TigerGate vs Orca Security: Agent-Based Depth vs Agentless Simplicity

TigerGate and Orca Security both position as CNAPPs but make fundamentally different architectural bets. Orca pioneered agentless SideScanning — reading cloud workload data from snapshots with zero performance impact. TigerGate combines agentless cloud scanning with an eBPF-based runtime agent for real-time workload protection. The trade-off is simplicity vs depth.

Feature Comparison

Runtime protection is the biggest differentiator. TigerGate's eBPF agent provides real-time kernel-level visibility — binary execution monitoring, file integrity checks, network traffic analysis, and privilege escalation detection — at under 3% CPU overhead. Orca is agentless-only and does not offer runtime protection. If a workload is actively being compromised, TigerGate detects it in real time; Orca would detect the misconfiguration or vulnerability that enabled it, but not the active exploitation.

Agentless scanning gives Orca an edge for zero-friction deployment. Orca's patented SideScanning reads workload data from cloud provider snapshots without touching running instances. TigerGate uses agentless scanning for CSPM but adds its lightweight agent for runtime visibility.

Compliance strongly favors TigerGate with 38+ frameworks, automated evidence mapping, and industry-specific compliance packs for FinTech, Healthcare, SaaS, and Government. Orca provides basic compliance benchmarks (CIS, NIST) but is not a compliance automation platform.

Code security gives TigerGate the advantage with integrated SAST, SCA, and IaC scanning from the ground up. Orca has added shift-left capabilities more recently but its strength remains in runtime and cloud posture.

DSPM gives Orca an edge with more mature data security posture management — discovering and classifying sensitive data across cloud storage, databases, and data lakes. TigerGate offers DSPM capabilities but Orca's implementation has more depth.

Kubernetes security favors TigerGate with full-lifecycle KSPM including admission control, image scanning, and runtime container monitoring. Orca scans Kubernetes configurations agentlessly but without runtime detection.

Who Should Choose TigerGate

Choose TigerGate if you need runtime protection alongside cloud posture management. TigerGate is the better CNAPP for organizations that want real-time threat detection in production workloads, not just periodic vulnerability scanning. The 38+ compliance framework support makes it especially valuable for regulated industries where security findings must map directly to audit evidence.

Who Should Choose Orca

Choose Orca if agentless deployment is a hard requirement — your organization prohibits agents on production workloads, or your environment includes workloads where agents cannot be installed. Orca's SideScanning technology provides comprehensive visibility without any performance impact, and its DSPM capabilities are stronger for organizations with significant data classification requirements.

Our Recommendation

TigerGate delivers the more complete CNAPP for organizations willing to deploy a lightweight agent. The combination of runtime protection, compliance automation, and code security covers use cases that Orca's agentless-only approach cannot. However, if zero-impact deployment is non-negotiable, Orca remains the best agentless CNAPP on the market.