As organizations increasingly migrate to the cloud, the attack surface of cloud-native applications and infrastructure is expanding. Attackers target runtime environments, including network, compute, storage, identifies and permissions, and misconfiguration of cloud management and control features. Misconfiguration is the single most common cause of breaches in the cloud. Traditional siloed cybersecurity measures cannot ensure secure configuration or operate at the speed and scale provided by the cloud environment.
Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPPs) Solutions emerged to meet the security needs of a modern cloud environment by offering enhanced visibility, configuration, compliance monitoring, and remediation for cloud-native applications. 85% of enterprises struggle to prioritize cloud security events; organizations’ multi-cloud footprints are constantly evolving as they are busy expanding their business, and increasing risk profile. Many cloud professionals also complain about the lack of security automation, operational shutdowns, and the time it takes to respond to emerging threats.
This guide explores the top CNAPP solutions, highlighting their key features and capabilities. It provides critical questions to ask when evaluating options, helping you select the ideal solution to safeguard your cloud-native applications and infrastructure.
What is a Cloud-Native Application Protection Platform (CNAPP)?
A cloud-native application protection platform (CNAPP) is an integrated cloud security solution that enables you to monitor, detect, and remediate potential cloud security threats and vulnerabilities. CNAPP’s value lies in consolidating disparate, siloed functions into a cohesive whole; it normalizes security data and stores it into a data lake, where experts can analyze and extract global threat intelligence from. It provides a unified console experience, and multi-cloud compliance dashboards, and secures and protects cloud-native applications from build to runtime.
CNAPP platforms combine multiple tools and capabilities into a single software solution to simplify cloud security management. With additional features included, modern CNAPP solutions close security blind spots, address hidden vulnerabilities and identify the root causes of threats. They raise the cyber maturity levels of enterprises, incorporate data governance measures, and protect entire cloud estates. CNAPPs proactively build a strong cybersecurity foundation and future-proof it to mitigate evolving threats.
“CNAPP tools must be able to build a model of the application code, libraries, containers, scripts, configuration, and vulnerabilities to identify where the effective risk resides. Since risk-free applications are impossible, information security must prioritize risk findings according to business context, identifying the root cause and enabling developers to focus first on the highest risk findings with the highest confidence of potential business impact.”
Gartner Inc., “Market Guide for Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms”, August 19, 2024
Here’s an overview of what to look for in a CNAPP:
Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)
A CSPM charts attack paths graphically and maps resources to help security practitioners perform thorough risk analysis. It continuously monitors your cloud ecosystems and pinpoints misconfigurations.
CSPM will:
- Ensure continuous compliance with the latest regulatory benchmarks in the industry
- Assist with prioritizing cloud security risks
- Manage cloud asset inventory
- Identify misconfigurations across cloud workloads and resources.
Cloud Workload Protection Platform (CWPP)
A Cloud Workload Protection Platform (CWPP) is a fundamental component of every good CNAPP. It analyzes workloads and looks for signs of malware. Agentless CWPPs have no data records for investigators to follow.
Only an agent-based CWPP will:
- Detect runtime threats in real-time
- Provide broad Linux distribution support
- Secures containers, servers, hosts, virtual machines, and more
- Record detailed workload telemetry for forensics investigations
Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM)
As your cloud environments expand, so will the number of identities, permissions, and resources you manage. Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM) is a set of capabilities that includes:
- Enables multi-cloud visibility into entitlements
- Discovers overly permissive human and machine identities
- Curtails the risk of privilege escalations
- Removes unused identities and dormant accounts
- Pinpoints toxic permission combinations
- Prevents secrets leakage
Cloud Detection & Response (CDR)
Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) evaluates the severity of threats and continuously monitors sensitive data. It scans cloud infrastructure audit logs in real-time and blocks unauthorized access requests.
CDR also:
- Presents evidence of threat findings
- Uses advanced analytics to reduce noise and eliminate false positives
- Triages alerts with security operations and DevOps teams
- Provides up-to-date intelligence on the latest adversarial behaviors
- Contains and remediates threats promptly
AI Security Posture Management (AI-SPM)
AI-SPM provides full visibility into your deployed AI resources. It mitigates threats to unsecured keys, accidental public access, and unencrypted sensitive data.
