Cloud workloads are protected by a cloud workload protection platform (CWPP) from a variety of dangers, including malware, ransomware, DDoS attacks, cloud misconfigurations, insider threats, and data breaches.
To safeguard resources designed to function in a cloud-based application or service, CWPP solutions offer standard visibility and control for real computers, virtual machines (VMs), containers, and serverless applications.
Utilizing a CWPP enables businesses to improve their security posture and decrease the risk of data breaches and other security events, in addition to increasing visibility and control over cloud workloads.
What is a Cloud Workload Protection Platform (CWPP)?
A Cloud Workload Protection Platform (CWPP) detects and remediates any vulnerabilities and misconfigurations associated with cloud workloads. Traditional CWPP solutions are mostly agent-based and are installed on a dedicated machine where the software agent runs permanently on it. The CWPP collects security data, events, analytics, and forwards them to a cloud-based service.
Large cloud workloads are deployed as a part of DevOps development cycles and many applications that are built and deployed quickly do not have built-in security. CWPPs protect public-facing applications that are deployed across multiple cloud environments and keep them secure. Agentless CWPPs provide scalable and frictionless solutions for implementing state-of-the-art cloud workload protection. They also help implement the best cloud security practices, identify exploitable security issues, and mitigate them.
The Need for Cloud Workload Protection Platforms
Organizations need CWPP solutions due to the dynamic nature of cybersecurity threats. As enterprises move to the cloud, the complexity of their infrastructure goes up. Scaling up and down containerized workloads can introduce various vulnerabilities. Traditional security measures do not offer real-time visibility regarding the states of these workloads.
Many companies also use multi-cloud security strategies, vendors, and policies. CWPP solutions unify security monitoring, and policy enforcement, and take into account all associated risks. They prevent attackers from exploiting potential misconfigurations and find them before they do to fix them effectively.
The third critical factor driving adoption is regulatory compliance. Organizations must follow industry standards and regulations, such as GDPR, HIPAA, and PCI DSS, which demand heavy security controls and auditing. CWPPs help meet those requirements by providing comprehensive reporting and tools that continuously monitor compliance, including various regulatory frameworks.
Best Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP Tools) in 2025
Below is an overview of the industry’s top 10 cloud workload protection platforms along with their ratings and reviews.
#1. SentinelOne
SentinelOne is an advanced autonomous AI-driven cyber security platform that delivers real-time cloud workload protection for companies of all sectors and sizes. It offers three key products, each of which is sold separately: Singularity Cloud Workload Security for Servers/VMs, Singularity Cloud Workload Security for Containers, and Singularity Cloud Workload Security for Serverless Containers.
It can eliminate all cloud workload risks and challenges, both the known and unknown.
Platform at a Glance
- Singularity™ Cloud Workload Security provides AI-powered runtime threat protection for containerized workloads, servers, and VMs across AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and private cloud. With SentinelOne CWPP, you can combat ransomware, zero-days, and fileless attacks in real-time. You also get full forensic visibility of your workload telemetry and data logs of OS process-level activity for enhanced investigation visibility and incident response.
- It supports 14 Linux distributions, 20 years of Windows servers, and 3 container runtimes (Docker, containers, and cri-o). Users can create custom security policies and ensure compliance with popular standards like SOC2, ISO, HIPAA, CIS, and PCI/DSS. Renowned security researchers and leading venture capitalists worldwide support the platform. It offers multi-tenancy support, role-based access control, and history tracking for enhanced security and accountability.
- SentinelOne’s Singularity™ Platform offers robust cloud workload protection that safeguards organizations from emerging threats. With its endpoint protection capabilities, SentinelOne provides comprehensive visibility and control over cloud-based workloads. Singularity™ RemoteOps Forensics accelerates incident response with unified digital forensics and streamlines investigation workflows.
Features:
- Unified CWPP solution: Combines agent-based Cloud Workload Security (CWS), Cloud Detection and Response (CDR), and agentless Cloud-Native Security (CNS) as a comprehensive Cloud-Native Application Protection Platform (CNAPP).
- Runtime protection: Detects and stops runtime threats like zero-days, ransomware, and fileless attacks. SentinelOne records forensic datalog of workload telemetry and improves vital visibility for effective incident response and investigation.
- eBPF architecture: It deploys easily with automated DevOps provisioning measures; no kernel modules/dependencies, maximum operational stability, and complete workload resilience.
- Improves SOC productivity: It offers powerful security automation and reduces Mean Time to Detect (MTTD) and Mean Time to Respond (MTTR). Reduces risks by achieving OS-process level visibility with hybrid cloud context and automatically implements the best workload configuration management practices.
- Zero trust security: It integrates seamlessly with Snyk, enforces shift-left security, and comes with one security console and data lake for cloud, endpoint, and identity.
