In today’s modern marketplace, every business is relying on cloud infrastructure for its huge benefit and scalability. However, the major issue with the modern cloud infrastructure is its security.
Every entity, whether it is the owner, client, or shareholders, is concerned about the security of its infrastructure against cyber attackers. If you have a business, you must be asking what can be done to secure the cloud infrastructure.
Cloud security posture management, or CPSM, has emerged as the best solution to fortify your modern and complex hybrid cloud environment. However, the increasing number of CSPM tools in the market has created confusion among business owners. While looking for a solution, you might ask yourself which tool will be suitable for your organization.
To clear up your confusion, we have come up with a list of 10 best CSPM tools that will protect your cloud environment. In addition, we will also cover the following aspects to help you get a better understanding of top CSPM tools:
- What is CSPM?
- What are CSPM tools?
- What should you look for in a CSPM solution?
- Comparison of all top CSPM solutions.
- How to choose the best CSPM tool.
So, without further ado, let’s get started.
What is Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)?
Cloud security posture management (CSPM) can be considered as a tool or technology designed to help organizations detect and remediate misconfiguration and security, leading to significant security incidents.
In addition, this IT security solution also identifies cloud-related compliance issues and makes necessary changes. CSPM automates the whole monitoring process and monitors the infrastructure in real-time for gaps in the implemented security policy.
Gartner coined the term “CSPM” where it denoted it as a security solution that not only automates the security measures but also helps in compliance. This security solution works in a simple manner as it assesses and compares your cloud infrastructure with all the possible security and best security security practices.
Most modern CSPM automates the remediation process once it finds out the security gaps. However, there are some tools where it sends alerts to the security team for the remediation process.
It is also highly useful for implementing best cloud security practices across the container environment, hybrid, and multi-cloud environments. Even though CSPM is widely popular for IaaS, this solution is also used to minimize compliance risk and remediate misconfiguration across PaaS and SaaS.
What to Look For in a CSPM Solution?
Most organizations now rely on CSPM solutions, and selecting the right CSPM solution has become crucial as it will ensure optimum security. Here are some key capabilities you should look for in a solution:
Real-Time Visibility
When considering a CSPM solution, you should check whether it comes with real-time visibility. With this capability, you get a complete insight into your organization's security posture. Real-time visibility also helps in monitoring and mitigating potential security threats, especially in the current digital landscape where hackers are coming with innovative methodologies. The solution should also carry lightweight agents because they help in identifying threats that agentless solutions miss.
Agentless Scanning
The CSPM solution should come with agentless scanning, where it takes snapshots of all the workloads to scan them. Agentless scanning enables the organization to have quick visibility into the risk posture management and workloads. It is also valuable for identifying a range of security risks that can compromise the whole hybrid or multi-cloud environment.
Context-Based Insights
Context-based insights are a key requirement when an organization adopts a CSPM solution. It provides them with information regarding the potential impact of different issues. The solution should be based on context and help prioritize risks by tallying them across different parameters to decide the severity of the impact. This capability helps the organization understand which issue should be remediated immediately, appropriate steps needed, and how much it can impact the cloud environment.
Code to Cloud Tracking
It is important for a CSPM tool to have a code-to-cloud tracking capability where it establishes a connection between cloud workload and code. It also provides an outlook of all the connections between all the available cloud resources. What this feature does is that it identifies all the security issues in the code and discovers the root cause. Thus, it enables developers to use an effective remediation process and allows them to sort the issue quickly.
Comprehensive View of Cloud Resources
Having a comprehensive or centralized view of all cloud resources across all cloud environments will make it easier for the team to manage them and identify issues. A unified resource inventory for cloud resources like containers and VMs can be useful for tracking resources, discovering unauthorized resources, and optimizing usage. Using the details regarding all cloud resources can also be useful during compliance audits.
