Aqua Real-Time CSPM vs Watchmen: 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.. Watchmen 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.
AWS security teams managing compliance across multiple accounts will find Watchmen valuable for centralizing AWS Config rule enforcement without the operational overhead of managing Lambda functions across your estate. At 178 GitHub stars with a free pricing model, it's proven enough to reduce compliance rule sprawl, though it deliberately stays narrow on the Config-to-remediation path rather than building toward full Govern capabilities. Skip this if you need cross-cloud compliance orchestration or automated remediation workflows; Watchmen is AWS Config plumbing, not a platform.
