Which Offers Better Cloud Security and Value?

CrowdStrike and Wiz are two security vendors with very different operating niches. On one hand, CrowdStrike has been in the space since 2011 and has solidified itself as the industry leader in endpoint detection and response solutions.

Meanwhile, Wiz is a much younger cybersecurity startup founded in 2020 that aims to make a name for itself in cloud security.

In this article, we’ll look at how CrowdStrike and Wiz compare to each other to determine which one is best for you and your organization.

CrowdStrike vs. Wiz: Comparison Chart

CrowdStrike vs. Wiz: Pricing

As a disclaimer, this article compares CrowdStrike and Wiz and their overall product. While the focus is on cloud security solutions, our goal is to provide the overall differences between the two providers.

CrowStrike Pricing

CrowdStrike offers a variety of cybersecurity solutions to meet different security requirements and business sizes.

Here’s a quick summary of the pricing and feature differences for each product:

• Falcon Go: $59.99 per year; next-generation antivirus, device control and rapid support.
• Falcon Pro: $99.99 per device, billed annually; all Falcon Go features plus firewall management.
• Falcon Enterprise: $184.99 per device, billed annually; all features of Falcon Pro plus EDR, threat hunting and intelligence capabilities.
• Falcon Elite: Contact sales for pricing; all Falcon Enterprise features plus IT hygiene and identity protection.
• CrowdStrike Cloud Security: Contact sales for a quote; CSPM, ASPM, container security and server threat map.

CrowdStrike offers free trials for most of the subscriptions listed above. I recommend interested buyers check out these trials to get an idea of ​​CrowdStrike’s services and whether they will fit your organization’s needs.

Wiz Pricing

Wiz does not offer standard pricing for its cloud services. Instead, it offers one-to-one planning pricing based on your organization’s current cloud workloads and environment.

Wiz has a price request portal on its official website that asks a few questions before providing a custom quote. Here are some questions and details from Wiz:

• How much cloud do you use? (AWS, GCP, Azure, etc.)
• Provide your name and work email address.
• Title, company name and phone number.

You can also get a 30-minute personalized software demo through Wiz’s official website. As with price requests, access is available after providing a few details.

CrowdStrike vs. Wiz: Feature Comparison

focus areas

Although both in the cybersecurity space, CrowdStrike and Wiz take different approaches to their best-known services.

On the one hand, Wiz primarily deals with cloud environments and securing cloud infrastructure. This is achieved through cloud security posture management, vulnerability management, infrastructure entitlement management and cloud-native application protection platform consoles.

CrowdStrike, on the other hand, is more focused on endpoint security and is considered an industry leader for its EDR and XDR products. They also offer managed detection and response, NGAV, and threat hunting service options.

To be clear, CrowdStrike has a dedicated Falcon Cloud Security product that overlaps with Wiz’s offering. This bundles CSPM, CNAPP and CIEM functionality into a unified console.

Despite these similarities, I think this is a good place to start discerning which provider to choose. Are you looking for a solution designed to provide powerful visibility and protection for your cloud infrastructure? In this case, Wiz might be the better choice.

Meanwhile, if you want a more comprehensive provider of cloud and endpoint security tools, CrowdStrike should be at the top of your list.

independent assessment

If we do an independent evaluation, we find that both CrowdStrike and Wiz rank among the top competitors in the cloud space.

exist Forrester Wave of Cloud Workload Security Report For Q1 2024, CrowdStrike was named a Leader and Wiz was named a Top Performer.

The report praises CrowdStrike’s CWS vision, strong container runtime protection, and powerful agent-based CWP. At the same time, Wiz is highlighted as a solid choice for organizations that “prioritize agentless CWP, require attack path visibility, but require minimal agent-based workload protection.”

Notably, this is the first time Wiz has been included in a Forrester report. Despite being only four years old, I feel this shows that the company has already made a good impression on end users and independent evaluators.

In the case of CrowdStrike, they regularly appear at the top of third-party reports, indicating that they remain one of the most influential players in the cybersecurity space today.

Agent-based vs. agentless

One major difference between the two is their choice of agent-based and agentless security.

CrowdStrike is best known for its agent-based Falcon platform, but has also introduced agentless security in recent years. Now it’s positioning its Falcon Cloud Security service as a “flexible” agent-based and agentless unified platform, aiming to incorporate the best of both systems into its software.

Meanwhile, Wiz’s CSPM platform is an agentless solution that prioritizes ease of deployment, low maintenance requirements, and scalability.

CrowdStrike and Wiz on Reddit

To refine this comparison, I explored online forums and communities like Reddit to see how CrowdStrike and Wiz performed among different users around the world.

For both, user sentiment appears to be overwhelmingly positive. exist Internet Security Reddit Communitya poster asked other users what their experiences with Wiz and its cloud-based solution were.

One commenter on the post said: “Wiz works great for us. We chose it because it’s agentless, making deployment super fast and easy. It’s great for identifying vulnerabilities and misconfigurations, which is A huge help.

“The interface is very reliable, puts everything we need to see in one place, and while it’s expensive, the amount of work it saves us justifies the cost,” the reviewer added.

On the other hand, recent discussions about CrowdStrike revolve around their involvement in the July 2024 global IT outage. Windows device. You can learn more about Learn about the CrowdStrike outage in our news article.

Still, many users expressed support for CrowdStrike. in another article Internet Security Reddit CommunityOne user said this when asked if they would continue to use CrowdStrike:

“CrowdStrike has always been a respectable brand with top-notch metrics. Every company has its problems. The real issue is how they handle their mistakes. (IMO, they handled it well. Finished in less than 12 hours remediation, automated remediation within 24 hours). Some of my own security solutions with software breach issues don’t even compare, and most of the time I have to prove it’s their software before they can help,” the comment The reader said.

“The fact that CrowdStrike is getting so much attention in the media is a testament to how many customers they have,” the commenter added.

look: Top 4 CrowdStrike Alternatives and Competitors in 2024 (Technology Republic)

CrowdStrike Pros and Cons

CrowdStrike Advantages

• Agent-based and agentless solutions.
• Deep cloud visibility.
• EDR and XDR are also provided.

Disadvantages of CrowdStrike

• Covers July 2024 IT outage.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Viz

Advantages of Wiz

• Comprehensive focus on cloud infrastructure security.
• Completely agentless.
• Simple deployment and intuitive user interface.

Disadvantages of Wiz

• There are fewer options for other security solutions.

Should your business use CrowdStrike or Wiz?

CrowdStrike and Wiz are both great choices when it comes to protecting your organization’s cloud infrastructure. That being said, there are differences between the two that may affect your decision about one or the other.

If you’re looking for a provider with years of industry experience, strong instant threat response capabilities, and an agent-based platform, CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security should be your choice. This is also a better choice if your business is looking for additional security services, especially for endpoint security.

On the other hand, if you’d rather invest in a new cybersecurity vendor that only emphasizes cloud security, Wiz is a better choice. It’s also a smart choice if you want a completely agentless solution and your business isn’t keen on working with CrowdStrike after the July 2024 outage.

look: Everything you need to know about the cyber security threat of malvertising (Technology Republic Advanced Edition)

methodology

My comparison of CrowdStrike and Wiz includes a head-to-head comparison of their software offerings, features, and overall value.

I specifically consider key differences between the two cloud providers, such as their focus areas, independent evaluations, and the choice between agent-based or agentless security. Research on providers included an extensive review of each product’s official product documentation, available demos, and advertising examples.

Additionally, real user feedback and verified third-party reviews were taken into consideration to round out the final recommendations.