We compared Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps and Netskope CASB based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Microsoft Defender is the preferred option over Netskope due to its integration with other Microsoft tools, user-friendly interface, and affordability for smaller businesses. Netskope has a large client base and impressive features like cloud app authorization and regulatory classification, but lacks integration and has reporting and support limitations. Microsoft Defender offers superior threat protection and coordination for detecting and responding to threats.
"The protection offered by the product is the most valuable feature. It detects vulnerabilities or traps on our users' phones and then prompts them to clean up their devices. Tools we used previously would only discover, which required us to gather information on the backend, so Lookout is a welcome upgrade."
"The most valuable features are the antivirus as a whole, the anti-malware, and all of the protection features that scan our enterprise devices."
"The solution is stable."
"On the outside, the main differentiation is because Lookout ingest. They have ingested basically all of the apps for the last ten years and all the versions of all the apps, and we have that in a corporate database that allows us to do very large-scale machine learning and analysis on that data set. That's not something that any of the competitors really have the capability to do because they don't have access to the data set. A lot of the apps you can no longer get them because that version of the app is five or six years old, and it just doesn't exist anywhere anymore, except within our infrastructure. So, the ability to have that very rich dataset and learn from that dataset is a real differentiator."
"It's very easy to install and it includes the Intune portal from Microsoft where I can control all the devices from one place."
"We have become more aware of what services our users are using, how often they are using them, and what data is being sent out of the organization and to which services. So, it is really a lot about visibility and helping us make decisions based on that. It drives some of our policy decisions for adding extra security controls."
"I like the web GUI/the management interface. I also like the security of Microsoft. As compared to other manufacturers, it's less complex and easy to understand and work with."
"The product’s most valuable feature is SQL database."
"I like the alert policies because they are quite robust. It has some built-in templates that we can easily pick up. One of them is the alert for mass downloads, when a particular user is running a massive download on your SharePoint site."
"Defender helps us control which applications are being used and gain more security insight into remote and hybrid users based on user identity and log in location. You can also integrate Defender for Cloud Apps with Defender for Endpoint to extend its capabilities."
"Everything from Microsoft is integrated. You receive regular reports on them all. You can push your reports, logs, and security alerts, which are all integrated. It is crucial that these solutions work natively together to deliver coordinated detection and response across our environment."
"The most valuable feature is the ease of management. It's important."
"They are very good at CASB as compared to other players."
"The most useful feature of this solution is Cloud Control, which allows me to schedule cloud uploads."
"Netskope is an efficient, reliable, and easy-to-manage solution."
"The feature that I like best is the GUI."
"Its deployment is very easy and quick. Their technical support is also very good."
"Netskope is a one-platform security product that provides security functions. It is the most advantageous product in the Japanese market."
"A very straightforward interface."
"The most valuable feature of Netskope is protection."
"From the analysis that we've done, they do seem to be maybe a step behind in trying to enter the market with a new solution. But when they do pick up, they do come out with some good products."
"We just submitted an enhancement request reflecting the main area we want to see improvement in; the APIs. Currently, we're able to build dashboards, but it's somewhat backward because we use our MDM API to create them. Lookout should provide API to customers so we can query our data and use it in our cloud, and this is the only outstanding area for improvement with the product right now."
"Lookout was moving into the SSE space. And so their work on SecureWeb Gateway and SD-WAN is still sort of evolving."
"The stability depends on the service from where you access it. Because sometimes, the place you are in, you have Gateway. You don't have Gateway. The gateway is overutilized. At the end, you need to go through their gateways. And this is the key point here. You have a tracking point. If it's not well orchestrated, and it scales up as you add more to the existing team, you will suffer"
"It doesn't actually decrease the time to respond. This has been an issue with Microsoft recently. Sometimes, there is a delay when it comes to getting an alert policy email... Sometimes it takes two or three hours for that email to be sent."
"We would like to get more information from the endpoint. I don't get enough detailed information right now on why something failed. There is not enough visibility."
"I would like for it to be available on Mac and for it to support all of the features of Microsoft financing products. It is really for Windows."
"Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps’s technical support services needs improvement."
"I would like to see them include more features in the older licenses. There are some features that are not available, such as preventing or analyzing cloud attacks."
"The technical support team has room for improvement."
"They need to improve the attack surface reduction (ASR) rules. In the latest version, you can implement ASR rules, which are quite useful, but you have to enable those because if they're not enabled, they flag false positives. In the Defender portal, it logs a block for WMI processes and PowerShell. Apparently, it's because ASR rules are not configured. So, you generally have to enable them to exclude, for example, WMI queries or PowerShell because they have a habit of blocking your security scanners. It's a bit weird that they have to be enabled to be configured, and it's not the other way around."
"There could be more granular roles that are out of the box included in the product."
"There should be some granular custom roles that are not available. However, this is on the road map. There are many devices that do not have the Zero Trust feature and other enhancements available which they should have."
"The CSPM model needs to improve."
"Third party integration with other cloud applications could be improved. Sometimes the API won't be working, but Netskope is taking it seriously. They accept all the feature requests, and they are trying to provide whatever we ask from them."
"The solution is still pretty new to the CASB environment."
"Netskope needs to improve its stability."
"I would like to have an identity theft protection function."
"Setting up policies is something that we having been doing, and if the vendor were to provide example use cases that included different implementation options then it would be very useful for us."
"There could be better integration with other solutions."
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Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is ranked 2nd in Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) with 30 reviews while Netskope is ranked 4th in Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) with 35 reviews. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is rated 8.4, while Netskope is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps writes "Integrates well and helps us in protecting sensitive information, but takes time to scan and apply the policies and cannot detect everything we need". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Netskope writes "Network proxy that provides visibility during deployment and allows you to control PII". Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is most compared with Zscaler Internet Access, Cisco Umbrella, Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks, Qualys VMDR and Microsoft Defender for Identity, whereas Netskope is most compared with Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks, Zscaler Internet Access, Cisco Umbrella, Skyhigh Security and Forcepoint ONE. See our Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps vs. Netskope report.
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