Aqua Real-Time CSPM vs Datadog: Side-by-Side Comparison (2026)
Features, pricing, ratings, and pros & cons — compared head-to-head.
Aqua Real-Time CSPM is a commercial cloud security posture management tool by Aqua Security Software Ltd.. Datadog is a free cloud security posture management tool. Compare features, ratings, integrations, and community reviews side by side to find the best cloud security posture management fit for your security stack.
CST VerdictBased on our analysis of NIST CSF 2.0 coverage, core features, company size fit, deployment model, here is our conclusion:
Mid-market and enterprise teams managing AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud simultaneously will get the most from Aqua Real-Time CSPM because its agentless scanning paired with in-workload visibility actually catches misconfigurations that surface-level inventory tools miss. The vendor's support for VMs, containers, serverless, and Kubernetes clusters across 30+ compliance frameworks means you're not rebuilding mappings for HIPAA one year and PCI the next. Skip this if your organization runs primarily on a single cloud or needs sophisticated identity and access governance; Aqua prioritizes configuration posture over the identity layer, leaving supply chain risk assessment to adjacent tools.
Infrastructure and security teams already running Datadog for observability should adopt its SIEM capabilities to avoid another tool license; the platform's strength is correlating security signals across logs, metrics, and traces from applications you're already monitoring, which catches lateral movement faster than point solutions. Datadog's free tier lets you ingest and retain 15 days of logs at no cost, making it genuinely accessible to smaller teams. Skip this if you need best-of-breed threat hunting or forensics,Datadog's security features are built for real-time detection and response, not deep historical investigation.
