TL;DR
Choose Orca Security if: you're a mid-market or enterprise buyer, you need full CNAPP breadth (CSPM + CWPP + CIEM + DSPM), and a reseller-led, annual contract is fine.
Choose vul.ninja if: you're a startup or SMB, you want self-serve onboarding, monthly billing, and protection sized to your actual footprint — not an enterprise license.
Orca's SideScanning tech is genuinely clever. The problem isn't the product — it's the buying experience for smaller teams.
The quick verdict
Orca Security is better when…
- →You're a mid-market or enterprise with 200+ cloud workloads
- →You want the full CNAPP stack in one unified platform
- →You have a security team who can operate it
- →You're comfortable buying through AWS Marketplace or a reseller
- →An annual commit fits your procurement process
vul.ninja is better when…
- →You're a startup, SMB, or lean SaaS company
- →You want to sign up and scan your cloud today — no reseller
- →Monthly billing matters more than an annual discount
- →You need an AI agent that explains and fixes findings
- →Your budget is measured in hundreds, not thousands per month
Side-by-side
| Feature | vul.ninja | Orca Security |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | Free tier, then from $49/mo | Custom quote (mid-market pricing) |
| Billing | Monthly or annual | Annual, reseller or AWS Marketplace |
| Sales motion | Self-serve, no call required | Sales-led, quote-based |
| Setup time | Minutes | Under an hour to days |
| Agentless scanning | ✓ Yes | ✓ SideScanning (patented) |
| AI investigation agent | ✓ Core feature | AI-driven prioritization |
| Compliance gap analysis (SOC2, ISO, PCI) | ✓ Included | ✓ Included |
| CSPM + vulnerability management | ✓ | ✓ |
| CWPP (workload protection) | Core coverage | ✓ Full CWPP |
| DSPM (data security posture) | Roadmap | ✓ Included |
| CIEM (identity entitlements) | Core IAM checks | ✓ Full CIEM |
| Multi-cloud (AWS, Azure, GCP) | ✓ | ✓ |
| Buy directly from the vendor | ✓ | Reseller required |
| MCP server for AI coding agents | ✓ First in market — Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf | No |
| Best fit company size | 1–150 employees | 200–2,000+ employees |
Starting price at a glance
No published pricing. Requires a reseller or AWS Marketplace quote — no self-serve purchase option.
Two scenarios
A 20-person SaaS startup on AWSvul.ninja
Situation: Just raised a Series A, prepping for SOC2, no security hire yet. Needs something working this week, not after three sales calls and a reseller intro.
Why vul.ninja: Sign up, connect AWS, get findings in minutes. No annual commit, no procurement review. When they outgrow us, they can graduate to a bigger platform — we'd rather serve them well now than lock them into an enterprise contract they don't need.
A 400-person multi-cloud SaaSOrca Security
Situation: AWS + Azure, ~800 workloads, dedicated 3-person security team, full CNAPP requirements including DSPM for customer data classification.
Why Orca Security: At this scale, consolidating CSPM + CWPP + CIEM + DSPM into one platform is a real win. SideScanning deploys without agents. The procurement overhead is absorbed into normal operations. vul.ninja wouldn't cover their DSPM needs today.
Where Orca genuinely wins
Credit where it's due — Orca's CNAPP is a serious product and we're not going to pretend otherwise:
- —SideScanning is a clever approach. Agentless scanning of block storage without touching the workload is a real engineering achievement.
- —Full CNAPP breadth. If you need every category (CSPM, CWPP, CIEM, DSPM, vuln management) under one roof, Orca covers the full scope.
- —Unified Data Model. Context-aware prioritization across the estate is genuinely useful once you're big enough to have noise to cut through.
- —Proven at mid-market and up. If your buying committee has already standardized on "one unified CNAPP," Orca is a defensible choice.
If you're at that scale, Orca is worth evaluating. We're not the right fit.
Thinking about switching from Orca?
The most common reason we hear: "We're 30 people, we signed a contract with Orca because we had to for a customer, and we're paying for features we don't use or understand."
If that's you, the switch is usually straightforward:
- Connect your cloud accounts to vul.ninja (read-only, minutes)
- Run in parallel — validate that our findings cover what you actually need
- Export your compliance evidence from Orca before renewal
- Don't renew. Keep the cash in the business.
No migration fees. No annual commit. If you grow into needing Orca later, you'll know.
Not sure which is right?
Get a free AI-generated security assessment of your cloud in about 2 minutes. No call, no card, no commitment. If Orca is the right answer, we'll tell you.
See other comparisons
vul.ninja vs Wiz
Enterprise-grade CNAPP at enterprise-grade prices. Right tool, wrong budget for most startups.
vul.ninja vs Snyk
The category leader in developer code security. Solves a different problem than cloud posture.
vul.ninja vs Aikido
All-in-one AppSec platform (code + cloud + runtime). Good value if you use every module.
Orca Security is a trademark of Orca Security Ltd. This page reflects our independent analysis based on publicly available information. We are not affiliated with Orca.