Azure Key Vault vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud comparison

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605 views|446 comparisons
97% willing to recommend
Microsoft Logo
9,753 views|7,447 comparisons
95% willing to recommend
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Azure Key Vault and Microsoft Defender for Cloud based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Microsoft Security Suite solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
To learn more, read our detailed Azure Key Vault vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Report (Updated: March 2024).
771,212 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"The GUI was quite easy for me to use.""It allows me to run applications using these certificates without directly installing them.""I find the simplicity of key management to be the most valuable feature. Key management has always been a difficult function to do, especially in the cloud premises. Azure Key Vault provides you with a mechanism for managing keys, without having to worry about protecting secrets is valuable.""The centralized storage and secure storage are features we like.""All its features are really valuable. It's really well thought-out. It's a complete turnkey solution that has all the concerns taken care of, such as access control and management. You can use it in infrastructure as code to create key vaults, APIs, PowerShells, CLIs, even Terraform.""It is a managed service in Azure, you do not have to worry about security other than managing your own identities.""The integration with other Azure services is one of the standout features for me. It allows us to use secrets from the Azure Key Vault seamlessly without direct interaction.Additionally, the ability to easily mark secrets for expiration and receive notifications is invaluable.""The product’s advantageous feature is integration."

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"It isn't a highly complex solution. It's something that a lot of analysts can use. Defender gives you a broad overview of what's happening in your environment, and it's a great solution if you're a Microsoft shop.""The dashboard is very good. It gives our clients a lot of information and allows them to have a complete overview of the system. Everything is visible in one glance.""It helps you to identify the gaps in your solution and remediate them. It produces a compliance checklist against known standards such as ISO 27001, HIPAA, iTrust, etc.""Defender lets you orchestrate the roll-out from a single pane. Using the Azure portal, you can roll it out over all the servers covered by the entire subscription.""Defender is a robust platform for dealing with many kinds of threats. We're protected from various threats, like viruses. Attacks can be easily minimized with this solution defending our infrastructure.""Most importantly, it's an integrated solution. We not only have Defender for Cloud, but we also have Defender for Endpoint, Defender for Office 365, and Defender for Identity. It's an integrated, holistic solution.""Defender is user-friendly and provides decent visibility into threats.""When you have commissioned Defender, you have these things visible already on your dashboard. This gives the efficiency to the people to do their actual work rather than bothering about the email, sorting out the email, or looking at it through an ITSM solution, whey they have to look at the description and use cases. Efficiency increases with this optimized, ready-made solution since you don't need to invest in something externally. You can start using the dashboard and auditing capability provided from day one. Thus, you have fewer costs with a more optimized, easier-to-use solution, providing operational efficiency for your team."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud Pros →

Cons
"One of my previous clients was one of the big banks here in the Netherlands and the EU courts have stated that Microsoft Azure Key Vault is not, according to their perspective, secure due to the fact that Microsoft has access to Key Vault.""The solution's usage can be a little better from the user interface point of view.""Azure Key Vault takes time to fetch values while integrating it with the code written in .NET format.""I would rate the stability of Microsoft Azure Key Vault an eight out of ten. We use the solution in the data science field. If there is some outage, we did not notice any prolonged outage which would affect our business significantly while working with it.""The solution needs to improve its cost.""If the region where the Azure Key Vault data center is hosted goes down, it would be a cumbersome task since our company will have to come up with a different Azure Key Vault and migrate all the secrets or keys into it.""The integration with Thales HSM is complex and is not out-of-the-box. Uploading the keys was quite a tedious process.""Inability to access the solution on the phone."

