Why agentless-first matters in modern cloud environments
Cloud environments don’t sit still. Teams constantly spin up resources, adopt new managed services, refactor architectures, and deploy short-lived workloads that live for minutes—not months. Security has to keep pace with that velocity.
Ephemeral infrastructure breaks traditional agent models.
Containers, ephemeral VMs, and serverless functions appear and disappear faster than agents can be installed, updated, or stabilized. Any host launched without an agent—even briefly—creates blind spots.Agent-based scanning struggles at cloud scale.
Agents introduce operational overhead, lifecycle management, and privileged processes that don’t align with how cloud resources are created and destroyed. They can be useful, but they shouldn’t be your default.This is why Wiz leads with agentless-first.
API-based discovery and snapshot analysis deliver immediate coverage across every cloud account – no installations, no missed hosts, no performance impact. When teams need runtime depth, Wiz adds a lightweight eBPF sensor that captures live system activity without the burden of a traditional agent.
In short: agentless-first gives you the breadth and speed you need; runtime sensors give you the depth when you need it.
Uncover vulnerabilities in the cloud without deploying agents
See why CISOs at the fastest growing companies choose Wiz to secure their cloud environments.
What is agentless security?
Agentless security is a cloud-native approach that provides visibility and risk assessment without installing software on workloads. Instead of deploying agents on every VM, container, or node, agentless platforms collect data directly from cloud APIs, metadata, and snapshots.
This model fits how cloud actually works: workloads are ephemeral, autoscaling is constant, and teams need immediate, consistent coverage—not lifecycle management for thousands of agents.
How agentless security works
Agentless platforms operate through two primary mechanisms:
API-based discovery:
Secure cloud APIs surface every resource – across accounts, regions, and services. This provides complete inventory visibility the moment a resource is created.Snapshot analysis:
Temporary, read-only snapshots let the platform scan workloads for vulnerabilities and misconfigurations without touching the running system. Snapshots are discarded automatically after analysis.
Together, these methods give security teams full coverage with zero workload overhead. There’s no agent to deploy, upgrade, troubleshoot, or secure – meaning less friction and fewer operational risks.
How does agentless security work?
Agentless security connects directly to your cloud providers – AWS, Azure, and GCP – through secure APIs. Once permissions are established, the platform automatically discovers resources and pulls the data required to assess configuration, exposure, and risk.
Instead of installing software on each system, agentless solutions gather information from:
Cloud APIs for resource inventory, metadata, permissions, and configurations
Storage snapshots for offline vulnerability and malware scanning
Cloud logs and network settings for exposure, connectivity, and identity insights
Cross-account and cross-service correlations to reveal relationships attackers could exploit
This outside-in model delivers full visibility without touching workloads, and scales instantly across accounts and resource types.
Where runtime depth comes in
Agentless provides broad coverage and posture insights, but some use cases benefit from real-time visibility—like detecting anomalous process activity, system calls, or lateral movement attempts.
Wiz addresses this by offering a lightweight eBPF sensor that adds runtime context without the operational cost of traditional agents. It complements – not replaces – the agentless foundation.
Agentless security vs. agent-based security
Agentless and agent-based approaches both have a role in cloud security – but they’re not equal. In modern cloud environments, where resources are ephemeral and scale changes by the minute, an agentless-first model delivers better coverage, lower operational effort, and fewer blind spots. Agents still matter, but mostly for narrow legacy or on-prem scenarios.
Below is a clear, updated look at how both models stack up.
Advantages of agent-based security (and where they still make sense)
Traditional agents collect telemetry and enforce policies by running software directly on each host. That gives them certain strengths – but also carries costs that add up quickly in the cloud.
1. Active host-level enforcement
Agents can take action locally: blocking processes, modifying configurations, enforcing firewall settings, or pruning unused software.
Where this helps:
Legacy systems, on-prem workloads, or specialized hosts that need direct control.
Why it’s not ideal for cloud:
This power comes through privileged, long-running processes, which create new risk if compromised. And every single host needs the agent installed, updated, and healthy.
2. Works across mixed infrastructure
Agents can run on cloud VMs, bare metal, data center servers, and endpoints. This can standardize security tooling across diverse environments.
Where this helps:
Hybrid setups or environments without good API coverage.
Why it’s not ideal for cloud:
Cloud-native environments already have robust APIs – and they scale automatically. Agents cannot match the elasticity or speed of cloud workloads.
3. Can function with limited connectivity
Agents sometimes continue local monitoring even during outages or network issues.
Where this helps:
Isolated edge environments.
Why it’s not ideal for cloud:
Cloud security requires unified, correlated visibility across accounts and services. Disconnected agents create fragmentation, not resilience.
Disadvantages of agent-based security (magnified at cloud scale)
1. Coverage gaps are inevitable
Any VM, container, or node launched without an agent—intentionally or accidentally – becomes invisible. In fast-moving cloud environments, this is inevitable.
