These Microsoft Defender solutions focus on cloud security and target different aspects. They are complementary solutions, working together for a comprehensive cloud security strategy.
Defender for Cloud Focuses on securing your entire cloud environment, including infrastructure, workloads, and platforms. It offers Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) and DevSecOps functionalities, identifying vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and recommending remediation steps. It can extend beyond Azure to AWS, GCP, and on-premises environments.
Defender for Cloud Apps primarily secures user access and data within SaaS applications. It offers features like Data Loss Prevention (DLP), User and Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA), and Adaptive Access Control (AAC). It integrates with Microsoft Defender XDR for a broader security view.
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"It's got a lot of great features."
"Defender is user-friendly and provides decent visibility into threats."
"The vulnerability reporting is helpful. When we initially deployed Defender, it reported many more threats than we currently see. It gave us insight into areas we had not previously considered, so we knew where we needed to act."
"When we started out, our secure score was pretty low. We adopted some of the recommendations that Security Center set out and we were able to make good progress on improving it. It had been in the low thirties and is now in the upper eighties."
"The technical support is very good."
"The most valuable features of the solution are the insights, meaning the remediation suggestions, as well as the incident alerts."
"The entire Defender Suite is tightly coupled, integrated, and collaborative."
"Using Security Center, you have a full view, at any given time, of what's deployed, and that is something that is very useful."
"The product’s most valuable feature is SQL database."
"Defender's integration with our identity solutions is critical in our current setup."
"Better logging allows us to find problems and take appropriate steps to lock them out."
"On-demand scanning is the most valuable feature. In addition, it's a fairly fluid product. It syncs back to the cloud and provides metrics. It's pretty intelligent."
"It's very easy to install and it includes the Intune portal from Microsoft where I can control all the devices from one place."
"The solution does not affect a user's workflow."
"The feature that helps us in detecting the sensitive information being shared has been very useful. In addition, the feature that allows MCAS to apply policies with SharePoint, Teams, and OneDrive is being used predominantly."
"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 documentation and implementation guides could be improved."
"No possibility to write or edit any capability."
"The documentation could be much clearer."
"The overview provides you with good information, but if you want more details, there is a lot more customization to do, which requires knowledge of the other supporting solutions."
"The product was a bit complex to set up earlier, however, it is a bit streamlined now."
"Microsoft can improve the pricing by offering a plan that is more cost-effective for small and medium organizations."
"From a compliance standpoint, they can include some more metrics and some specific compliances such as GDPR."
"Azure is a complex solution. You have so many moving parts."
"The interface needs to be more user-friendly."
"Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps’s technical support services needs improvement."
"The response time could be better. It will be helpful if the alerts are even more proactive and we can see more data. Currently, the data is a little bit weak. It is not complete. I can't just see it and completely know which user or which device it is. It takes some effort and time on my part to investigate and isolate a user. It would be great if it is more user-friendly or easy for people to understand."
"Currently, reporting is not very straightforward and it needs to be enhanced. Specific reports are not included and you need to run a query, drill down, and then export it and share it. I would love to have reports with more fine-tuning or granularity, and more predefined reports."
"Sometimes, we'll get false positive alarms. For example, when a SharePoint path has no file sharing, but there is an external user, it will trigger an alarm that the file has been shared with an external user... the alerting mechanism should be more precise when giving you an alert about what activity has been done with the file..."
"In the future, I would like to see more plug-and-play capabilities that use AI to tell you what needs to be done. It would be helpful if it scanned our devices and made security suggestions, on a configuration basis."
"Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps' initial setup was quite technical but we were prepared. The time of the implementation depends on the job and how many users are being set up."
"Generally, the pricing can always be improved along with the management system."
More Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps Pricing and Cost Advice →
Microsoft Defender for Cloud is ranked 2nd in Microsoft Security Suite with 46 reviews while Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is ranked 10th in Microsoft Security Suite with 30 reviews. Microsoft Defender for Cloud is rated 8.0, while Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Microsoft Defender for Cloud writes "Provides multi-cloud capability, is plug-and-play, and improves our security posture". On the other hand, 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". 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, whereas Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is most compared with Zscaler Internet Access, Cisco Umbrella, Netskope , Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks and Qualys VMDR. See our Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps report.
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