6 Kubernetes Security Vendors in 2025

Kubernetes has cemented its position as the de facto orchestration system for containerized applications. With that eminence comes increasing scrutiny around security. Today, you can no longer rely on default configurations or traditional firewalls; you need specialized tooling and domain expertise to keep your clusters and containers resilient.

Here are the six stand-out Kubernetes security vendors of 2025. Each brings unique capabilities—from sprawl containment to zero-day exploits. By the end of this post, you’ll have a sharper perspective on where these vendors are, strong and weak, plus tips on what to look for when choosing a Kubernetes security vendor.

What Are Kubernetes Security Vendors?

Kubernetes security vendors design software or services to secure containerized applications and the entire Kubernetes lifecycle. Their offerings go beyond simple vulnerability scans. They typically encompass everything from image assurance and runtime protection to threat detection, compliance checks, and incident response. In other words, these vendors provide you with multiple layers of protection that extend from development environments through production clusters.

But why specifically “Kubernetes” security? Because container orchestration introduces new variables and complexities, legacy security tools may not handle it well. You might be dealing with ephemeral pods, automated scaling rules, or multi-tenant environments. Each layer of that stack needs tailored security measures, which Kubernetes security vendors strive to deliver. Whether you manage your clusters on-premises, in the cloud, or across multiple providers, these vendors tackle the specialized challenges of container orchestration.

Some vendors focus on scanning container images for vulnerabilities, while others invest heavily in runtime monitoring and anomaly detection. A few might combine these approaches, providing a more end-to-end platform. No matter the emphasis, the underlying goal is to protect your containers, data, and overall application infrastructure.

The Need for Kubernetes Security Vendors

Kubernetes has changed how organizations build and deploy applications. Instead of monolithic servers and applications, development teams are spinning up microservices and scaling them at will. This agile ecosystem offers incredible flexibility but also exposes potential weaknesses. For instance, one misconfigured YAML file could grant a malicious attacker broader access than intended, and a single overlooked vulnerability in a container image might become the pivot point for a large-scale breach.

Traditional security tools can’t always keep up with the dynamic nature of Kubernetes. You might see ephemeral containers spin up and disappear in seconds—faster than many traditional security scanners can track. Access controls need to reflect each cluster’s roles and responsibilities. And if you’re using multiple cloud providers or hybrid environments, the challenge multiplies.

This is where Kubernetes security vendors prove invaluable. They adapt to this fluid environment, offering real-time scanning, container-specific threat hunting, and flexible policy management. Beyond guarding against active exploits, they can help you embed best practices into your development pipeline. For example, they might automatically block images that don’t meet security standards or highlight suspicious activity using advanced telemetry. All these features ensure that your move to containers and Kubernetes doesn’t invite unnecessary risk.

6 Kubernetes Security Vendors in 2025

Below is a curated list of the Kubernetes security vendors for 2025. Each has developed its approach to safeguarding Kubernetes clusters, container images, and runtime operations. The focus is on how they address threats specific to Kubernetes, from configuration oversights to targeted attacks.

All six bring valuable capabilities, according to Gartner Peer Insights reviews. But it’s worth noting that no single vendor can address every scenario perfectly. It’s all about finding the right fit for your organization’s maturity, budget, and growth trajectory. Let’s discuss the six below.

SentinelOne

SentinelOne offers the world’s best cloud-native and cybersecurity solutions powered by generative AI and global threat intelligence. Its offerings evolve to meet the unique requirements of enterprises. SentinelOne’s platform can adapt to dynamic threat environments and can automatically make remediations without human intervention.

Platform at a Glance

SentinelOne’s Kubernetes security suite extends the company’s AI-driven threat detection into containerized environments. It monitors cluster traffic, detects anomalies, and orchestrates automated responses when suspicious behavior surfaces. Its console unifies visibility across different operating systems and cloud platforms, so you don’t have to juggle multiple dashboards.

