This intelligence in this comparison is based on feedback from multiple meetings conducted by Reco experts with industry experts, customers and prospects. Feature classifications such as "Basic" or "Advanced," are influenced by the number of integrations and the depth of feature coverage. As vendor offerings evolve, these classifications may change. This table reflects the most recent data available as of May 26, 2025. Vendor offerings may change over time, and we cannot guarantee the ongoing accuracy of this information.
Overview of CrowdStrike Shield
CrowdStrike Shield is focused on helping enterprises secure their entire SaaS stack through posture management, and threat detection and response. It provides in-depth configuration checks across various SaaS applications, aligning them with industry best practices to avoid malware attacks that happen on using outdated agent versions. Users can see a full list of device vulnerabilities and understand the scope of each issue. CrowdStrike Shield follows a holistic Zero Trust Approach, aiming to detect and mitigate threats in SaaS environments continuously. CrowdStrike Shield also provides a step-by-step remediation approach for these issues. As part of the CrowdStrike suite, CrowdStrike Shield typically caters to large enterprises and is especially suitable for organizations that desire integration with existing Crowdstrike tools and vendor consolidation.
Overview of Obsidian Security
Obsidian Security is a SaaS security solution with a focus on threat detection, compliance, and minimizing and protecting the overall attack surface area. It provides posture hardening, integration management, and threat remediation for SaaS applications. Obsidian Security’s integration and compliance features streamline security operations, making it easier to meet regulatory requirements and protect sensitive data. Its pros include strong integration with identity providers, AI-powered threat detection, and compliance reporting. Its cons are less of a focus on SSPM and difficulty adding integrations. The pricing is competitive, offering a balance between features and affordability.
CrowdStrike Shield and Obsidian Security Feature Comparison
CrowdStrike Shield Key Features
- Comprehensive Risk Assessment: Continuous risk evaluation across SaaS platforms, focusing on configuration issues and vulnerabilities.
- Security Posture Monitoring: Continuous monitoring of misconfigurations.
- Compliance Checks: Out-of-the-box compliance frameworks that simplify adherence to regulations.
- User Access Management: Enforce the principle of least privilege across SaaS applications by determining permission level.
- Remediation Guidance: Actionable remediation suggestions provided to fix security gaps.
Obsidian Security Key Features
- User Event Behavior Analytics (UEBA): Utilizes machine learning to monitor user activity and detect anomalous behavior that could indicate a security threat.
- Insider Threat Detection: Focuses on identifying and mitigating risks associated with insider threats.
- Advanced Threat Detection: Uses behavior-based detection to identify and respond to potential security incidents.
- User-Centric Governance: Protects critical SaaS applications by monitoring user interactions and access patterns.
- Incident Response: Provides tools to investigate and respond to security incidents within SaaS environments.
Implementation and User Experience of CrowdStrike Shield and Obsidian Security
- CrowdStrike Shield: The platform is also API-based, and agentless. CrowdStrike Shield has a straightforward setup and once connected it's easy to use. The platform is designed to simplify the management of SaaS security, providing CISOs with clear insights and actionable data. Its user experience is focused on efficiency, with minimal training required to get up and running.
- Obsidian Security: The platform is also API-based, and agentless, except for an agent-based browser extension used for SaaS discovery. Ingesting data from SaaS applications, normalizing and deduplicating can take several business days. The platform's interface is geared toward monitoring and responding to user-centric threats, offering a streamlined experience for security teams focused on insider risk management.
Number of Integrations of CrowdStrike Shield and Obsidian Security
- CrowdStrike Shield: Offers broad integration support with numerous SaaS platforms, focusing on widely-used applications like Google Workspace, Salesforce, and Slack. Its integration ecosystem is designed to cover all major SaaS providers. However, once connected, CrowdStrike Shield does not offer comprehensive security coverage and its capabilities do not extend beyond basic posture management and threat detection and response.
- Obsidian Security: Integration options are more limited, with a focus on key SaaS applications such as Salesforce, Microsoft, Workday, ServiceNow, Google, Okta, and Slack. Niche or industry-specific SaaS applications are not supported.
