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Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks vs Symantec Data Center Security comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (11th), Container Security (11th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (8th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (8th), SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) (1st), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (6th)
Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto N...
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
114
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (8th), Container Security (2nd), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (2nd), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (2nd), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (2nd)
Symantec Data Center Security
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
4.9
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Cloud and Data Center Security (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks10.7%
Wiz13.1%
Microsoft Defender for Cloud7.8%
Other68.4%
Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP)
Cloud and Data Center Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Symantec Data Center Security3.1%
Illumio14.9%
Akamai Guardicore Segmentation13.8%
Other68.2%
Cloud and Data Center Security
 

Featured Reviews

RO
IT Security Expert at Alior Bank S.A.
Unified risk scoring has improved our cloud visibility and simplifies remediation priorities
Qualys TotalCloud provides unified vulnerability and threat assessment across both IAS and SaaS. This solution provides a single prioritized view of risk, which helps reduce the work I would have to do. We are no longer based on CVSS; we are based on Qualys risk scoring, which is based on CVSS plus internal findings made by Qualys, and then assigns its own score. The TruRisk insight feature has found a small number of assets with high vulnerability scores, though I am cautious since some information is classified. Qualys TotalCloud has positively impacted our bank's performance, and we have definitely seen benefits after implementing this solution.
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.
Muhammad Ejaz ul Hassan - PeerSpot reviewer
CEO at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Continuous server hardening has protected critical legacy workloads and simplified security control
Symantec is lagging on the reporting side. I have been working for 10 years and I have identified many gray areas. As a user protecting your infrastructure, you need to sell the value to your management. Management buys the tool for preventing threats, and it works for them. However, you cannot sell it because every solution needs to show what happened in the last few years or how you will be protected in the future. Reporting is the most important thing for the CIO level, not the admin level. I have seen Symantec really lag in this area. I am creating my own tool to build a dashboard to share with the CIO level because they want to know what happened last week, last month, and last year. These reports will tell you about activities. Symantec changed the licensing when Broadcom acquired the company. The question of who will provide support became unclear. Support has now changed and they are making money. I have seen that most of the time when you ask implementation questions, they do not answer you. If you have a problem, they give you a low-level engineer at the first level. This delays resolution. Support has to be better.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Qualys TotalCloud's most valuable feature is its agent versatility."
"The scalability is good as well. I would rate it ten out of ten."
"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."
"One of Qualys' best features is its categorization, which allows us to see the types of assets, their security postures, and the AI-powered version of the tool."
"The most valuable feature is the consolidated information that it provides from various platforms."
"I appreciate TotalCloud's real-time protection and remediation features. The remediation options include automated one-click remedies and custom changes that help manage vulnerabilities efficiently."
"If I had to say something positive about the product that brings me the biggest benefit, I would say it has accurate reports, gets new update CVEs, zero-day attack detection, and is easy to manage with its GUI."
"The best part I like is the on-demand scans."
"Integration is very easy. And because it supports security that spans multi- and hybrid-cloud environments, it's very easy to use."
"Overall, it gives us fantastic visibility into the cloud environment."
"Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks offers very good deep security assessment, and it uses a very good internal engine, which is the core Palo Alto processing and engines."
"Prisma Cloud provides the visibility and control that we need, regardless of how complex or distributed our cloud environments become, and our security and compliance postures are significantly improved through the implementation of this tooling."
"It is a good solution. Each team should utilize it. Every good organization is now moving towards or trying to be provider agnostic, so if you are using multiple providers, you should at least give Prisma Cloud a try."
"In addition to that, I can get a snapshot of what I deemed were the priority vulnerabilities, whether it was identity access management, key rotation, or secrets management. Whatever you deem to be a priority for mitigating threats for your environment, you can get that as a snapshot."
"One of the most valuable features is the compliance of RedLock, which we are using for any issues with security. It flags them and that's the primary objective of that feature."
"The container and serverless security is most valuable. It is quite a new technology for this region. Even though containers have been there for a long time, the adoption of containers is very minimal in this region. When it comes to using Kubernetes containers in a complex architecture, there is a lack of security in the market. People aren't aware of the security controls or the process for governance. Container security provided by Prisma Cloud is quite good at filling that gap."
"The ability to finely control permissions and restrictions on servers or assets through a customizable rule set is a key strength."
"Overall, this is a pretty good product."
"The most valuable feature is the endpoint protection system."
"The most valuable feature is the centralized console, which can handle different products that we have."
"Good file integrity monitoring features."
"Symantec Data Center Security, as a name, represents the perfect solution if you want to harden your servers."
"The advantage of Data Center Security is its ease of use and that it serves as a single unified platform, where I can apply all my security policies to protect that server."
"The console and tools are very user-friendly."
 