For container images, SentinelOne employs vulnerability scanning and sandbox testing. If a particular image veers from its baseline, the system can immediately quarantine it. The company’s real strength lies in its deep learning algorithms that look for patterns of malicious activity, catching exploits before they become known threats.

Features:

• Continuous AI Threat Identification: SentinelOne uses AI to monitor container workloads and microservices. It triggers alerts or automated interventions whenever it spots unusual shifts in CPU usage, network calls, or file changes.
• Seamless Platform Integration: The platform connects to public cloud providers such as AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud and supports on-premises and hybrid setups. This flexibility allows you to mix and match deployment environments without sacrificing security consistency.
• Agentless Snapshot Scanning: You can detect vulnerabilities at rest without requiring an agent inside every container or VM. Snapshot scans highlight embedded risks in images that may never spin up if flagged.
• Sophisticated Role-Based Access: This approach sets granular privileges for team members and services, helping ensure that individuals can only interact with the clusters and nodes relevant to their role.
• Multiple OS Support: SentinelOne covers popular Linux distributions that power most Kubernetes clusters, enabling uniform security policies.
• Fast Investigations and Rollbacks: In the event of a breach, the platform helps you perform forensics efficiently. You can also roll back to a known safe state, minimizing damage and downtime.

Core Problems that SentinelOne Solves

• Unmonitored Cluster Activity: Many organizations struggle to keep track of everything happening inside their clusters. SentinelOne consolidates data for immediate scrutiny.
• API Access Exploits: By monitoring requests to the Kubernetes API server, SentinelOne can block suspicious calls or limit them if they originate from compromised pods.
• Shadow Containers: Unapproved containers might appear in your environment without your knowledge. SentinelOne flags these anomalies so you can address them promptly.
• Complex, Distributed Environments: Modern teams often host workloads across various clouds and on-prem setups. SentinelOne’s multi-tenant approach lets you unify and streamline security controls.

Testimonials

“Our DevOps team used to spend hours tracking container performance and investigating anomalies. After deploying SentinelOne, we cut that by more than half,” says a DevSecOps lead at a mid-sized tech firm. “Its real-time detection and single management console gave us a sense of control we didn’t have before.”

Meanwhile, a security architect at a global finance company comments, “SentinelOne drastically reduced our incident response time in Kubernetes clusters. We rely on the integrated approach to scanning and alerting daily.”

SentinelOne is praised for its intuitive UI and advanced security management features. Check out what Gartner Peer Insights and PeerSpot reviewers are saying.

Red Hat

Red Hat has made open-source domain contributions and cloud-native security. It offers support to enterprises and provides various security features. Red Hat is OpenShift, a container platform built on top of Kubernetes. Organizations that adopt OpenShift can use its embedded controls like admission policies, integrated CI/CD, and secure image registries. They can create custom container pipelines that enforce guardrails at every stage.

Features:

• Security-Enhanced Linux Integration: Red Hat’s SELinux integrations can mitigate unauthorized container operations, restricting them to least-privilege environments.
• Open-Source Community Backing: Red Hat’s close ties to Kubernetes upstream projects ensure their security fixes and patches are relevant and often appear before mainstream releases.
• Policy-Driven Deployments: Native policy frameworks can help you define the permitted container images, preventing rogue deployments.
• Hybrid Cloud Support: Red Hat’s solutions often link seamlessly with on-prem environments, bridging them to private and public clouds for a unified security posture.
• Developer-Centric Approach: Red Hat’s tools integrate with popular developer workflows, making secure container deployment less disruptive.

Evaluate Red Hat’s G2 and Gartnеr Pееr Insights on PeerSpot to see what the vendor can do.

Tenable Cloud Security

Tenable is a solution used for vulnerability management and user assessments. It can do server and network scans. Users can use Tenable Cloud Security to protect Kubernetes clusters and containerized environments. They can secure potential attack vectors across the DevOps pipeline.  Tenable is known for its data analytics. It can track vulnerabilities, triage them, and push new builds securely.