10 Best CSPM Tools in 2024
With the abundance of CPSM tools in the market, it can be difficult for you to find the right tool for your business. That is why we did all the hard work and came up with a list of the best CSPM tools in 2024 that can accurately discover issues and mitigate them.
1. CloudDefense.AI
CloudDefense.AI 
World’s Top CNAPP that Secures from Hacker Recon to Cloud to Your Code
The top-tier CSPM solution from CloudDefense.AI is the ideal solution for organizations operating in multi-cloud environments and want to protect them. From identifying misconfigurations, simplifying compliance, and implementing custom policies to leveraging AI-based remediation processes, this tool protects your organization against all kinds of threats.
It has emerged as a leading CSPM solution that not only provides a comprehensive insight into your security posture but also assists you in your compliance journey. The holistic approach of this tool with real-time anomaly detection and automated remediation is driving organizations towards this tool.
Features
Here are some key features that make CloudDefense.AI stand out among other top CSPM tools;
Complete Risk Insight
CloudDefense.AI's CSPM tool provides complete visibility into your multi-cloud environment. It thoroughly scans all the cloud workloads and identities to provide you with actionable insights regarding various potential risks. You will get a visual representation of your potential attack path, enabling you to prioritize high-risk attack paths.
AI-Based Remediation
One of the most highlighting features of this tool is its AI-based remediation capability, where it proactively identifies threats and leverages AI to remediate them. It enables you to automate the remediation process using advanced AI techniques and quickly address all the issues. CloudDefense.AI has implemented cutting-edge AI algorithms for quick identification of vulnerabilities and misconfiguration and implementing remediation without requiring agent involvement.
Hassle-Free Compliance Management
CloudDefense.AI makes compliance management a hassle-free task using their advanced CSPM solution. It simplifies the whole risk management process by deploying all the best security practices and adhering to all the regulatory requirements. Adhering to regulations and security needs won't be a problem because, using this tool, you can make changes to security policies and controls.
Intelligent Security Graph
The intelligent security graph makes prioritizing security risks easy for everyone. It evaluates all the issues and provides insight regarding the issues that require quick attention. With this tool, you won't have to go through a large stack of alerts, and you can identify the potential risk through the graph.
Real-Time Threat Detection
This CSPM tool from CloudDefense.AI serves as a comprehensive choice for real-time threat detection. With real-time alerts and accurate insights, it lets you stay ahead of security issues. It offers an impressive anomaly detection capability where it assesses suspicious behaviors in real time and helps you fortify your defense. Moreover, it also leverages Entity Behavior Analytics, where it detects and alerts suspicious user behavior, allowing you to respond to threats. This tool also has a rule-based system that evaluates the set rules and helps you customize them to cater to specific requirements.
Support for Multi-Cloud
The multi-cloud compatibility of this tool and its seamless integration capability make this tool suitable for a wide variety of organizations. The platform has been designed to ensure multi-cloud management along with continuous scanning for misconfiguration. Besides, it also ensures easy compliance compatibility and helps you stay compatible with renowned cloud platforms like AWS, Azure, and GCP. Whether it is OpsGenie, PagerDuty, Guard Duty, or Inspector, this solution can integrate with a range of tools to automate alerts, enhance ticketing, and provide notifications.
Pros
The AI-based remediation techniques help in addressing threats without intervention.
You won’t face any hassle while performing compliance assessment.
Highly effective real-time threat detection.
It can integrate with most tools and is compatible with different cloud platforms.
Cons
Some advanced features can be difficult to utilize at first.
Don’t just take our word for it. Book a demo and witness firsthand the power and simplicity of CloudDefense.AI.
2. CloudGuard
CloudGuard
2nd Easiest To Use in Cloud Security Posture Management(CSPM) Software
CloudGuard by CheckPoint is a well-known CSPM tool from the leading cybersecurity brand that automates security monitoring across your multi-cloud assets and services. It serves as an all-in-one solution that fully automates governance and compliance with comprehensive visibility and the option to customize policies.