- Real-time secret scanning: It detects over 750+ secret types; also includes Infrastructure as Code (IaC) scanning, Software as a Service (SaaS) application security, CI/CD integrations, Kubernetes Security Posture Management (KSPM), Cloud Security Posture Management (CPSM), and more.
- Multi-cloud compliance: It ensures continuous compliance with the latest industry regulatory frameworks like PCI-DSS, NIST, CIS Benchmark, ISO 27001, GDPR, HIPAA, etc.
Core Problems that SentinelOne Eliminates:
- Stops fileless attacks, malware infections, ransomware, and phishing threats
- Eliminates social engineering activities and removes unauthorized access privileges
- Solves multi-cloud compliance challenges for all industries and fixes inefficient workflows
- Ensures business continuity and prevents downtimes
- Identifies vulnerabilities in CI/CD pipelines, container registries, repos, and more
- Discovers unknown cloud deployments and fixes misconfigurations
- Gives visibility into cloud and containerized workloads and protects them when scaling up or down.
“Provides excellent workload telemetry, hunting capabilities, and deep visibility. The most valuable feature is the ability to gain deep visibility into the workloads inside containers. The visibility of workload telemetry is excellent, and the hunting capabilities are second to none.
When no human intervention is required Singularity Cloud Workload Security detects and remediates nearly instantaneously. Our MTTD is sub 30 days. Our MTTR is seven days after detection for most instances. The interoperability with third-party solutions is great!” -Senior Software Engineer, PeerSpot Reviews
Look at Singularity™ Cloud Security’s ratings and reviews as a CWPP solution on Gartner Peer Insights and PeerSpot.
#2. AWS GuardDuty
AWS GuardDuty is a managed threat detection service offered by Amazon Web Services (AWS). It is designed to provide continuous monitoring and intelligent threat detection for AWS accounts and workloads. GuardDuty helps organizations protect their AWS resources and data by identifying potential security threats and suspicious activities.
Features:
- Amazon GuardDuty offers account threat detection. GuardDuty is able to spot indications of account compromise, such as access to AWS resources from an odd location or at an unusual time of day.
- AWS account and workload data from AWS CloudTrail, VPC Flow Logs, and DNS Logs are monitored and assessed by Amazon GuardDuty.
- It checks every event often to let you know when your account has been used. Multiple AWS Accounts Can Be Managed for You by AWS Guardduty
#3. Aqua Security
Aqua Security is a CWPP solution designed for cloud-native and containerized apps. It protects cloud environments from online dangers and ensures the security of your containerized applications.
Features:
- Offers threat protection for containerized applications. It identifies and fixes potential security flaws through vulnerability scanning.
- Its runtime protection provides ongoing container monitoring and threat detection in real time. Aqua Security addresses various security requirements for containerized environments.
- Integrates with CI/CD and container orchestration workflows.
See how Aqua Security can help you protect your cloud workloads by reading its PeerSpot and Gartner Peer Insights ratings and reviews.
#4. Sophos
For network security and threat management, Sophos is a CWPP solution that provides detection and response, firewall, cloud, and managed service solutions.
Features:
- Provides real-time protection against malware, viruses, ransomware, malicious software, hacking attempts, and more.
- It offers parental web filtering and remote antivirus administration for as many as ten devices.
- Comes with an interface for configuring rules, VLANs, etc.
See if Sophos is the right fit for your organization by reading its ratings and reviews on Gartner Peer Insights and G2.
#5. Prisma Cloud
For multi-cloud systems, Prisma Cloud is what gives users visibility, security, and compliance monitoring. Inadequate infrastructure-as-code (IAC) setups can be found and vulnerabilities can be found with the use of Prisma Public Cloud. To evaluate security concerns, it takes advantage of machine learning.
Features:
- This service is compatible with central payer accounts for Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure (Azure), and Google Cloud Platform (GCP). The CWPP solution will be actively watched over by ISO, who will alert administrators if a problem is found.
- Provides and extends cloud-based vulnerability monitoring and intrusion detection.
- Generates threat Intelligence and performs behavioral analytics
Assess Prisma Cloud’s credibility as a CWPP solution by looking at the number of reviews and ratings on PeerSpot and Gartner Peer Insights.
#6. Microsoft Defender
In order to provide integrated defense against complex assaults, Microsoft 365 Defender is provides a pre- and post-breach enterprise defense package that natively coordinates detection, prevention, investigation, and response across endpoints, identities, email, and applications.
Features:
- Threat detection and response
- Management of security posture
- Identity and access management
- Real-time protection and cloud-based Protection
Check out G2 and Peerspot reviews to see what users have to say about Microsoft Defender for Cloud.
#7. Sysdig
With Docker and Kubernetes integrated into its cloud, container, and microservices-friendly design, Sysdig offers a CWPP platform to deliver security, monitoring, and forensics.