Speed to Integration for CrowdStrike Shield and Obsidian Security
- CrowdStrike Shield: CrowdStrike Shield touts 180+ out-of-the-box integrations and a custom Integration Builder, with no guarantee on delivery time of new integrations. Currently, its development focus is on integration with the CrowdStrike suite and not necessarily adding support for new SaaS Apps.
- Obsidian Security: Extremely slow to add integrations. They put customer requests “on the roadmap” with no guarantees.
SaaS-to-SaaS Discovery Capabilities of CrowdStrike Shield and Obsidian Security
- CrowdStrike Shield: Offers integrated app discovery with a focus on risk assessment. The platform not only identifies SaaS applications but also evaluates their risk profiles, enabling CISOs to make informed decisions about which apps to sanction or block. It identifies misconfigured third-party apps, but does not provide insight into fourth-party risks or OAuth connections.
- Obsidian Security: It analyzes email headers and access token duration to uncover app-to-app interactions and flag risky authorizations. It can’t distinguish when a connected app is federated, which can lead to false positives.
Shadow IT Capabilities of CrowdStrike Shield and Obsidian Security
- Flacon Shield: Offers basic shadow IT detection with integrated risk assessment. CrowdStrike Shield can discover unsanctioned apps but cannot provide visibility into the associated identities. The platform identifies unauthorized SaaS usage and evaluates the associated risks, providing CISOs with the information needed to enforce security policies and protect organizational data.
- Obsidian Security: Obsidian has invested heavily into new browser-based technology to discover shadow apps. This discovers connected shadow apps, but is limited to Chrome browser only. Additionally, this agent-based browser extension can introduce supply chain risks, create new attack vectors, and create performance issues.
→ Read Next: The Hidden Risks of Browser Extensions in SaaS Security (Blog)
CrowdStrike Shield & Obsidian Security AI Governance Features
- CrowdStrike Shield: CrowdStrike Shield implements GenAI security policies to detect configuration changes, prevent data leakage from misconfigured AI settings and uncover unauthorized AI applications.
- Obsidian Security: Obsidian's offering centers on shadow AI management through browser extension technology, enabling organizations to identify, catalog, and regulate employee GenAI usage. Their solution monitors GenAI interactions, analyzes document uploads, and provides governance controls to manage access across the organization's AI ecosystem.
Agentic AI Support Offered by CrowdStrike Shield and Obsidian Security
- CrowdStrike Shield: CrowdStrike Shield does not currently offer an AI Agent or AI Assistant to augment security workflows.
- Obsidian Security: Does not offer an AI Agent or Assistant for efficiency gains.
Overview of Compliance Features of CrowdStrike Shield
CrowdStrike Shield provides a robust compliance management framework, focusing on simplifying the process of maintaining compliance across SaaS applications. The platform includes pre-built compliance templates for major regulations like GDPR, CCPA, and SOC 2. It continuously monitors the compliance status of SaaS applications, offering real-time alerts and detailed compliance reports to help CISOs stay ahead of regulatory requirements.
Overview of Compliance Features of Obsidian Security
Obsidian Security offers compliance features focused on monitoring user behavior and access patterns to ensure that SaaS environments adhere to internal policies and external regulations. While not as comprehensive as AppOmni's compliance capabilities, Obsidian's tools provide valuable insights into potential compliance risks associated with user actions.
Compliance Comparison of CrowdStrike Shield and Obsidian Security
- CrowdStrike Shield: Simplifies compliance with pre-configured templates and continuous monitoring. It emphasizes ease of use, making it easier for organizations to maintain compliance without extensive manual effort. CrowdStrike Shield’s real-time alerts and detailed reporting also ensure that any compliance issues are promptly addressed.
- Obsidian Security: Provides basic compliance features centered around user behavior and access monitoring. It is more focused on internal policy enforcement and insider risk management than on comprehensive regulatory compliance.