Key Features:
CloudGuard provides a simple dashboard that helps you onboard new clouds and manage security posture across cloud platforms.
It gives you granular visibility into your assets, security groups, and networks to help you develop effective posture management.
Conforming to regulatory requirements and managing compliance posture is easy with this tool. It can run assessments for around 2400 security rulesets and 50 compliance frameworks.
CloudGuard has implemented threat intelligence through its platform and helps you gain account activity insight to identify anomalies.
Pros
CloudGuard is suitable for businesses of all sizes.
Provides a granular visibility into all the cloud assets to identify misconfiguration.
The user interface is completely user-friendly and intuitive.
Cons
It has some functionality issues in a complex environment.
3. Lacework
Lacework
3rd Easiest To Use in Cloud Security Posture Management(CSPM) Software
Lacework is one of the leading platforms that offer an efficient CSPM solution to fortify your defense against all types of threats. It makes cloud security posture management a simpler task by allowing you to mitigate misconfiguration and meet compliance needs.
Key Features:
It discovers, monitors, and inventories all your cloud assets and captures all the inventory daily to keep track of changes.
This tool automatically monitors and identifies malicious activity and misconfigurations while allowing you to create custom policies to support assessment.
Get quick alerts when a security issue appears and prioritize them according to the severity.
It utilizes attack path analysis and remediation processes along with tools like Slack and Jira to fix misconfigurations and other issues quickly.
Pros
It offers a complete AI-driven security management.
Make use of attack path analysis to remediate misconfigurations.
It can correlate misconfigurations with malicious activities.
Completely customized platform.
Cons
It has poor third party integration.
Doesn’t offer auto-remediation.
4. CrowdStrike
CrowdStrike
4th Easiest To Use in Cloud Security Posture Management(CSPM) Software
With CrowdStrike cloud security posture management, you will not only ensure complete security enforcement but also gain visibility and compliance across your cloud environment. It serves as a unified platform through which you can gain comprehensive visibility of the security posture and manage compliance.
Key Features:
Crowdstrike, through continuous agentless monitoring, provides visibility into all the cloud assets and provides contextual insight into the overall security posture.
It comes equipped with real-time threat intelligence on hundreds of advisory groups and enables the team to respond to threats quickly.
Manage and remediate attacks and misconfigurations across your hybrid cloud.
This platform utilizes an attack path and identity analyzer to secure your IAM and AzureAD users from identity-based attacks.
It enables your team to reconfigure all the unprotected cloud resources through its one-click reconfiguration capability.
Pros
Provides targeted threat detection to reduce alert fatigue.
Automatically fix misconfigurations.
analytics and security infrastructure.
Completely customized platform.
Cons
It has poor third party integration.
5. Cyscale
Cyscale
5th Easiest To Use in Cloud Security Posture Management(CSPM) Software
When you are looking for a contextual cloud security posture management tool, one name that everyone will recommend is Cyscale. With an easy-to-understand dashboard, simple interface, and support for AWS, GCP, and Azure, it has become a suitable tool for businesses from different industries.
Key Features:
Cyscale offers continuous and automated misconfiguration detection using graph technology across your multi and hybrid cloud environment.
It is loaded with hundreds of inbuilt security policies and controls to prevent known security threats.
It enables you to inventory, map, and set security scores for all your cloud assets.
Cyscale leverages cloud asset inventory and integrates with different platforms to provide visibility into your cloud resources.
It offers continuous compliance monitoring for various industry standards and regulations and streamlines your audit process.
It enables your team to reconfigure all the unprotected cloud resources through its one-click reconfiguration capability.
Pros
Security scores allow the team to prioritize attacks.
Implements automations for identifying and mitigating misconfiguration.
Blends with all types of cloud providers.
Cons
It doesn’t offer an on-premises version.
Not suitable small-sized businesses.