Features:
- Security auditing solution monitors the behavior of containers, hosts, and networks.
- You can continuously examine your infrastructure for problems, identify irregularities, and receive alerts regarding any Linux system calls.
- Sysdig provides visibility into system behavior, allowing users to monitor and analyze system activities at a granular level.
Look at Sysdig’s ratings and reviews on PeerSpot and G2 for more information.
#8. Wiz
Wiz is a CNAPP that combines container and Kubernetes security, vulnerability management, vulnerability scanning, CIEM, DSPM, CSPM, KSPM, and CWPP into a single platform.
Features:
- Snapshot Scanning
- Inventory and Asset Management
- Secrets Scanning and Analysis
- Workload visibility, risk prioritization, and remediation recommendations
Explore the feedback and ratings on G2 and PeerSpot to get further insights into Wiz’s capabilities.
#9. VMWare Carbon Black Workload
The incident response and threat-hunting solution VMware Carbon Black EDR (formerly Cb Response) is made for security operations center (SOC) teams with offline environments or on-premises needs. It provides various CWPP features for protecting your cloud workloads and containerized services.
Features:
- Ensures the security of virtualized workloads, containers, and cloud instances, effectively protecting valuable assets from potential threats and vulnerabilities.
- Advanced behavioral analysis and machine learning
- Carbon Black Workload detects and thwarts attacks in real-time.
- It integrates with other VMware products.
Evaluate VMWare Carbon Black Workload’s reviews and ratings on PeerSpot and Gartner Peer Insights to assess its effectiveness as a Cloud Workload Protection Platform.
#10. Redlock
RedLock is a cloud security and compliance platform with an emphasis on securing public cloud infrastructure. It provides helpful insights and compliance automation. RedLock is currently a part of Palo Alto Networks.
Features:
- Analytics for cloud security: Provides information on the dangers of cloud security.
- Threat detection: The immediate detection of dangers and suspicious activity.
- Automation of compliance: Checks and reporting are automated.
- Protects assets across several cloud providers with multi-cloud support.
RedLock was acquired by Palo Alto Networks. Check out Palo Alto Networks ratings and reviews on Gartner to learn more about RedLock’s effectiveness as a CWPP solution.
How to Choose the Right Cloud Workload Protection Platform (CWPP)?
As businesses progress, the demand for a CWPP (Cloud Workload Protection Platform) continues to rise. The market offers numerous options, but not all of them provide comprehensive features. Hence, when comparing different cloud workload protection vendors, it’s essential to consider the following points:
- As enterprise infrastructure evolves, with a growing emphasis on hybrid and multi-cloud architectures, effective Cloud Workload Protection Platforms should safeguard physical machines, VMs, containers, and serverless workloads.
- It should be possible to centrally manage a CWPP from a single console, utilizing a unified set of APIs for streamlined administration.
- A comprehensive CWPP solution should offer API accessibility for all its functionalities, facilitating automation in cloud environments.
- CWPP vendors should be capable of sharing their roadmap and architectural design for protecting serverless environments.
Conclusion
Now you have learned about Cloud Workload Protection Platforms. These are currently the top 10 cloud workload protection platforms in the industry as of 2025.
The landscape of cloud security is evolving at a rapid pace, and the need for robust protection measures is paramount for organizations that entrust their workloads to the cloud. Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) offer a comprehensive solution for safeguarding cloud-based applications, resources, and data against an ever-expanding array of threats.
FAQs
1. What are the key features of a Cloud Workload Protection Platform (CWPP)?
CWPP has key features like vulnerability scanning, malware protection, network segmentation, container security, and compliance monitoring. It provides runtime protection for cloud workloads across VMs, containers, and serverless functions.
2. What are the Key Benefits of a CWPP?
CWPP benefits include unified security visibility across cloud environments, automated threat detection and response, and reduced attack surface through continuous monitoring. It also provides simplified compliance management and protection against advanced threats with minimal performance impact.
3. What is the difference between CWPP and CSPM?
CWPP focuses on protecting individual workloads at runtime through the features, such as malware detection and vulnerability management. CSPM (Cloud Security Posture Management) is all about the cloud infrastructure configuration, compliance, and risk assessment at the cloud service level.
4. What is the difference between cloud workload protection and runtime protection?
Cloud workload protection is more comprehensive and encompasses all facets involved in protecting applications and services offered in the cloud, from configuration to access control and compliance. Runtime protection addresses protecting the application as it runs, detecting and blocking threats in real time.
5. How do Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPPs) address zero-day vulnerabilities?
CWPPs use behavior monitoring, anomaly detection, and machine learning to identify suspicious patterns that might indicate a zero-day attack. They also employ techniques like memory protection, application control, and network monitoring to detect and block unknown threats without requiring signature-based detection.