The Best Alternatives to Google Cloud Policy Intelligence for Smarter IAM

Read full article here: https://www.p0.dev/blog/gcp-policy-int/?utm_source=nhimg

As Google Cloud Platform (GCP) introduces new pricing and feature restrictions to its Policy Intelligence suite, many security engineers are rethinking their IAM (Identity and Access Management) visibility strategies. Policy Intelligence has long served as a foundational toolset for GCP security, helping organizations manage least privilege access, diagnose access issues, and understand complex permission chains. But with the upcoming changes, free-tier users will face critical limitations—especially in IAM Recommender and Policy Analyzer usage.

The IAM Recommender will now restrict advanced recommendations for non-basic and custom roles to premium users, leaving only basic Viewer, Editor, and Owner role suggestions available for free. Meanwhile, Policy Analyzer, a core feature used to trace and explain access relationships, will limit its free usage to just 20 queries per day. For large or dynamic GCP environments, these restrictions significantly reduce visibility into overprovisioned access and transitive risk.

For teams managing hundreds or thousands of cloud identities, these limitations create an immediate need to explore alternatives that maintain insight, automation, and cost efficiency without sacrificing depth.

Evaluating Your Options: Upgrade, Integrate, or Replace

Security leaders have three main paths forward:

1. Upgrade to Google’s premium SKU for full access to Policy Intelligence capabilities. This route offers continuity but comes with added cost considerations and dependency on Google’s evolving ecosystem.
2. Adopt a specialized CIEM or CNAPP vendor—such as Wiz, Orca, or Ermetic—to gain extended cloud security visibility. These platforms integrate IAM analysis with workload protection (CWPP), misconfiguration detection (CSPM), and data protection (DSPM). The challenge lies in cost and feature overkill for teams that only need IAM-specific intelligence.
3. Explore emerging free or open alternatives, such as P0’s starter tier, which mirrors and expands upon Policy Intelligence functionality.

Why P0 Stands Out: Contextual, Risk-Based IAM Analysis

Unlike static recommendations, P0 delivers context-driven risk insights that prioritize the most dangerous IAM permissions using its IAM Privilege Catalog—a framework mapping GCP IAM roles to the MITRE ATT&CK® matrix. This enables teams to identify and remediate the riskiest configurations first, avoiding alert fatigue and unnecessary policy churn.

P0 also centralizes contextual data from multiple sources—IAM configurations, identity providers, and access logs—to offer unified visibility. Teams can track access evolution in real time and convert investigative queries into continuous monitors, ensuring ongoing security posture awareness.

Simplifying IAM Change Management

Traditional IAM tuning often falters due to operational friction. Removing excessive permissions carries the risk of unexpected production outages. P0’s integrated workflow engine streamlines this by enabling direct permission modifications within findings, automatically notifying affected principals through Slack, and offering an access escalation Slackbot for seamless privilege re-requests. This closes the loop between detection and enforcement, a gap that Policy Intelligence never fully addressed.

Securing Service Account Keys and Machine Identities

As machine identities dominate cloud environments, key management remains a critical weakness. Even with least privilege enforced, a leaked or misused key can provide attackers unrestricted access. P0 extends IAM intelligence to machine identity security by monitoring key usage patterns, correlating them with historical behavior, and detecting potential compromise early.

Final Takeaway

The changes to GCP’s Policy Intelligence mark a turning point for cloud identity management. Free-tier visibility is shrinking, and organizations must rethink how they maintain least privilege, access transparency, and operational agility. Whether upgrading to the new premium tier, investing in CIEM solutions, or adopting open platforms like P0, the key is sustained visibility into permissions and service account behavior.