Comparing CSPM and ASPM
Modern software has moved away from traditional, monolithic applications. Cloud-native app development streamlines software development and deployment while handling today’s storage and compute challenges.
But all the features that make cloud-native apps flexible, scalable, and resilient also make them hard to secure:
Microservices add scalability and resilience but increase the attack surface and make monitoring difficult.
Containers create consistent, reproducible environments but can allow vulnerabilities to proliferate.
APIs provide agility and connectivity but also create data exposure risks.
CI/CD pipelines (DevOps) give you rapid, frequent deployment but increase the risk that vulnerabilities could make it into production.
Cloud security posture management (CSPM) solutions focus on securing cloud infrastructure. But with the shift to cloud-native application development, there’s also a need for platforms that operate throughout the software lifecycle, like application security posture management (ASPM).
Let’s take a closer look at CSPM and ASPM to see what protection they offer, key differences, and use cases. Then, we’ll look at which solution (or combination of solutions!) will give you the best protection throughout the software development lifecycle.
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What is CSPM and why do you need it?
Cloud security posture management (CSPM) mitigates risks using automation to continuously monitor, identify, and remediate cloud security misconfigurations and compliance violations. To improve cloud security hygiene, CSPM aligns your configurations with recognized industry frameworks like NIST, CIS Benchmarks, and ISO 27001.
While CSPM tools vary, at a minimum, they should provide these core capabilities:
Misconfiguration detection (for example, they should flag publicly exposed S3 buckets and over-permissioned IAM roles)
Risk-based prioritization of cloud security issues
Continuous monitoring for drift detection
Compliance auditing and reporting
Simply put, CSPM can be an integral part of a mature cloud security strategy because it secures cloud infrastructure across AWS, Azure, and GCP.
What is ASPM and why do you need it?
Application security posture management (ASPM) extends security to applications and software supply chains, managing and improving security throughout the application lifecycle by identifying, correlating, and prioritizing risks.
ASPM helps you shift your security left. Instead of leaving security testing for the end of the software development lifecycle (SDLC), ASPM secures the entire SDLC, from code scanning all the way to runtime monitoring.
While CSPM focuses on cloud infrastructure, ASPM provides the following capabilities:
Code and component scanning (IaC misconfigurations, secrets exposure, vulnerable third-party packages, and insecure app logic)
Software supply chain security (tracking dependencies, third-party libraries, and SBOMs)
Application runtime security (monitoring for real-time threats)
Developer-friendly security (integrating with IDEs, CI/CD pipelines, and DevSecOps workflows)
ASPM was built for cloud-native development, so it simplifies the complex tasks involved in securing cloud-native applications built with multi-cloud, containers, Kubernetes, and serverless architectures.
What are some key differences between CSPM and ASPM?
CSPM and ASPM differ when it comes to their scope, focus, and timing, as well as which personnel actually use the solution on a daily basis. In general, CSPM protects underlying cloud infrastructure and data storage, while ASPM guards the application code itself:
| CSPM (cloud security posture management) | ASPM (application security posture management) | |
|---|---|---|
| Scope of protection | Cloud infrastructure: configurations, identities, data, workloads | Application stack: code, dependencies, pipelines, APIs |
| Where It Operates | Infrastructure layer (IaaS, PaaS, containers, K8s, cloud services) | Application layer (SDLC, CI/CD, containers, serverless, APIs) |
| Primary security focus | Misconfigurations, identity risk, compliance drift, exposed data/workloads | Code vulnerabilities, software supply chain, secrets, runtime behavior |
| Timing of risk detection | Pre- and post-deployment (IaC scanning, drift detection, runtime exposure) | Shift-left and runtime (SAST, SCA, SBOM, CI/CD, runtime threat detection) |
| Primary users | Cloud security, platform teams, SecOps, compliance | DevSecOps, AppSec engineers, software developers |
| Risk context | Contextual: combines exposure, blast radius, identity, and asset sensitivity | Contextual: combines exploitability, data exposure, app logic & impact |
| Output example | Public S3 bucket with sensitive data + over-permissioned identity | Open-source package vulnerability in prod service with internet exposure |
In unified platforms, CSPM and ASPM share security context across cloud and application layers—so issues like exposed secrets in IaC or vulnerable services with public exposure are prioritized based on actual risk, not static severity alone. This prevents alert duplication and helps teams align faster on what to fix first.