6. Orca Security
Orca Security
6th Easiest To Use in Cloud Security Posture Management(CSPM) Software
Another leading CSPM tool that you should take into consideration is Orca Security. This tool is known for continuously monitoring the security posture of your cloud environment and automatically remediating issues when detected. It consolidates all the workloads, sensitive data workload, container security, and other aspects in one platform.
Key Features:
It scans your entire workload and identities to discover threats and prioritize attack paths to help your team focus on possible threats.
Orca unifies compliance and ensures all the cloud resources comply with the specific regulatory framework and industry benchmark.
Through this platform, you can create your own powerful query to investigate any kind of security and set up a remediation process.
It offers a Security Score that allows the security team to understand and respond to risks that require immediate remediation to fortify the overall security posture.
Pros
Offers the option of performing custom queries.
It provides quick reports and alerts regarding misconfigurations.
Ensures continuous compliance support.
It can detect threats based on their attack path.
Cons
The UI is not user-friendly.
7. Ermetic
Ermetic
7th Easiest To Use in Cloud Security Posture Management(CSPM) Software
If you are looking for a CSPM tool that also offers effective privileged access management, Ermetic won’t disappoint you. It delivers optimum protection by accurately detecting and remediating all the configurations and permission risks. It is a one-of-a-kind CSPM tool that combines PAM and just-in-time access management capability to minimize any risk.
Key Features:
It scans your entire workload and identities to discover threats and prioritize attack paths to help your team focus on possible threats.
Orca unifies compliance and ensures all the cloud resources comply with the specific regulatory framework and industry benchmark.
Through this platform, you can create your own powerful query to investigate any kind of security and set up a remediation process.
It offers a Security Score that allows the security team to understand and respond to risks that require immediate remediation to fortify the overall security posture.
Pros
Provides a comprehensive view into your cloud environment.
Automates compliance to quickly identify compliance violations.
It supports all the major cloud providers.
Cons
It is not budget friendly.
8. Zscaler
Zscaler
8th Easiest To Use in Cloud Security Posture Management(CSPM) Software
The Zscaler CSPM tool is one of the leading choices when it comes to securing your cloud assets, mitigating lateral movement risk, and governing the workload across your multi-cloud environment. Through its unified platform, you can identify and remediate issues to improve the security and compliance posture.
Key Features:
Enables you to gain complete visibility of all the assets across your multi-cloud environment and also control them.
It leverages malware analysis, threat detection, and cloud-based proxy to fortify your cloud security.
This CSPM tool integrates with Jira, Splunk, ServiceNow, etc., to prioritize alerts for security issues automatically in real-time.
It automatically compares configurations against best practices, compliance framework, and pre-built policies for compliance assurance.
Pros
It can detect lateral movement in the network.
Ensures compliance by fixing misconfigurations.
Offers a continuous monitoring of all the workloads.
Cons
The overall setup process takes a lot of time.
9. PingSafe
PingSafe
9th Easiest To Use in Cloud Security Posture Management(CSPM) Software
Undoubtedly, one of the best CSPM tools in 2024 is PingSafe, which implements numerous measures to improve your cloud posture. It adopts offensive security practices and discovers issues throughout. What makes it stand out? The continuous compliance monitoring for leading industry frameworks and standards.
Key Features:
Offers comprehensive visibility through a single pane of glass into all your cloud estate.
It is equipped with agentless vulnerability management and real-time secret scanning capability.
PingSafe helps your team focus on critical vulnerabilities through an Offensive Security Engine and eliminate false vulnerabilities.
Automates the monitoring process to detect and rectify misconfiguration across the cloud environment.
Pros
Extremely easy to deploy.
It offers an agentless platform for vulnerability assessment.
Integrates with Jira, Slack and other necessary tools.
Impressive customer service throughout subscription.
Cons
You won’t get any upfront pricing.
Doesn’t offer much advanced features.
10. Wiz
WIZ
10th Easiest To Use in Cloud Security Posture Management(CSPM) Software
Deploy contextual CSPM across your cloud using the platform of Wiz to continuously monitor and remediate misconfigurations. This CSPM tool seamlessly integrates with your cloud environment and helps you get complete visibility.