AI-SPM SIEM will let you:
- Detect risks affecting other cloud assets such as overprivileged permissions and misconfigurations
- Remediate issues related to applying security automation and its capabilities
- Ensure ongoing compliance and monitoring
- Provide visibility into models, packages, data, and shadow IT
External Attack Surface & Management (EASM)
External Attack Surface & Management (EASM) monitors and scans unknown cloud assets. It automates the mapping of exploit paths and goes beyond traditional CSPM protection.
EASM will:
- Automate asset classification
- Perform automated pen testing
- Prioritize security risks
- Give context-based business insights
Vulnerability Management
Enforce shift-left security throughout your organization with agentless vulnerability management. It performs workload image scanning, and container registry scanning, and can proactively manage vulnerabilities from build to deployment.
Vulnerability management will:
- Streamline security measures and ensure unmatched granular controls
- Discover unknown network assets
- Automate controls with streamlined IT and security workflows
- Enable real-time visibility into application and OS vulnerabilities across Windows, macOS, and Linux
Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) Scanning
Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) Scanning scans CI/CD pipelines using out-of-the-box configuration rules. It also lets you build your own custom rules.
IaC scanning supports:
- Gitlab IaC scanning
- Automatic vulnerability resolution
- Custom rules and configurations
- Runtime application protection
- Version control and change tracking
- Updating dependencies
- Enforcement of the Principle of Least Privilege (PoLP) for all accounts
A Cloud-Native Application Protection Platform (CNAPP) is the world’s most trusted security solution when it comes to enhancing your multi-cloud cyber resilience. It is a scalable, resilient, cost-effective cloud security platform providing seamless security and integration from development to deployment. It will help you achieve real-time autonomous protection, hunt and remediate threats across multi-cloud environments, and ensure global compliance for every vertical.
CNAPP Solutions Landscape in 2025
Take a look at the CNAPP vendors, ranked based on Gartner Peer Insights ratings and reviews. Uncover their key features, cloud integrations, and overall ease of use.
#1 SentinelOne Singularity™ Cloud Security
Singularity Cloud Security is a unified CNAPP offering complete control, real-time response, hyper-automation, and world-class threat intelligence. The platform’s cutting-edge analytics capabilities offer you autonomous AI-based threat defense to identify and manage threats and vulnerabilities proactively. It supports all workloads without limitations, such as virtual machines, Kubernetes servers, containers, physical servers, serverless storage, and databases. The integrated platform helps you protect all your assets across public, private, on-prem, and hybrid environments.
Platform at a Glance
- Singularity Cloud Native Security takes fast action on alerts with an agentless CNAPP solution. It leverages a unique Offensive Security Engine™ with Verified Exploit Paths™ to boost your team’s efficiency. Identify over 750+ types of secrets hardcoded across code repositories and prevent cloud credentials leakage. Ensure real-time compliance with multiple standards like NIST, MITRE, CIS, and more using SentinelOne’s Cloud Compliance Dashboard.
- 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.
- Singularity Cloud Data Security is your ultimate ally for adaptive, scalable, and AI-driven Amazon S3 and NetApp cloud storage protection. It detects without delays and performs machine-speed malware analysis. Scan objects directly in your Amazon S3 buckets and ensure no sensitive data leaves your environment. Instantly encrypt and quarantine malicious files, and restore or recover them whenever you want.
Features:
- Integrated solution: The key components include a unique blend of CSPM, CIEM, Cloud Detection & Response (CDR), AI Security Posture Management (AI-SPM), External Attack Surface Management (EASM), Vulnerability Management (Vulns), Infrastructure-as-Code Scanning (IaC Scanning), and Container & Kubernetes Security Posture Management (KSPM).
- Unified cloud view: Evaluate cloud security posture across multi-cloud environments. It offers a single multi-cloud console, customizable enterprise dashboards, and business intelligence reporting features.
- AI-enabled solution: An AI-powered CNAPP solution that combines rapid agentless insights with the stopping power of a real-time runtime agent that helps to identify and respond to threats in real time.
- Zero-day attack simulation: A unique offensive security engine simulates zero-day attacks harmlessly for extensive security coverage, reducing organization dependency on external security researchers and bug bounty programs.
- Pre-built detection library: It offers a pre-built and customization detection library offering active protection beyond cloud configuration and remotely secures all aspects of the cloud.
- Custom policies: It allows customers to write custom policies for detecting misconfigurations and vulnerabilities.