What’s a typical CSPM use case?
An e-commerce company’s CSPM solution monitors the cloud infrastructure where its application runs, including across multiple cloud providers. When CSPM identifies a publicly accessible database containing customer payment information, it notifies the SecOps team, who immediately restrict access, preventing a potential data breach.
What’s a typical ASPM use case?
The same e-commerce company uses an ASPM solution to scan their app’s cloud-native code and dependencies and enforce application security best practices. When ASPM detects a critical vulnerability in a third-party library used for credit card transactions, it alerts the development team. Before the next deployment, the team quickly patches the vulnerability so that customer financial data cannot be exploited.
So do you need CSPM, ASPM, or both?
As these examples highlight, CSPM and ASPM are complementary rather than competing solutions. The e-commerce company can rest assured knowing that CSPM is guarding its environments while ASPM is guarding its applications (despite their inherent complexity).
Relying on a single solution can leave critical security gaps: It doesn’t help to secure cloud infrastructure if vulnerable application code is exposed, or to secure applications if cloud services are misconfigured.
That’s why most organizations will need elements of both CSPM and ASPM to fully understand their total risk and to ensure that neither infrastructure security nor application security is compromised.
This is why more organizations are adopting CNAPP platforms that bring together both capabilities. Unifying CSPM and ASPM not only closes coverage gaps—it creates a shared language and visibility model between infrastructure and development teams.
How do CSPM and ASPM fit into your unified cloud security strategy?
A long-term cloud security strategy will usually include both CSPM and AppSec tools like ASPM. Yet many organizations are already experiencing friction between development and security. Development wants to code quickly, build quickly, release quickly—and security is forced to step in and slow things down. And then there’s tool fatigue. Adding more security tools, with the extra alerts they inevitably generate, can quickly add to the stress and burden on your teams’ shoulders.
This highlights the growing need for a unified approach that bridges cloud and application security risks. With a cloud native application protection platform (CNAPP), you can solve these problems by combining CSPM, ASPM, CIEM, DSPM, and CWPP behind a single pane of glass.
When CSPM and ASPM work hand-in-hand as part of a CNAPP, they add less work, not more, and share information about your cloud environments to help improve your overall security posture.
For example, imagine a large healthcare provider is in the midst of transitioning its patient portal and data management systems to an AWS cloud-native architecture and is struggling with disjointed security visibility.
Their CSPM tool identifies publicly exposed storage containers containing sensitive medical records, which could represent a severe compliance risk. At the same time, their ASPM platform reveals a zero-day vulnerability in a third-party API used for appointment scheduling, which could let attackers exfiltrate patient data.
It’s not a question of which problem to remediate—both issues must be resolved quickly, before they can be exploited by attackers.
Fortunately, this organization is using a CNAPP to unify their CSPM and ASPM tools. The CNAPP alerts security and development teams to both issues with a comprehensive, prioritized risk assessment. That way, both teams can collaborate, fixing both the infrastructure misconfiguration and the application vulnerability—with no friction and no excess alerts.
Unify CSPM and ASPM with Wiz
Wiz brings together CSPM and ASPM as part of a unified CNAPP—so you can see misconfigurations, vulnerable code, and real exposure paths in a single graph. You get:
Context-rich alerts that correlate infrastructure, identity, and application risk
Visual attack paths to understand how one misconfigured resource could expose sensitive code or data
Frictionless remediation with one-click fixes and workflows that span teams
Instead of toggling between tools, you get a single source of truth for securing everything you build and run in the cloud.
Wiz helps you prioritize security risks across cloud infrastructure, applications, and identities with a context-driven approach, so you can quickly detect and remediate cloud misconfigurations (CSPM) and secure application code and software supply chains (ASPM). Plus, by combining insights across cloud and application security, you’ll reduce alert fatigue and response time.
With Wiz, you don’t have to choose application over environment security—or vice-versa. Get a personalized demo today to see how Wiz can work for you across Kubernetes, serverless containers, and virtual machines. Wiz gives you a full grasp on modern cloud development… without the blind spots.