Features:

• Vulnerability Risk Scores: Tenable makes determining which vulnerabilities deserve immediate attention easier by assigning risk scores to issues.
• Registry and Pipeline Integration: Tenable scans container images in popular registries and CI/CD workflows, ensuring you catch potential problems early.
• Configuration Audits examine your Kubernetes settings, such as RBAC roles or network policies, to spot red flags before they become security events.
• Compliance Mapping: If you need to align with frameworks such as ISO 27001 or PCI DSS, Tenable offers modules to measure your clusters against these standards.
• Actionable Remediation Steps: In-depth remediation suggestions walk you through the fixes, eliminating the guesswork of patching or reconfiguring.

Read through reviews on G2 and PeerSpot to form an educated opinion on Tenable’s CSPM capabilities.

Palo Alto Networks Prisma Cloud

It has delivered cloud-native stacks, secured workloads, and offered a range of servies to protect environments – from virtual machines to serverless.

Under Prisma Cloud, network micro-segmentation and identity management protect cluster nodes and pods from external and internal threats. Integrated templates automate policy enforcement, letting you lock down container images. You can also detect suspicious runtime activities.

Features:

• Behavioral Analysis: Prisma Cloud monitors typical container behavior, triggering alerts when anomalies exceed defined thresholds.
• Auto-Discovery of Clusters: If you’re running multiple clusters in different clouds, Prisma Cloud can auto-detect them, consolidating your security strategy.
• Micro-Segmentation for Pods: Limiting pod-to-pod communications reduces the blast radius in case an attacker breaches one component of your application.
• Compliance-as-Code: The platform includes policy packs for various industry regulations, allowing you to embed compliance checks directly into your DevOps processes.
• Integration with DevSecOps: Developers can incorporate Prisma Cloud scans into their CI/CD pipelines, catching vulnerabilities during early build stages.

Find out what Palo Alto Networks Prisma Cloud can do as a Kubernetes security vendor by reading its Gartner Peer Insights and PeerSpot ratings and reviews.

Sysdig

Sysdig does open-source observability and security. Sysdig is known for adding visibility to system calls, network traffic, and container processes. It is an open-source runtime security project and can pinpoint anomalies in real-time. Users can diagnose performance bottlenecks and investigate suspicious activities with it.

Features:

• Falco Runtime Security: Falco’s rules engine detects unusual container actions, such as unexpected shell execution, and sends immediate alerts.
• Unified Observability: Security and performance data coexist under one dashboard, so you don’t have to deploy separate tools for troubleshooting and incident response.
• Detailed Audit Trails: If a breach occurs, Sysdig’s granular event capture helps you reconstruct the attacker’s steps inside your environment.
• Policy-Driven Actions: To automate your response workflows, you can craft custom policies around container behavior, including file access or network connections.
• Continuous Scanning: Sysdig monitors images throughout the development lifecycle, ensuring vulnerabilities don’t slip from testing into production.

Look for more information on Sysdig’s ratings and reviews on PeerSpot and G2.

Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Microsoft Defender for Cloud (formerly Azure Security Center) provides unified security management across various services. It offers protection for on-premises and multi-cloud Kubernetes clusters.

Defender for Cloud highlights misconfigurations in cluster settings. It also taps into Microsoft’s threat intelligence network. With the help of machine learning, suspicious behaviors often trigger alerts well before they escalate into incidents.

Features:

• Adaptive Threat Detection: The platform consumes data from Microsoft’s global sensor network, giving it a broad perspective on emerging threats.
• Built-In Guardrails: You can rely on Azure Policy and similar features to impose best practices on your Kubernetes deployments, reducing the chance of accidental misconfigurations.
• DevOps Integration: If you store container images in Azure Container Registry, Defender for Cloud automatically scans them. This integration can also extend to GitHub workflows.
• Cross-Platform Support: Whether your clusters run in AWS or on-prem, you can still leverage Defender for Cloud’s vulnerability scanning and compliance checks.
• Role-Based Access Insights: Because Azure Active Directory underpins Microsoft’s identity management, you can more easily control who has privileges in your Kubernetes environment.