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"Azure Security Center takes a long time to update, compared to the on-premises version of Microsoft Defender.""Azure is a complex solution. You have so many moving parts.""Another thing that could be improved was that they could recommend processes on how to react to alerts, or recommend best practices based on how other organizations do things if they receive an alert about XYZ.""There is no perfect product in the world and there are always features that can be added.""Most of the time, when we log into the support, we don't get a chance to interact with Microsoft employees directly, except having it go to outsource employees of Microsoft. The initial interaction has not been that great because outsourced companies cannot provide the kind of quality or technical expertise that we look for. We have a technical manager from Microsoft, but they are kind of average unless we make noise and ask them to escalate. We then can get the right people and the right solution, but it definitely takes time.""You cannot create custom use cases.""Pricing could be improved. There are limited options based on pricing for the government.""Another thing is that Defender for Cloud uses more resources than CrowdStrike, which my current company uses. Defender for Cloud has two or three processes running simultaneously that consume memory and processor time. I had the chance to compare that with CrowdStrike a few days ago, which was significantly less. It would be nice if Defender were a little lighter. It's a relatively large installation that consumes more resources than competitors do."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "The cost of the Azure Key Vault is very high and the pricing model is based on the number of keys that you store and retrieve."
  • "The pricing is decent. It has a pretty low price. It is a straightforward cost based on usage."
  • "Pricing is quite reasonable and support is included, although premium support is available for an additional fee."
  • "Key Vault, like every Azure service, has a cost associated with it, but you don't have to spend thousands of dollars to spin up an environment to build a key management system. It's already there."
  • "The price of the solution is reasonable for what we are using it for."
  • "Azure is cheaper than CyberArk... CyberArk is good, but it's quite expensive."
  • "The price isn't high. Any sized organization could easily adopt it. The first 250 keys are available for $5 per month."
  • "The pricing is reasonable and flexible, especially for those already using Microsoft Azure Cloud services. There is a cost associated with retrieval and storage, which is a few dollars. Otherwise, the price can be customized according to requirements, such as how many keys need to be stored."
  • More Azure Key Vault Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "I'm not privy to that information, but I know it's probably close to a million dollars a year."
  • "We are using the free version of the Azure Security Center."
  • "Azure Defender is a bit pricey. The price could be lower."
  • "This is a worldwide service and depending on the country, there will be different prices."
  • "Security Center charges $15 per resource for any workload that you onboard into it. They charge per VM or per data-base server or per application. It's not like Microsoft 365 licensing, where there are levels like E3 and E5. Security Center is pretty straightforward."
  • "There is a helpful cost-reducing option that allows you to integrate production subscriptions with non-production subscriptions."
  • "Its pricing is a little bit high in terms of Azure Security Center, but the good thing is that we don't need to maintain and deploy it. So, while the pricing is high, it is native to Azure which is why we prefer using this tool."
  • "I am not involved in this area. However, I believe its price is okay because even small customers are using Azure Security Center. I don't think it is very expensive."
  • More Microsoft Defender for Cloud Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:Azure Key Vault is a SaaS solution. You can easily store passwords and secrets securely and encrypt them. Azure Key Vault is a great solution to ensure you are compliant with security and governance… more »
    Top Answer:With Azure Key Vault, we can generate our own keys and then import them inside the system, which provides a higher level of security than provider-managed keys.
    Top Answer:Azure Key Vault is a very, very expensive solution. Currently, the solution's pricing is based on the number of transactions, which is very high in some cases.
    Top Answer:Azure Security Center is very easy to use, integrates well, and gives very good visibility on what is happening across your ecosystem. It also has great remote workforce capabilities and supports a… more »
    Top Answer:The entire Defender Suite is tightly coupled, integrated, and collaborative.
    Top Answer:Our clients complain about the cost of Microsoft Defender for Cloud. Microsoft needs to bring the cost down. What we're doing to their detriment is simply lowering the amount of log retention we're… more »
    Ranking
    11th
    Views
    605
    Comparisons
    446
    Reviews
    32
    Average Words per Review
    424
    Rating
    8.8
    2nd
    Views
    9,753
    Comparisons
    7,447
    Reviews
    20
    Average Words per Review
    1,073
    Rating
    8.0
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    Microsoft Azure Key Vault, MS Azure Key Vault
    Microsoft Azure Security Center, Azure Security Center, Microsoft ASC, Azure Defender
    Learn More
    Interactive Demo
    Overview

    Microsoft Azure Key Vault is a cloud-based data security and storage service that allows users to keep their secrets safe from bad actors.

    Benefits of Microsoft Azure Key Vault

    Some of the benefits of using Microsoft Azure Key Vault include:

