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SaaS Security by Palo Alto vs Varonis Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 15, 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

SaaS Security by Palo Alto
Ranking in SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM)
13th
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.2
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Varonis Platform
Ranking in SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM)
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (16th), Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (8th), User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) (6th), Data Governance (5th), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (3rd), Compliance Management (7th), Ransomware Protection (7th), Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) (6th), Insider Risk Management (1st), AI Security (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) category, the mindshare of SaaS Security by Palo Alto is 2.8%, down from 3.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Varonis Platform is 10.9%, up from 7.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Varonis Platform10.9%
SaaS Security by Palo Alto2.8%
Other86.3%
SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM)
 

Featured Reviews

Saloni Rao - PeerSpot reviewer
Pre Sales Executive at Ctap
A stable solution that offers WildFire analysis, but it is expensive than other products
The most valuable features of the solution are the lesser points of management and the WildFire analysis it offers SaaS Security by Palo Alto is more expensive than other products and could be a bit cheaper. I have been using SaaS Security by Palo Alto for the last six months. SaaS Security by…
TarunKumar11 - PeerSpot reviewer
Global Leadership Council at a tech company with 10,001+ employees
Data governance has strengthened and automation now reduces risk and manual compliance work
Varonis Platform offers key features including data discovery, data classification, data analysis, governance, user and entity behavior analysis, also known as UEBA, which helps in ransomware detection, insider threat detection, and compliance reporting. It does a lot of automation from a remediation standpoint, as well as investigation and forensics. The number one feature that makes the biggest difference for my clients is visibility into unstructured data; that is the most difficult for organizations to achieve. They do not have a good understanding of where sensitive data resides, who has access to this data, whether this access is appropriate, and how data is being used. Varonis Platform provides visibility, governance, threat detection, and automated remediation around data. Varonis Platform is a great data discovery platform that provides visibility into sensitive data estimates and how it is being used. Clients have been able to reduce excessive permissions, strengthen their compliance posture, detect insider threats, and ransomware activity, which would otherwise be difficult and manual. Varonis Platform is deployed in my clients' organizations in a combination of all types. Many clients use Varonis Platform in a largely SaaS-based model since it is a data security platform consumed in this way, and many organizations still operate hybrid environments. As far as Varonis Platform is in a position to get the data source and identify systems, it can discover and classify more secure data. Deployment in most of our clients is cloud-based, connecting to Microsoft 365, AWS, or other SaaS applications such as Salesforce. In other environments, it is a hybrid deployment with SaaS and on-premises, including file servers, NAS devices, and AD servers.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable features of the solution are the lesser points of management and the WildFire analysis it offers."
"It can easily identify unusual behavior or access patterns that may pose a potential threat, while operating as a unified reporting system."
"I also appreciate the reporting feature, which allows for the extraction of various reports based on specific needs. These reports can be used for audit purposes, such as tracking changes in file locations or deletions."
"Varonis offers robust data access governance, allowing us to understand which sensitive data exists and who has access to it."
"The solution's classification engine is highly configurable and efficient."
"Overall, if you want to check your data from an initial point of view, Varonis Platform is the best use case you can consider."
"There's also a 90-day policy where if a user is not using the warehouse, it will automatically delete that username."
"The telemetry to capture everything and the reports are very easy to configure without having a developer degree."
"On the Varonis side, technical support is phenomenal. Their ability to explain is very good, and they seem to be very knowledgeable. When I get an alert that doesn't quite make sense, they dive in there and kind of take me through it. That's very useful and very good. There are some false alerts, but it is better to have a false alert than no alert at all."
 

Cons

"SaaS Security by Palo Alto is more expensive than other products and could be a bit cheaper."
"The GUI should be more functional. There should be a process for connecting through Chrome, Internet Explorer, etc."
"It would be beneficial if the reporting in Varonis Platform could use PDFs instead of Excel for better graphs, as the dashboards are really good, and it would be nice to have simplified dashboards in PDF for business reporting purposes."
"The troubleshooting capabilities could be improved. It has so many interconnected components."
"The product is very complicated."
"It is significantly complex."
"Varonis Platform could be improved because when I used it, we had a significant issue related to the large volume of data on that file share."
"The remediation process can be improved. There will be no existing permission group for the McAfee channel domains. We can create a new permissions group for the required folder."
"One area for improvement is the calculation engine. When applying rules in Varonis, especially for large datasets (terabytes of data), the calculations can be slow and require time to process. Speeding up this process would be beneficial."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"Licensing is on an annual basis. Maintenance and renewal fees are separate. Varonis Datalert is quite expensive."
"You could do a subscription, where you pay yearly, or you could purchase it outright. The licensing cost is based on the number of users on the system that you are monitoring."
"I would rate the pricing an eight out of ten, with ten being the most expensive."
"Varonis Platform wasn't certainly the cheapest solution."
"The platform is expensive. I rate the pricing a nine out of ten."
"The pricing is good. It neither expensive nor cheap. It is average."
"It's expensive, kind of, really expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Healthcare Company
8%
Insurance Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise15
 

Questions from the Community

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What needs improvement with Varonis Platform?
Varonis Platform could be improved because when I used it, we had a significant issue related to the large volume of data on that file share. Although Varonis Platform helped us gain more visibilit...
What is your primary use case for Varonis Platform?
My main use case for Varonis Platform is to monitor access to sensitive data across file shares, Microsoft 365, and SharePoint. The main objective is to identify overexposed data, reduce access ris...
What advice do you have for others considering Varonis Platform?
Varonis Platform receives a rating of seven out of ten. I chose seven out of ten because the user experience was easy, we could apply it and gain more visibility, but the performance of the solutio...
 

Also Known As

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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Nottingham Building Society
Find out what your peers are saying about Varonis, Qualys, AppOmni and others in SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM). Updated: August 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.