Distinct Capabilities: Different Tools for Different Jobs

PSPM and CNAPP address fundamentally different aspects of cloud security. Understanding what each provides - and what each doesn't - explains why organizations need both.

What CNAPP Provides (That PSPM Doesn't)

CNAPP excels at comprehensive detection and visibility:

Continuous security scanning across every cloud service. CSPM, CWPP, KSPM, and CIEM components scan configurations, workloads, Kubernetes clusters, and identity permissions. CNAPP finds misconfigurations, vulnerabilities, overprivileged identities, and security gaps wherever they exist.

Runtime threat detection. CNAPP identifies malicious activity in workloads: crypto mining, credential access, data exfiltration, lateral movement, privilege escalation. These are active attacks that preventive controls can't stop - they require behavioral analysis and threat intelligence.

Attack path analysis. CNAPP maps how attackers could move from initial access to critical assets. It correlates misconfigurations, permissions, network access, and vulnerabilities to show compound risks that no single preventive control addresses.

Vulnerability management at scale. CNAPP scans containers, images, VMs, serverless functions, and infrastructure for CVEs. It identifies which vulnerabilities exist, where they appear, and which are actively exploitable.

Compliance evidence and reporting. CNAPP assesses posture against CIS, PCI DSS, HIPAA, SOC 2, NIST, and other frameworks. It collects evidence for auditors, tracks remediation, and demonstrates compliance posture over time.

These capabilities are essential - and PSPM doesn't provide them. Prevention can't detect sophisticated attacks, identify attack paths, or scan for vulnerabilities. Organizations need CNAPP for comprehensive security visibility.

What PSPM Provides (That CNAPP Doesn't)

PSPM excels at prevention management and deployment:

Unified prevention visibility across all four layers. PSPM discovers and maps preventive controls across Build (IaC scanning), Access (organization policies), Config (secure defaults), and Runtime (auto-remediation). Most organizations have scattered prevention with no unified view - PSPM makes it visible.

Gap analysis against detection findings. PSPM correlates prevention coverage with CNAPP findings to identify where prevention could eliminate high-volume alerts. It answers: "Which findings could we prevent?" and "At which layer should we prevent them?"

Impact simulation before enforcement. PSPM tests preventive controls before deployment by querying cloud audit logs to see what would be blocked, which teams would be affected, and what exceptions might be needed. This transforms prevention from "hope it doesn't break something" to "we know exactly what will happen."

Safe deployment orchestration. PSPM manages gradual rollout of preventive controls: monitoring modes before enforcement, phased deployment across environments, systematic exception handling, rollback capabilities if issues arise, and automated communication to affected teams.

Prevention effectiveness measurement. PSPM quantifies prevention impact through coverage metrics (expansion over time), effectiveness metrics (finding reductions), efficiency metrics (capacity freed), and ROI calculations (cost savings demonstrated).

These capabilities are essential - and CNAPP doesn't provide them. Detection can't simulate preventive controls before deployment, orchestrate safe rollout with exception management, or measure prevention coverage across layers. Organizations need PSPM for systematic prevention expansion.

The Scope Distinction: Timing and Lifecycle Stage

Beyond specific capabilities, PSPM and CNAPP operate at different stages of the security lifecycle:

CNAPP operates after deployment. Resources exist in production. Configurations are set. CNAPP scans what's there, identifies issues, generates findings. The exposure already exists - CNAPP provides visibility and detection.

PSPM operates before and during deployment. Build-layer scanning catches issues in code before deployment. Access-layer policies block risky API calls during deployment. Config-layer defaults make resources secure as they're created. Runtime-layer controls fix drift after deployment but within minutes, not days.

This timing difference is fundamental. CNAPP tells you what's wrong. PSPM stops it from being wrong in the first place. Different lifecycle stages, different mechanisms, different outcomes.

The Functionality Distinction: Detection vs Prevention

The core distinction comes down to detection versus prevention:

Detection (CNAPP): Find issues, assess risk, generate alerts, create tickets, coordinate remediation, validate fixes, repeat. Comprehensive visibility but reactive workflow. Every misconfiguration creates: finding discovery, alert generation, ticket creation, team coordination, implementation work, validation effort, and eventual remediation.

Prevention (PSPM): Block issues before production, make secure configurations automatic, eliminate entire classes of misconfigurations through guardrails. Proactive protection but requires careful deployment. Prevented issues never create findings, never generate alerts, never require remediation - they simply don't happen.

Neither is better - they're fundamentally different approaches solving different problems. Organizations need detection for comprehensive visibility and threat identification. Organizations need prevention to reduce what requires detection in the first place.

Why "CNAPP With Prevention Features" Isn't Enough

Some CNAPP vendors add prevention capabilities: IaC scanning, shift-left detection, limited policy enforcement. These features provide value but don't replace dedicated PSPM:

IaC scanning in CNAPP catches build-layer issues but doesn't provide: visibility into access-layer organization policies, config-layer secure defaults, runtime-layer auto-remediation, unified gap analysis across all layers, or prevention-specific measurement.

Shift-left detection catches issues earlier but still operates on detection model: scan, find, alert, remediate. It doesn't provide: preventive control simulation, safe deployment orchestration with phasing, exception management across controls, or unified prevention posture visibility.

Limited policy enforcement in some CNAPP platforms focuses on specific cloud APIs but doesn't provide: comprehensive organization policy management, simulation before deployment, tracking of policy scope and attachment, integration with build and config layers, or prevention-specific recommendations.

Think of it like build tools: some IDEs include build capabilities, but organizations serious about build quality use dedicated CI/CD platforms. Similarly, organizations serious about prevention benefit from PSPM's prevention-specific capabilities rather than detection platforms with basic prevention add-ons.

The Complementary Nature

PSPM and CNAPP don't compete - they complement:

• CNAPP provides comprehensive visibility; PSPM provides systematic risk reduction
• CNAPP detects everything; PSPM prevents what's predictable and preventable
• CNAPP validates prevention works; PSPM reduces what detection finds
• CNAPP finds prevention gaps; PSPM closes those gaps systematically
• CNAPP measures security posture; PSPM improves prevention coverage

Organizations with both achieve outcomes neither provides alone: comprehensive visibility (CNAPP) plus systematic risk reduction (PSPM) equals defense in depth that scales.