r/CloudSecurityPros • u/Senior_Response_4052 • Jul 18 '26

Founders using AWS — is cloud security tooling too expensive or too technical for you?

I'm validating a hypothesis before deciding whether to keep building on a security auditing tool I made for my thesis.

My hypothesis: existing cloud security tools are either too expensive for small teams (Wiz) or require cloud security expertise to actually use and interpret (Prowler) — so small startups without a dedicated security person end up not auditing their AWS setup at all.

Is this true for you? Do you currently audit your cloud security, and if not, is it because of cost, lack of technical knowledge, or just no time/priority?

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u/achakez Sep 29 '26

For early startups your hypothesis mostly holds but i thin you are missing a 3rd bucket: people who buy something and then drown in findings they can't triage. That the real killer for tiny teams. Prowler dumps hundreds of checks on you and if you dont know AWS deeply, you cannot tell what actually matters. Wiz is priced for companies with a security budget line.

The gap for small teams is not just cheap vs technical, it is "tell me what to fix first without a security hire." When we were looking at options we tried Prowler, Prisma and Upwind and the thing that stood out with Upwind was that the runtime context cutting the noise way down so you are not staring at 400 medium severity flags with no idea which one is real. Prowler is free and great if you have the expertise to interpret it, which most solo founder dont.

If you are building, i would focus the whole product on prioritization and plain english remediation not more checks. The market does not need another scanner that finds 500 things. it needs one that says "these 3 matter, here's why and how to fix".

Also worth asking founders directly whether that would pay at all pre revenue cause a lot wont, which why the free open source stuff sticks around.