2. Heavy operational maintenance
Every agent must be deployed, upgraded, debugged, restarted, and monitored across thousands of resources. Drift and misconfiguration are constant risks.
3. Performance and cost overhead
Even “lightweight” agents consume CPU and memory. At scale, this can push nodes into higher compute tiers and increase operating costs.
4. Vendor lock-in
Switching agents means mass uninstall + mass reinstall, often across thousands of hosts. The sunk cost slows adoption of better tools.
5. Increased attack surface
Agents are privileged, network-connected processes – and many have had critical CVEs. If an attacker compromises an agent, they inherit its access.
6. Difficult to scale with ephemeral cloud workloads
Autoscaling groups, spot instances, serverless patterns, and short-lived compute break agent-based models. Cloud security needs automatic, zero-touch coverage.
Advantages of agentless security
Agentless models ingest data from cloud APIs, metadata, storage snapshots, and configurations – outside the workload. That makes them dramatically easier to deploy and operate.
1. Simple, automatic coverage
Connect once to your cloud accounts and everything is visible. New workloads are discovered the moment they’re created – no installation, no drift, no gaps.
2. Cloud-native scalability
Whether you have 10 workloads or 100,000, coverage scales instantly with no per-host deployment or tuning.
3. Zero performance impact
No agents = no CPU impact, no memory consumption, no interference with workload performance.
4. Low friction and no lock-in
You can onboard, trial, or switch tools easily because there’s nothing deployed on the workloads themselves.
5. No maintenance burden
No agent lifecycle to manage. The platform updates itself.
Disadvantages of agentless security (and how Wiz addresses them)
1. Requires cloud APIs
Agentless excels in cloud-native environments but cannot directly monitor hosts in on-prem environments without robust APIs.
Wiz recommendation:
Use agentless-first in cloud; fall back to agents only where APIs/sensors cannot reach.
2. Limited direct runtime enforcement
Agentless solutions don’t sit inside the workload, so they cannot directly block processes or quarantine files.
How Wiz solves it:
Wiz complements agentless with a lightweight eBPF runtime sensor – a kernel-level monitor that provides:
real-time system call visibility
file/network/process monitoring
Kubernetes runtime insights
anomalous behavior detection
…without introducing full agents or the operational overhead they bring.
This gives teams the runtime depth of agent-based tools without the cost, risk, or maintenance of agents.
Summary: Agentless vs. agent-based security
Agentless-first security delivers the broadest, most consistent visibility across modern cloud environments. It scales automatically, avoids performance overhead, and removes the operational burden of deploying and maintaining agents. While traditional agents can offer host-level enforcement, they introduce drift, privileged processes, and coverage gaps—challenges that only worsen as cloud velocity increases.
Wiz recommends an agentless-first foundation, using cloud APIs and snapshots for posture, misconfigurations, identities, and vulnerabilities. When runtime depth is needed, teams can layer in Wiz’s lightweight eBPF runtime sensor to capture real-time signals without sacrificing the simplicity of an agentless model. Traditional agents should be reserved only for edge cases in legacy or on-prem environments.
The table below provides a quick reference for key factors to help you decide between the two.
| Feature | Agent-based security | Agentless-first security |
|---|---|---|
| Deployment method | Agent process running on every workload | API connection to cloud accounts; no software on workloads (optional eBPF sensor for runtime depth) |
| Deployment speed | Slow; requires admins to install the agent | Instant, after initial setup |
| Scalability | Limited; requires agent to be manually installed and maintained on every resource | Highly scalable; new cloud resources automatically discovered |
| Flexibility | Harder to change configuration; risk of vendor lock-in | Highly flexible to changing requirements |
| Effect on security | Risk that agents will be compromised | No effect on workload security (data consumed from existing APIs) |
| Maintenance requirements | Agents must be updated and secured | Maintenance managed by the service provider |
| Best used for | Legacy on-premises and hybrid cloud services that aren’t supported by agentless services | All cloud resources |
Wiz's approach to agentless security
Wiz is agentless-first by design, giving you complete visibility across your cloud – servers, VMs, containers, identities, data, and managed services – without deploying software to your workloads. API-based discovery and snapshot analysis provide unified coverage across every cloud account, region, and service from day one.
When you need runtime depth, Wiz adds a lightweight eBPF runtime sensor that captures system calls, file activity, and anomalous behavior in Kubernetes and Linux – without the overhead or risk of a traditional agent. This lets teams extend cloud and application runtime visibility while preserving the simplicity and scalability of an agentless-first architecture.
Wiz also includes flexible, customizable rules, unified response workflows, and correlated risk insights across cloud, identity, data, and runtime – all in a single platform. You get one security graph, one set of findings, and one place to investigate and take action.
Accelerate security with an agentless-first foundation and runtime depth when you need it.
Request a demo to see how Wiz secures your cloud without the operational burden of agents.
Uncover vulnerabilities in the cloud without deploying agents
See why CISOs at the fastest growing companies choose Wiz to secure their cloud environments.