Cons

"Two areas for improvement in Qualys TotalCloud are the speed of the public cloud platform and vulnerability detection."
"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."
"It has been working very well, but it would be helpful if the dashboard could generate reports tailored to specific compliance needs. For example, in India, we have to comply with RBI and SEBI guidelines. It w"
"The areas in the solution that have room for improvement include the UI/UX design, which should be improved, and they should integrate more artificial intelligence into the product."
"With the growing integration of AI, I would like Qualys to enhance its service offerings to better accommodate AI-related risks."
"I would appreciate additional integration options to connect Qualys TotalCloud with our other vulnerability management tools."
"The main area needing improvement is integration. Although the team is strengthening TotalCloud, integration can be enhanced with SIEM, SOAR, ITSM, and other sources."
"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."
"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."
"There are hundreds of built-in policies for AWS and Azure, but GCP and Oracle are not covered as much as AWS. There is a lot of work to do on that part. There is, obviously, a tiny bit of favoritism towards AWS because it has the most market share."
"The cloud integration is too complex. It should be simple to integrate Prisma Cloud with any cloud environment. Policy management could also be simpler."
"Prisma Cloud's application security capabilities should be enhanced."
"The solution does not currently support servers for GCP."
"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."
"The alignment of Twistlock Defender agents with image repositories needs improvement."
"The automation must continue to become much smoother."
"Agent management is a challenging task."
"A user or administrator making the policy in the DCS should have a very thorough knowledge of the operating system or policy making. You have to be very specific about the data structure."
"There is plenty of room for improvement with this product, and it could start with platform metrics."
"The product blocks certain processes, even after allowlisting them."
"This solution clashes with Microsoft defender, which results in performance degradation on the machine."
"The support is very bad. They're not fast at all. Trend Micro's support is much better."
"Could have better reporting capabilities and better support."
"They need to develop a more flexible product that can be scaled such that it fits well into a small business or a bigger, enterprise-level solution."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Qualys TotalCloud offers competitive pricing given its comprehensive suite of features, including integration, assessment, remediation, and detection capabilities, all within a single platform."
"While Qualys TotalCloud's pricing is currently acceptable, it is becoming increasingly expensive and may soon be considered overpriced."
"Its price seems higher compared to other tools, but it is worth it. If they could adjust the pricing and make it comparable with other tools, that would be great."
"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."
"I am not sure about the pricing. From what I understand, it is a bit on the higher side, but I do not have the exact numbers."
"TotalCloud's price is about right where I would expect it to be."
"The pricing is comparable. It is built into our other product, so I cannot piecemeal it. It is a part of our subscription."
"The pricing for Prisma Cloud is high. Providing a pay-as-you-go model or pricing options tailored for medium and small enterprises could help attract more clients."
"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."
"One thing we're very pleased about is how the licensing model for Prisma is based on work resources. You buy a certain amount of work resources and then, as they enable new capabilities within Prisma, it just takes those work resource units and applies them to new features. This enables us to test and use the new features without having to go back and ask for and procure a whole new product, which could require going through weeks, and maybe months, of a procurement process."
"You can expect a premium price because it is a premium quality product by a leading supplier."
"The purchasing process was easy and quick. It is a very economical solution."
"Prisma Cloud licensing works on credits."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"The pricing is competitive. From what I have seen in the past, it is on par with the others."
"The product is a bit costly."
"It is notably more expensive when compared to other solutions."
"Compared to some other solutions, such as CrowdStrike, Symantec is more expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Construction Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Construction Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise28
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business38
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise57
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise5
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Qualys TotalCloud?
Areas that need improvement in every solution include the remediation part. The remediation steps should be simple en...
What is your primary use case for Qualys TotalCloud?
Our use case involves the assets that we have under cloud, the assets exposed to the internet, and the internal appli...
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 Symantec Data Center Security?
Symantec is lagging on the reporting side. I have been working for 10 years and I have identified many gray areas. As...
What is your primary use case for Symantec Data Center Security?
As a partner support, we handle all Symantec products for various clients. Currently, we work with DLP, Symantec Endp...
What advice do you have for others considering Symantec Data Center Security?
I am still a Symantec partner. Price rating is five out of ten. Symantec Data Center Security is a perfect solution, ...
 

Also Known As

Qualys TotalCloud with FlexScan
Prisma Public Cloud, RedLock Cloud 360, RedLock, Twistlock, Aporeto
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Amgen, Genpact, Western Asset, Zipongo, Proofpoint, NerdWallet, Axfood, 21st Century Fox, Veeva Systems, Reinsurance Group of America
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Wiz, Palo Alto Networks, SentinelOne and others in Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP). Updated: June 2026.
899,258 professionals have used our research since 2012.