Check out G2 and Peerspot reviews to see what users say about Microsoft Defender for Cloud.

How to Choose the Best Kubernetes Security Vendors?

Choosing a Kubernetes security vendor is not just about features— it’s about alignment. Evaluate how a product’s capabilities mesh with your infrastructure and internal processes. Here are a few points to consider:

• Integration with Existing Toolchains: Does the vendor’s platform plug seamlessly into your CI/CD pipelines, container registries, and monitoring dashboards? Fragmented tooling can lead to missed vulnerabilities or operational inefficiencies.
• Scalability and Cloud Footprint: Your Kubernetes usage might grow significantly over the next year. Check whether the solution can handle spikes in container deployments without overloading your nodes or management consoles.
• Cost Structure and Budget Fit: Some vendors charge by node count, others by cluster or overall resource consumption. Clarify licensing models before you commit. Look for hidden costs, such as premium support or advanced analytics modules.
• Deployment Complexity: Certain platforms require extensive manual configuration or specialized skill sets. To jump-start your security posture, ensure you have the in-house capabilities or consider the vendor’s professional services.
• AI and Behavioral Analysis: Known vulnerability databases are a starting point, but new attacks emerge daily. Prioritize solutions that can detect behavioral anomalies and adapt to novel threats.
• Visibility Across Hybrid Environments: If your organization uses multiple public clouds or on-prem data centers, confirm that the vendor can unify these landscapes. Silos in security visibility can be an open invitation to attackers.
• Compliance and Regulatory Requirements: If your industry is heavily regulated, check how each vendor assists with compliance frameworks. Look for built-in auditing capabilities to reduce the manual overhead of producing evidence in audits.
• Quality of Support and Documentation: Even the best tools can present challenges if you lack timely support. Peer reviews and vendor references can reveal whether a company stands behind its product after the sale.

Conclusion

Kubernetes adoption shows no sign of slowing in 2025, and with it comes an evolving threat landscape. While each of the six vendors outlined here brings distinct strengths, the right choice often depends on your specific use cases and the maturity of your DevOps culture. Try to choose a solution that not only addresses the vulnerabilities you face today but can also adapt as your environment grows and changes. Security is never a static goal; it’s a continuous journey.

Are you seeking a partner who excels at Kubernetes threat detection, seamless integrations, and fast incident response? Contact SentinelOne to learn how we can secure your Kubernetes future. You can also book a free live demo with us.

FAQs

1. Do ephemeral containers require unique protection strategies?

Ephemeral containers last only a few seconds, so security tools that quickly capture real-time data and detect anomalies are needed. Traditional scanners may not be able to detect these short-lived threats.

2. How critical is it to segment network traffic between Kubernetes pods?

Segmenting or isolating pods limits the spread of attacks. If one pod is compromised, micro-segmentation can prevent an attacker from moving laterally across the cluster.

3. Should I just use container scanning before deployment?

Pre-deployment scanning is critical, but runtime protection is equally vital. Even secure images at build time can exhibit unexpected behavior once running.

4. What if I’m running multiple Kubernetes distributions?

Look for vendors that support major distros like vanilla Kubernetes and OpenShift and managed cloud services like EKS or AKS. Uniform policy management is key when managing multiple environments. You can also try SentinelOne.

5. Is compliance the most significant driver for Kubernetes security?

Compliance is one motivation, but not the only one. Operational continuity, brand reputation, and data protection also rank high. A breach can be more damaging than any regulatory fine.

6. Can AI-driven security detect zero-day attacks in Kubernetes?

AI systems can sometimes identify behaviors related to novel exploits. However, no tool can guarantee 100% detection. The best defense combines AI-driven methods, robust policies, and human oversight.