Overview of CrowdStrike Shield Pros and Cons
Pros:
- Supports 180 SaaS apps and an Integration Builder
- Good choice for organizations that use CrowdStrike and want to consolidate vendors or get more out of existing tools
- Strong focus on posture management offering 5000+ security policies for hardening configurations
Cons:
- Can discover misconfigured third-party apps, but has limited visibility into OAuth scopes
- Alerts based on static rules and thresholds as opposed to business context, which can produce false positives
- Focus on SSPM, while app discovery, shadow app discovery, SaaS-to-SaaS detection and threat detection is more limited
Overview of Obsidian Security Pros and Cons
Pros:
- Excels at AI-based threat detection, insider threat management, and is an excellent SOC tool.
- Excels at governing app-to-app data movement
- Strong integration with identity providers (IdP)
- Mature compliance capabilities
Cons:
- Can’t distinguish when a connected app is federated, which can lead to false positives.
- Agent-based, browser technology can introduce privacy, security, and performance issues
- Can discover shadow apps but may be limited to Chrome browser
- Limited integration support: supports 50 apps
Overview of CrowdStrike Shield Pros and Cons
Pros:
- Supports 180 SaaS apps and an Integration Builder
- Good choice for organizations that use CrowdStrike and want to consolidate vendors or get more out of existing tools
- Strong focus on posture management offering 5000+ security policies for hardening configurations
Cons:
- Can discover misconfigured third-party apps, but has limited visibility into OAuth scopes
- Alerts based on static rules and thresholds as opposed to business context, which can produce false positives
- Focus on SSPM, while app discovery, shadow app discovery, SaaS-to-SaaS detection and threat detection is more limited
Overview of Reco
Reco is a comprehensive alternative to CrowdStrike Shield and Obsidian Security. While Obsidian focuses primarily on identity threat detection and response (ITDR) and CrowdStrike Shield focuses on broad SaaS security coverage without going deep, Reco focuses on securing the entire SaaS lifecycle. While Reco and CrowdStrike’s integration coverage is comparable, Reco’s Dynamic SaaS Security Platform goes beyond static configuration checks delivering depth of visibility, breadth of SaaS-to-SaaS governance, and the ability to proactively detect and mitigate risks in real-time. Reco’s ITDR capabilities are comparable to Obsidian, while providing more breadth and depth of coverage along with shadow SaaS management capabilities.
Reco’s Integration Capabilities
Reco can discover and secure over 50,000 SaaS applications. It integrates with 175+ SaaS applications. Reco develops new application integrations using a low-code, no-code development and can add a new full-featured integration in 3-5 days.
Reco’s Comprehensive App Discovery and Shadow IT Features
Reco is a comprehensive SaaS security solution that supports the entire lifecycle of SaaS, from posture management to shadow IT and threat detection and response. It gives organizations full visibility into their SaaS ecosystem, monitors permissions and access across identities, and tracks misconfigurations and configuration drifts.
Reco uses advanced analytics around persona, actions, interactions and relationships to other users, and then uses this context to send prioritized alerts on potential exposure. This comprehensive picture is generated continuously using the Reco Identities Interaction Graph and empowers security teams to take swift action to effectively prioritize their most critical points of risk. Reco uses a low-code/no-code approach to add a new SaaS integration in 3-5 days.
Reco’s SaaS-to-SaaS Discovery Capabilities
Until now, even answering how many SaaS applications were connected to an organization’s environment was almost impossible, let alone what they are. Reco’s AI-based graph technology connects in minutes and provides immediate visibility to security teams to continuously discover all SaaS applications, Shadow IT, GenAI tool usage, and data exposure risks. It maps an organization's entire SaaS ecosystem, providing visibility into risky OAuth connections, third-party integrations, and even fourth-party data sharing risks. Reco is then able to identify, contextualize, prioritize and – most importantly – address potential risks.
Reco’s Shadow IT Capabilities
Reco monitors email headers and uses this data to discover apps installed without IT approval/authorization. Reco is the only solution that combines this technology with posture management and threat detection within the SaaS ecosystem.
Read Next: How Reco Discovers Shadow AI and SaaS (blog)
Reco’s Key Features and Benefits
Reco is a full lifecycle SaaS security solution that brings a suite of innovative features that are redefining standards in the SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) category.
Identity Management
Reco introduces a contextual, graph-based approach to identity management. Unlike traditional SSPM solutions that treat identity in isolation, Reco's system integrates identities across all SaaS platforms, providing a unified view that provides context, enhances security oversight, and bolsters incident response. This graph-based approach offers deep insight into potential security risks associated with interconnected identities and permissions and fewer false positives thanks to this crucial context absent from other SSPM solutions.