Key Features:
Wiz implements 1400+ cloud misconfigurations, IaC scanning, and continuous CIS to protect your cloud environment from threats.
It leverages Wiz Security Graph to contextualize your misconfiguration and reduce overall alert fatigue by a large margin.
It helps you enforce custom policies and frameworks across your cloud environments and IaC codes.
It can detect misconfigurations in real-time and implement automatic rectification of the issue.
Pros
It utilized specialized technology to lower the fatigue.
Provides automated remediation facility.
You will get 24/7 customer support.
Cons
It can be difficult to use for first timers.
Top 10 Best CSPM Solutions Comparison
Each CSPM solution comes with its respective capabilities, which makes them different from each other. To help you understand between all the top CSPM solutions, we have created the following comparison:
Tools | Automation | Risk Scoring | Threat Detection | Pricing |
Complete automation. | Available | Available | ||
CloudGuard | Available. | Available | Available | The general pricing starts at $625 per month for 25 assets. |
Lacework | Available | Available | Limited. | The pricing starts from $1500 per month and increases according to the partner. |
CrowdStrike | Available | Available | Available | You can avail of the subscription at $14.88 per year through the AWS marketplace. |
Cyscale | Available | Available | Limited. | The most popular plan is the Pro, which starts at $10,000 annually. |
Orca Security | Available | Available | Available | The introductory pricing starts from $7,000 per year for a complete package. |
Ermetic | Available | Limited | Available | The one-year commercial plan starts at $12,000 and changes according to different factors. |
Zscaler | Available | Available | Available | The introductory pricing starts from $180 for limited users. |
PingSafe | Available | Limited | Available | The plan starts from $2000 per month for a complete package. |
Wiz | Available | Available | Available | Wiz charges $24,000 per year for the essential package. |
How to Choose the Best CSPM Tool?
Choosing the best CSPM tool is crucial for your business as it will ensure the optimum security posture of your cloud environment. However, not everyone knows how to select them. That is why we have come up with some criteria that will help you to choose:
Cloud Provider Support
Whenever you are selecting a CSPM, you need to consider which cloud provider you are using and whether it integrates with the selected CSPM tool. If you are using Alibaba, not every CSPM will support it.
Compliance Support
The CSPM tool should support all the leading security standards like HIPAA, PCI DSS, NIST, GDPR, and others. Moreover, it should offer compliance monitoring to prevent violations.
Integration
The CSPM tool you have selected must seamlessly integrate with the CI/CD pipeline, DevOps workflows, reporting tools, and other cloud services. It must be compatible with most modern tools, as many organizations utilize different services.
IaC Scanning
When you consider a CSPM tool, you should consider whether it offers scanning of IaC during development and deployment. The tool must continuously monitor the environment to ensure optimum security posture.
Support
Always consider the level of customer support the CSPM vendor offers, especially if you are implementing CSPM for the first time. Ensure that the support is there to assist you every time you need it.
Subscription Cost
Every CSPM tool comes with a unique range of subscription costs, and you will have to shortlist the one that caters to your budget.
Conclusion
Cloud security posture management (CSPM) has become an essential security tool for almost every business operating in the cloud. Through its unique set of capabilities, it safeguards your organization from any kind of threat. We have covered all the 10 best CSPM tools in 2024 that you can consider for your business and enhance the overall security posture. If you consider CSPM Software by CloudDefense.AI from this list, not only it will implement all the necessary security measures and policies but also various advanced features to identify misconfiguration and ensure compliance. You will have an all-in-one platform to improve your overall cloud security posture.
Anshu Bansal, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and venture capitalist, currently co-founds CloudDefense.AI, a cybersecurity solution with a mission to secure your business by rapidly identifying and removing critical risks in Applications and Infrastructure as Code. With a background in Amazon, Microsoft, and VMWare, they contributed to various software and security roles.
