security team to act quickly when certain assets or resources are deployed. The latest version has a CIS benchmark that you need to meet for containers in the cloud, but more automation is needed."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Qualys TotalCloud is cost-efficient and was selected for its value compared to other products."
"Qualys TotalCloud offers good pricing that is affordable and competitive with the market. Our partnership also provides us with additional benefits."
"Qualys TotalCloud is expensive, but it offers a premier solution with no headaches."
"Qualys TotalCloud offers competitive pricing given its comprehensive suite of features, including integration, assessment, remediation, and detection capabilities, all within a single platform."
"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."
"Qualys TotalCloud offers cost-effective licensing flexibility."
"The pricing for TotalCloud is attractive and competitive in the market. Given the features, especially the dashboard, I have no concerns regarding pricing."
"It isn't cheap, but it's reasonable. It helps us to manage things with very few resources."
"If you pay for three years of Palo Alto, it's better. If you're planning on doing this, it's obviously not going to be for one year, so it's better if you go with a three-year license... The only challenge we have is with the public cloud vendor pricing. The biggest lesson I have learned is around the issues related to pricing for public cloud. So when you are doing your segmentation and design, it is extremely important that you work with someone who knows and understands what kinds of needs you will have in the future and how what you are doing will affect you in terms of costs."
"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."
"The purchasing process was easy and quick. It is a very economical solution."
"Prisma Cloud is a high-end enterprise solution, making it quite expensive."
"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 is more expensive than some other solutions, but when we consider all of its use cases, the cost averages out."
"The pricing and the licensing are both very fair... The biggest advice I would give in terms of costs would be to try to understand what the growth is going to look like. That's really been our biggest struggle, that we don't have an idea of what our future growth is going to be on the platform. We go from X number of licenses to Y number of licenses without a plan on how we're going to get from A to B, and a lot of that comes as a bit of a surprise. It can make budgeting a real challenge for it."
"Prisma Cloud is remarkably expensive."
"It's best to be an institutional buyer and directly contact the sales team as they can provide over-the-top discounts for bulk orders."
"The solution's pricing is neither cheap nor very expensive."
"I rate the tool's pricing a three out of ten."
"The product does not operate on a pay-per-license model."
"I rate the product’s pricing a six out of ten."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
18%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Media Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise38
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business38
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise58
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise4
 

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 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...
What needs improvement with Tenable.io Container Security?
Several things need improvement about Tenable.io Container Security. First, they should support GitLab Ultimate. Seco...
What is your primary use case for Tenable.io Container Security?
I have been dealing with Tenable.io Container Security for almost four to six months.
What advice do you have for others considering Tenable.io Container Security?
Tenable.io Container Security is a good product. I am currently using Tenable Enclave Security. When I say metrics, I...
 

Also Known As

Qualys TotalCloud with FlexScan
Prisma Public Cloud, RedLock Cloud 360, RedLock, Twistlock, Aporeto
Tenable FlawCheck, FlawCheck
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Amgen, Genpact, Western Asset, Zipongo, Proofpoint, NerdWallet, Axfood, 21st Century Fox, Veeva Systems, Reinsurance Group of America
ServiceMaster
Find out what your peers are saying about Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks vs. Tenable.io Container Security and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
920,223 professionals have used our research since 2012.