Advanced Analytics & ITDR
Reco’s contextual graph is the baseline for the real-time adaptive policy engine that allows end users to create and modify security policies that respond dynamically in real time to emerging threats. Reco integrates with existing security tools such as SOAR platforms and SIEMs, automating remediation processes. This reduces both the window of opportunity for attackers and configuration drifts as they happen. This continuous compliance helps organizations identify and remediate potential threats that might otherwise go unnoticed for months until performing official compliance audits.
Multi-Tenant Management
Reco is designed for both service providers and large enterprises. Reco supports complex multi-tenant environments, allowing organizations to manage multiple clients or business units from a single, centralized platform. Each tenant's data is isolated and secure.
Permissions and Access Management
Over-permissioned access, stale accounts, and external accounts pose immense risks to organizations’ data security. Reco continuously assesses users’ permission level using the principle of least privilege access, ensuring users and service accounts have no more access than necessary. In addition, Reco helps identify and revoke permissions that are unused or dormant, stale accounts, and risky user behavior that could lead to a breach. This constant monitoring across identities helps organizations ensure over-privileged users don’t become a liability.
Compliance and Configurations
As misconfigurations are one of the highest risks organizations face, Reco can help teams stay in continuous compliance by monitoring for configuration changes or drifts. These metrics are fully customizable to help organizations recognize and resolve compliance issues before an audit. By tracking and gaining visibility into these potential risks, organizations are able to ensure they are following the correct industry best practices and frameworks.
GenAI and Agentic AI Governance
Reco's Dynamic SaaS Security Platform governs AI systems across your SaaS ecosystem by automatically discovering all connected AI tools—from enterprise solutions to shadow applications—and monitoring their data access. It establishes behavioral baselines for AI agents to detect anomalies indicating compromise, maps connections between SaaS applications and AI systems to identify excessive permissions, and verifies appropriate authentication controls and access limitations. This comprehensive approach addresses the unique security challenges of both generative AI and autonomous agents.
Reco AI Agents
Reco AI Agents streamline SaaS security through intelligent automation, reducing analyst workload while enhancing protection. These agents perform smart alert triage, saving teams an average of 7 minutes per alert by evaluating threats in context and filtering out noise. They automate contextual investigation by gathering and correlating information across the SaaS ecosystem, continuously analyze identity risks (reducing manual audit work by 40%), and provide dynamic, situation-specific remediation recommendations that replace static playbooks with adaptive guidance for more efficient threat response.
How Reco Enhances Efficiency and Compliance
Reco has saved costs, time and lowered risk for organizations. Users saved 500+ hours/year when automating the user access review process, and 350+ hours/year no longer handling manual data aggregation and correlation for investigation. They saved $70,000/year on average when automating posture checks and mapping to compliance frameworks, and $50,000/year when removing stale accounts identified using Reco. Users lower risk by 90% from the visibility gained across core SaaS applications, third-party apps, and shadow IT, and lower risk by 70% when automating event monitoring in Salesforce and Microsoft 365.
Conclusion
For CISOs evaluating SaaS security solutions, CrowdStrike Shield and Obsidian Security offer distinct advantages depending on the organization's specific needs. CrowdStrike Shield is a good fit for organizations looking for a simplified approach to SaaS security with an emphasis on risk assessment and compliance. Reco is the most comprehensive SaaS security solution, and the only option offering posture management, shadow app discovery, and threat detection. Obsidian Security, on the other hand, is better suited for organizations prioritizing user behavior monitoring and insider threat protection. Reco is the most comprehensive SaaS security solution, and the only option offering posture management, shadow app discovery, and threat detection.
The choice will depend on whether your focus is on if the solution offers a simplified or complex approach to securing your SaaS ecosystem, or on proactively preventing data exposure or reactively mitigating insider risks.
Want to compare more top SaaS security vendors? Download the FREE Guide to compare Obsidian Security, Grip Security, CrowdStrike Shield, Legacy SSPM, and Reco side by side.
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