Core problems that SentinelOne eliminates
- Discovers unknown cloud deployments and fixes misconfigurations
- Combats ransomware, zero-days, and fileless attacks
- Stops the spreading of malware and eliminates advanced persistent threats
- Resolves inefficient security workflows
- Identifies vulnerabilities in CI/CD pipelines, container registries, repos, and more
- Prevents unauthorized data access, privilege escalations, and lateral movement
- Eliminates data silos and solves multi-compliance issues for all industries
According to Daniel Wong, Head of Security and Compliance at Skyflow:
“We were one of the early customers for Cloud Native Security (CNS) and are delighted to see it fully integrated as part of the SentinelOne Singularity platform. CNS’ agentless CNAPP platform is significantly less noisy and its alerts powered by Offensive Security Engine are more actionable as compared to alternatives. Along with differentiators like secret scanning capabilities, CNS as part of the larger Singularity Cloud Security platform is poised to be an integral part of our security landscape for the future,” said Daniel Wong, CISO at Skyflow
Look at Singularity Cloud Security’s ratings and review counts on peer-review platforms such as Gartner Peer Insights and PeerSpot.
#2 Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks
Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks is a Cloud Native Security Platform (CNSP) that offers lifecycle security, automated threat detection, and compliance monitoring, for multi- and hybrid clouds. It secures every stage of the application lifecycle, from prioritizing and eliminating risks across code/build, infrastructure, and runtime environments. It ensures real-time protection for every asset, from web applications and workloads to APIs.
Features:
- The solution Cloud Security Posture Management is known for its flexibility and control over all deployed resources
- It gathers vulnerability intelligence from 30 sources to provide visibility and risk clarity while controls prevent insecure configurations from reaching production
- It allows organizations to integrate security into CI/CD workflows, registries, and stacks to provide complete lifecycle protection across public and private clouds and on-premise environments
- Detects and prevents network anomalies by enforcing container-level micro-segmentation, traffic flow logs inspection, and leveraging advanced cloud-native layer seven threat prevention
Assess Prisma Cloud’s credibility by looking at the number of reviews and ratings on PeerSpot.
#3 Microsoft Defender for Cloud
The CNAPP solution from Microsoft provides threat protection and real-time visibility into the security posture of cloud environments, enabling organizations to identify and respond to threats promptly. The solution’s advanced machine learning (ML) capabilities enable it to detect and block sophisticated attacks, including zero-day attacks and fileless malware. Its compliance management tools automatically assess cloud environments against industry standards such as GDPR, HIPPA, etc.
Features
- It assesses the security of cloud resources running in Azure, AWS, and Google cloud
- It applies policies, recommendations, and best practices as defined in the Microsoft cloud security benchmark to achieve multi-cloud compliance
- The attack path analysis helps the security team identify high-severity risks existing in the environment to prioritize remediation
- It provides unified visibility into the DevOps security posture
Check out Peerspot reviews to see what users have to say about Microsoft Defender
#4 Wiz
Wiz offers visibility into vulnerabilities in its cloud environment. Its compatibility with various cloud environments and centralized approach gives organizations a clear overview of security postures across multiple clouds and simplified compliance management. The tool enables organizations to get visibility into cloud resources and risks, from infrastructure to data.
Features
- The solution can scan cloud layers without agents
- Its security graph provides contextual views for prioritizing and evaluating risks
- The graph helps to uncover the toxic combinations that create attack paths in your cloud environment, eliminating the need to analyze alerts manually
- Its vulnerability module provides visibility and analytics across cloud systems
- The solution also offers customizable workflows, reporting, a dashboard, and more.
Explore the feedback and ratings to get further insights into Wiz’s capabilities.
#5 Check Point CloudGuard
Check Point’s AI-powered CheckPoint Infinity platform is a prevention-first CNAPP solution for organizations to prevent threats and prioritize and reduce risks in the cloud across applications, networks, and workloads. The unified and modular platform integrates SAST (Static Application Security Testing), CSPM, DSPM (Data Security Posture Management), CIEM, CWPP, WAF (Web Application Firewall), and Cloud Detection and Response.
