Key Takeaways

PSPM and CNAPP serve complementary roles, not competing ones. CNAPP provides comprehensive detection and visibility after deployment. PSPM provides prevention management before and during deployment. Different stages, different mechanisms, different problems solved. Neither replaces the other.

PSPM reduces CNAPP noise and eliminates alert fatigue. Prevention reduces CNAPP finding volumes by 50-80%, eliminates misconfiguration noise, and helps security teams focus CNAPP on truly critical threats: sophisticated attacks, complex attack paths, and runtime threats requiring human judgment. Organizations with both reduce risk and eliminate alert fatigue while maintaining comprehensive visibility.

The scope and functionality don't overlap. CNAPP scans for misconfigurations, detects threats, identifies vulnerabilities, and provides compliance evidence. PSPM discovers preventive controls, simulates before enforcement, orchestrates safe deployment, and measures prevention effectiveness. Different capabilities addressing different security needs.

Together they create defense in depth that scales. Prevention handles predictable, preventable misconfigurations across four layers. Detection catches sophisticated threats, unknown risks, and what prevention misses. Multiple layers provide resilience where no single control failure creates exposure.

The investment justifies itself through measurable outcomes. Organizations with both PSPM and CNAPP achieve 50-80% finding reductions, eliminate exposure windows for preventable issues, free security team capacity for strategic work, and deliver better security outcomes at lower total cost than organizations with either alone.