    • Secure your secrets in a single central location, enabling you to control how your information is disseminated.
    • Keep your data away from bad actors. Application administrators can store their application’s security information away from the actual application. Microsoft Azure Key Vault reduces the chance that a bad actor will be able to leak an application’s secrets. Because the data is not stored in the code of the application, hackers will be unable to steal the security information.
    • Retrieve your information securely. When the information is needed, the application can securely retrieve it by using a uniform resource identifier (URI) to connect to Microsoft Azure Key Vault.
    • Securely store your digital keys and secrets. Microsoft Azure Key Vault stores data behind layers of security protocol. No one can access the information stored in a Microsoft Azure Key Vault without first obtaining the necessary authentication and authorization. The authentication process allows the system to figure out who is trying to access the vault in question. This process is performed by Azure’s Active Directory. After the person or entity is authenticated, Microsoft Azure Key Vault then assigns them a level of authorization. This determines what sort of actions they will be able to perform.
    • Choose from two different authorization options. The level of a user’s authorization can be either role-based or dictated by a policy that the administrator sets. Azure’s role-based access control (Azure RBAC) enables users to both manage and access stored data. A key vault access policy limits users to data access.
    • Secure your data in the way that best fits your needs. Your data can be protected by either industry-standard algorithm software or hardware security modules (HSMs). Your data is even safe from Microsoft, as the vaults are designed so that not even Microsoft can get in and access the information.
    • Easily monitor who accesses your vault(s). Microsoft Azure Key Vault enables administrators to keep a close eye on their secrets. Users can activate a vault-logging feature that will track every piece of information. It will record who accessed the vault, when they accessed it, and other pertinent details.
    • Choose how you want to store your logs. Users can store logs in multiple ways. These logs can be archived, sent to the Azure monitor logs area, or streamed to an events hub. The logs can be secured to prevent unauthorized viewing and deleted when they are no longer needed.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Microsoft Azure Key Vault stands out among their competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are the overall robustness of the solution and its ability to protect and manage many different digital asset types. The many features that the solution offers allows users to tailor their experience to meet their specific needs. Its flexibility enables users to accomplish a wide variety of security and identity management related tasks. It empowers users to secure a wide array of assets. Users can keep many different types of secrets away from bad actors.

    A cloud architect at a marketing services firm writes, “All its features are really valuable. It's really well thought-out. It's a complete turnkey solution that has all the concerns taken care of, such as access control and management. You can use it in infrastructure as code to create key vaults, APIs, PowerShells, CLIs, even Terraform. You can also use it in different services across the board. If you have app services, or virtual machines, Kubernetes, or Databricks, they can all use Key Vault effectively. In my opinion, in a DevSecOps, DevOps, or even in a modern Azure implementation, you have to use Azure Key Vault to make sure you're addressing security and identity management concerns. By "identity" I mean usernames, passwords, cryptography, etcetera. It's a full-blown solution and it supports most breeds of key management: how you store keys and certify.”

    Roger L., the managing director of Cybersecurity Architecture at Peloton Systems, says, “The most valuable aspect of the product is its ability to keep our admin password accounts for keys and a lot of our high-value assets. It can manage those types of assets. So far, the product does a great job of managing keys.”

    Microsoft Defender for Cloud is a comprehensive security solution that provides advanced threat protection for cloud workloads. It offers real-time visibility into the security posture of cloud environments, enabling organizations to quickly identify and respond to potential threats. With its advanced machine learning capabilities, Microsoft Defender for Cloud can detect and block sophisticated attacks, including zero-day exploits and fileless malware.

    The solution also provides automated remediation capabilities, allowing security teams to quickly and easily respond to security incidents. With Microsoft Defender for Cloud, organizations can ensure the security and compliance of their cloud workloads, while reducing the burden on their security teams.

    Sample Customers
    Adobe, DriveTime, Johnson Controls, HP, InterContinental Hotels Group, ASOS
    Microsoft Defender for Cloud is trusted by companies such as ASOS, Vatenfall, SWC Technology Partners, and more.
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company28%
    Financial Services Firm24%
    Wellness & Fitness Company4%
    Manufacturing Company4%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company15%
    Financial Services Firm13%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    Government6%
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company24%
    Agriculture10%
    Recruiting/Hr Firm10%
    Consumer Goods Company10%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company17%
    Financial Services Firm13%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    Government7%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business28%
    Midsize Enterprise23%
    Large Enterprise49%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business20%
    Midsize Enterprise14%
    Large Enterprise66%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business27%
    Midsize Enterprise11%
    Large Enterprise62%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business20%
    Midsize Enterprise15%
    Large Enterprise65%
    Buyer's Guide
    Azure Key Vault vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Key Vault vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
    771,212 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Azure Key Vault is ranked 11th in Microsoft Security Suite with 46 reviews while Microsoft Defender for Cloud is ranked 2nd in Microsoft Security Suite with 46 reviews. Azure Key Vault is rated 8.6, while Microsoft Defender for Cloud is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Azure Key Vault writes "Allows us to securely store our keys to prevent unauthorized access to unwanted users". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Microsoft Defender for Cloud writes "Provides multi-cloud capability, is plug-and-play, and improves our security posture". Azure Key Vault is most compared with AWS Secrets Manager, HashiCorp Vault, CyberArk Enterprise Password Vault, AWS Certificate Manager and Delinea Secret Server, whereas Microsoft Defender for Cloud is most compared with AWS GuardDuty, Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks, Microsoft Defender XDR, Wiz and Microsoft Defender for Endpoint. See our Azure Key Vault vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud report.

    See our list of best Microsoft Security Suite vendors.

    We monitor all Microsoft Security Suite reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.