Features
- Check Point uses 1,500+ built-in rules to enforce regulations, compliance, and best practices at each layer of a multi-cloud environment
- It offers both agentless and agent-based protection at runtime, including malware, scanning of containers, VMs, and serverless functions
- The real-time threat detection leverages Check Point’s AI-powered ThreatCloud and MITRE ATT&CK patterns to identify suspicious and malicious security events
Evaluate these reviews and get an informed opinion about Check Point’s capabilities.
What makes a good CNAPP?
A robust CNAPP offers comprehensive capabilities, security features, and seamless integration across workloads, stacks, and cloud environments. It is designed to deliver a unified experience for scanning, detecting, and remediating runtime and infrastructure threats.
Here are some key features to look for in the CNAPP of your choice:
1. Comprehensive Threat Coverage
The level of threat coverage offered by different CNAPP solutions varies. You must consider a solution that protects all aspects of your cloud-native environment, including containers, serverless functions, multi-cloud deployments, and internal and external threats such as malware, ransomware, and more.
2. Integration Capabilities
Your chosen CNAPP solution must seamlessly integrate with your existing IT infrastructure, cloud platforms, security tools, DevOps workflows, and other elements of your current technology stack.
3. Scalability
The solution must scale as your business grows and handle increasing workloads and data volumes without compromising performance. Native cloud applications are inherently designed for scalability and flexibility, leading to fluctuating workloads and data volumes. Your chosen solution must easily scale to provide additional security features as the organization’s cloud application and infrastructure grow.
4. Automation and AI
Prioritize solutions that leverage artificial intelligence and automation to reduce manual work and improve response times.
5. Threat Intelligence
You must consider cloud-native application protection platforms that provide up-to-date threat intelligence and proactive threat-hunting capabilities.
6. Compliance support
The top CNAPP solutions offer compliance support for relevant security standards such as PCI DSS, HIPAA, and GDPR. You must select a vendor with robust compliance monitoring and reporting features aligned with your industry standards.
7. Ease of use
An analysis of user reviews indicates that the complexity of the cloud-native application protection platform’s user interface and long learning curve are significant drawbacks. You must evaluate the cloud-native security platform’s user interface for ease of use to ensure your organization can leverage the platform’s complete features and functionalities.
8. Customer Support
You must evaluate the platform’s customer support and services, including training, implementation support, and troubleshooting.
9. Cost and ROI
To choose the solution with the best price and features, you must calculate and compare the total cost of ownership and the potential return on investment for different solutions.
You can create a detailed evaluation matrix assigning weightage to criteria and multiple criteria based on your organization’s specific security requirements and business goals. A systematic and methodological evaluation process can help you select a CNAPP solution that effectively enhances your cloud security posture and supports your business objectives.
Conclusion
CNAPP solutions have replaced many point cybersecurity solutions to offer organizations an integrated platform to ensure the security of their cloud-native applications and data services.
A methodological evaluation and selection of CNAPP solutions ensures the security and integrity of cloud-native applications, data services, and infrastructure assets. The chosen vendors must meet technical criteria such as comprehensive coverage, unified visibility, integration, ease of deployment, customer support, and more, and be available within your budget.
Selecting the right CNAPP vendor in 2025 is an arduous task. SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security is rated #1 and has become a top choice for CNAPP solutions (read our case studies to learn more) with a user-friendly interface. It is easy to implement provides comprehensive coverage, including data security, and can scale your business. Don’t wait for any security incident; get ahead with your SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security to secure your cloud-native applications and data assets. Book a demo to know more.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. What is a CNAPP solution?
According to Gartner, a CNAPP solution is a unified and integrated set of security and compliance capabilities that enables organizations to secure and protect cloud-native applications across their life cycle, from development to production.
The rise of microservices architecture, containerization, and continuous integration and deployment practices led to the need for an integrated suite of security solutions to protect applications built using cloud-native technologies.
2. Which three areas are generally part of the CNAPP solution?
The three common components of CNAPPs are Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP), and Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM).
3. How does CNAPP work?
CNAPP solutions replace multiple independent tools with a holistic security solution for enterprises with cloud-native workloads. It uses agent-based and agentless methods to provide a unified view of cloud security across an application’s lifecycle, from development to runtime. An agent-based approach uses an agent executing along the workload, while an agentless approach uses cloud provider APIs to collect relevant insights and context.
CNAPP solutions use API integrations with leading cloud platform providers, CI/CD pipeline integrations, and agent and agentless workload integrations to provide combined development and runtime security coverage. They are primarily delivered as a service through the cloud.