We performed a comparison between Forescout Platform and Microsoft Defender for Cloud based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Features: Forescout Platform stands out for its agentless visibility and advanced features like device fingerprinting. Microsoft Defender for Cloud is highly regarded for its automated processes, advanced threat analysis, and extensive security measures, including protection against ransomware and access controls. Forescout users say the product could be better at resolving connectivity and license issues. Users also want more compatibility with different devices and operating systems, along with better logging and troubleshooting capabilities. Microsoft Defender for Cloud could use enhancements in automation and ease of use.
Service and Support: Some users reported positive experiences with Forescout support, but others requested better responsiveness and training. Some Defender for Cloud users reported positive experiences with Microsoft, while others complained that the solution's outsourced support lacked technical knowledge.
Ease of Deployment: Some users found Forescout’s setup to be simple and adaptable, while others perceived it as more complex and time-intensive. The initial setup of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is described as straightforward, but the deployment time may vary depending on specific requirements.
Pricing: The total cost of Forescout Platform can be high depending on the level of customization and integration required. Microsoft Defender for Cloud is in the mid-to-high pricing tier. While some users find it expensive, others believe it offers good value.
ROI: Forescout Platform yields a solid ROI by improving network access control and overall security. Microsoft Defender for Cloud streamlines security tasks and saves users money by consolidating various solutions.
Comparison Results: Our users prefer Forescout Platform over Microsoft Defender for Cloud. Users appreciate its agentless visibility, policy flexibility, and seamless integration with multiple vendors. It also provides comprehensive device and version clarity and excellent support. Microsoft Defender for Cloud falls short in terms of visibility and flexibility compared to Forescout Platform. Forescout Platform is also considered to be more cost-effective than Microsoft Defender for Cloud.
"The interface is easy to use."
"Forescout CounterACT has allowed us to better open our access and control wireless access globally from our HQ. This allows us to monitor the network access for every office globally. This has improved overall security, reducing risk and opening up the opportunity to provide greater end user flexibility."
"Vulnerability remediation is valuable. We can narrow down a system and its properties. We can go granular on the properties of each endpoint, such as which operating system you're using."
"The 802.1X compliance authentication feature of this solution is very good."
"The most valuable features are remote access and administration scripts."
"This solution can be used to organize guest portals, integrate switches, and create policies. Some of its standard use cases also include completing key process upgrades and anti-virus of Windows OS."
"The solution's implementation and operation are very easy."
"The best parts of Forescout Platform are its orchestration features, discovery capabilities, classification buckets, and flexibility in creating policies."
"The most valuable feature is that it's intuitive. It's very intuitive."
"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."
"The entire Defender Suite is tightly coupled, integrated, and collaborative."
"It is very intuitive when it comes to policy administration, alerts and notifications, and ease of setting up roles at different hierarchies. It has also been good in terms of the network technology maps. It provides a good overview, but it also depends on the complexity of your network."
"The product has given us more insight into potential avenues for attack paths."
"Defender is user-friendly and provides decent visibility into threats."
"The solution is very easy to deploy."
"One important security feature is the incident alerts. Now, with all these cyberattacks, there are a lot of incident alerts that get triggered. It is very difficult to keep monitoring everything automatically, instead our organization is utilizing the automated use case that we get from Microsoft. That has helped bring down the manual work for a lot of things."
"The biggest disadvantage is the pricing."
"Forescout needs to upgrade its development in the future."
"The fact that Forescout Platform doesn't have a presence in the South African region is a weakness because of which you can't ask for help from them if you have any problems."
"The reporting feature needs improvement."
"Better integration with third-party vendors is needed because as it is now, the list of third-party solutions that we can integrate and automate is quite limited."
"Forescout Platform could improve the vulnerability management as well as the control on the endpoint, which needs to be connected to my network."
"Custom integrations need to be better."
"Other solutions have TACACS+, but Forescout does not. In the next release, I would like to see Forescout have accounting."
"Microsoft Defender could be more centralized. For example, I still need to go to another console to do policy management."
"The documentation and implementation guides could be improved."
"The most significant areas for improvement are in the security of our identity and endpoints and the posture of the cloud environment. Better protection for our cloud users and cloud apps is always welcome."
"I would like to have the ability to customize executive reporting."
"As an analyst, there is no way to configure or create a playbook to automate the process of flagging suspicious domains."
"The solution could extend its capabilities to other cloud providers. Right now, if you want to monitor a virtual machine on another cloud, you can do that. However, this cannot be done with other cloud platform services. I hope once that is available then Defender for Cloud will be a unified solution for all cloud platform services."
"I would suggest building a single product that addresses endpoint server protection, attack surface, and everything else in one solution. That is the main disadvantage with the product. If we are incorporating some features, we end up in a situation where this solution is for the server, and that one is for the client, or this is for identity, and that is for our application. They're not bundling it. Commercially, we can charge for different licenses, but on the implementation side, it's tough to help our end-customer understand which product they're getting."
"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."
Forescout Platform is ranked 3rd in Network Access Control (NAC) with 69 reviews while Microsoft Defender for Cloud is ranked 3rd in Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) with 46 reviews. Forescout Platform is rated 8.4, while Microsoft Defender for Cloud is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Forescout Platform writes "We can go granular on each endpoint, quarantine non-compliant machines, and target vulnerabilities through scripting". 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". Forescout Platform is most compared with Cisco ISE (Identity Services Engine), Aruba ClearPass, Fortinet FortiNAC, Nozomi Networks and Armis, 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 Forescout Platform vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud report.
We monitor all Network Access Control (NAC) 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.
