Prisma Cloud Enterprise Edition vs Compute Edition
This article describes the key differences between Compute in Prisma Cloud Enterprise Edition and Prisma Cloud Compute Edition.
Use this guide to determine which option is right for you.
How is Compute delivered?
Compute is delivered in one of two packages:
- Prisma Cloud Enterprise Edition (SaaS)— Single pane of glass for both CSPM (Cloud Security Posture Management) & CWPP (Cloud Workload Protection Platform). Compute (formerly Twistlock, a CWPP solution) is delivered as part of the larger Prisma Cloud system. Palo Alto Networks runs, manages, and updates Compute Console for you. You deploy and manage Defenders in your environment. You access the Compute Console from a tab within the Prisma Cloud user interface.
- Prisma Cloud Compute Edition (self-hosted)— Stand-alone, self-operated version of Compute (formerly Twistlock). Download the entire software suite, and run it in any environment. You deploy and manage both Console and Defenders.
What are the similarities between editions?
Both Enterprise Edition (SaaS) and Compute Edition (self-hosted) are built on the same source base.
The Console container image we run for you in Enterprise Edition is the exact same container image we give to you in Compute Edition to run in your environment.
We are committed to supporting and developing both versions without any feature divergence.
When should you use Enterprise Edition?
Prisma Cloud Enterprise Edition is a good choice when:
- You want a single platform that protects both the service plane (public cloud resource configuration) and the compute plane.
- You want convenience. We manage your Console for you. We update it for you. You get a 99.9% uptime SLA.
When should you use Compute Edition?
Prisma Cloud Compute Edition is a good choice when:
- You want full control over your data.
- You’re operating in an air-gapped environment.
- You want to implement enterprise-grade multi-tenancy with one Console per tenant. For multi-tenancy, Compute Edition offers a feature called Projects.
What advantages does Prisma Cloud Enterprise Edition offer over Compute Edition?
When the Prisma Cloud CSPM and CWPP tools work together, Palo Alto Networks can offer economies of scale by sharing data (so called "data overlays").
The Prisma Cloud CSPM tool has always offered the ability to integrate with third party scanners, such as Tenable, to supplement configuration assessments with host vulnerability data.
Starting with the Nov 2019 release of Enterprise Edition, the CSPM tool can utilize the host vulnerability data Compute Defender collects as part of its regular scans.
Customers that have already licensed one workload for a host can leverage that single workload for configuration assessments by the CSPM tool, host vulnerability scanning (via Compute Defender), and host runtime protection (via Compute Defender).
Customers can expect additional "data overlays" in future releases, including better ways to gauge security posture with combined dashboards.
What are the differences between Prisma Cloud Enterprise Edition and Compute Edition?
There are a handful of differences between Enterprise Edition and Compute Edition.
Consider these differences when deciding which edition is right for you.
Projects:
There is no support for Compute projects in the Prisma Cloud Enterprise Edition (PCEE).
However, Enterprise Edition (EE) does offer alternatives that support Project’s primary use cases.
The use case for projects is isolation, where each team has a dedicated Console so that other teams can’t see each other’s data.
Prisma Cloud EE supports isolation with multiple independent Prisma Cloud tenants, one per team, with one Compute Console per tenant.
Within a single PCEE tenant, Compute Console also offers isolation to data access based on cloud account filtering.
Contact Customer Success to create multiple tenants.
Note that the license count shown in the Prisma Cloud UI is per tenant, not the aggregate across multiple tenants.
If you want to control tenant deployments yourself, use Compute Edition.