CrowdStrike Falcon or SentinelOne Cloud for multi-cloud workload protection

Alright, let's get this party started. I'm the guy who gets a new CRM demo every quarter, so naturally I've also been dragged into evaluating endpoint and workload security for our multi-cloud mess. We're on AWS, Azure, and have some Google Cloud experiments that will probably be abandoned. The mandate: consolidate workload protection.

I've run PoCs for both CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security and SentinelOne Cloud Workload Security. Not impressed with either, but in different, almost artistic ways.

**CrowdStrike's** strength is obviously its threat intelligence and the single-agent dream. But in a multi-cloud environment? The cloud security posture management (CSPM) feels bolted on, like an afterthought after their endpoint dominance. The Kubernetes security visibility is decent, but the automated remediation for cloud misconfigurations is weaker than the sales deck promised. You still need a dedicated CSPM tool if you're serious about compliance across accounts.

**SentinelOne's** story is more cloud-native from the ground up. Their Singularity Cloud platform is cleaner for visualizing multi-cloud attack surfaces. However, their behavioral AI for workloads, while aggressive, throws more "critical" alerts on benign dev workload fluctuations than I'd like. Tuning it feels like a part-time job. Also, their data ingestion model can get pricey fast if you turn on all the telemetry.

The real kicker for both?
* Data portability is a nightmare. Lock-in is absolute. Once you bake their agents into your golden images, extricating yourself is a migration project.
* Neither gives you a true unified data lake you can query independently. You're stuck in their portal, on their terms.

So, for those who've lived with one or both: did you find the workload protection materially better than layering a good CSPM with a basic CWPP? Or is this just another checkbox for the audit folks?