We compared Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps (MDA) and Qualys VM across several parameters based on our users' reviews. After reading the collected data, you can find our conclusion below:
Comparison Results: Qualys VMDR is commended for its prioritization mechanism, comprehensive monitoring, and vulnerability management, while Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is valued for its threat detection capabilities and integration with other Microsoft solutions. Both products require improvements in various areas like user experience, integration, reporting, pricing, visibility, and policy management. The pricing for both products is considered fair but expensive. Customer support for both products has received mixed reviews, with room for improvement in response time and consistency.
"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."
"The solution is stable."
"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 product helps us with privileged identity management to control who has access to what and for how long."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Threat detection is its key feature, and that's why we use this tool. It gives an alert if a PC is attacked or there is any kind of anomaly, such as there is a spike in sending emails or we see an unauthorized website being accessed. So, it keeps us on our toes. We get to know that there is something wrong, and we can isolate the user and find any issues with it. So, threat detection is very robust in this tool."
"There are a lot of features with benefits, including discovery, investigation, and putting controls around things. You can't say that you like the investigation part but not the discovery. Everything is correlated; that's how the tool works."
"It's very easy to install and it includes the Intune portal from Microsoft where I can control all the devices from one place."
"It is very easy to use, which is what we look for in these types of solutions."
"The most recent is VMDR, which provides a comprehensive overview of how to detect, patch, and remediate specific vulnerabilities."
"Vulnerability management is the most valuable one and it’s a must in every organization."
"The most valuable features are vulnerability scanning, policy compliance scanning, and tablet for web application scanning."
"The solution is easy to use."
"The reporting is fine."
"I like Qualys because it is a very complete product, more so than Tenable."
"Technical support is great and we've never really had a problem."
"There are fewer false positives when using this solution."
"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"
"Defender for Cloud apps is primarily useful for Azure apps. It has limited capabilities for applications based on other cloud platforms."
"I would like more customization of notifications. Currently, you either get everything or you get limited information. I would like to have something in between where we can customize the data that is included in notifications."
"Defender for Cloud Apps could come with more configured policies out of the box. Also, integration could be easier. Integration is moderately difficult because Microsoft hasn't developed a solution that unifies device onboarding and management. You have to use Intune to manage devices and Defender for Endpoint to enforce policies. They need to fix their integration, but I believe they will straighten it out by the end of the year."
"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."
"There could be more granular roles that are out of the box included in the product."
"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."
"It takes some time to scan and apply the policies when there is some sensitive information. After it applies the policies, it works, but there is a delay. This is something for which we are working with Microsoft."
"I want them to enhance in-session policy."
"Qualys VM could improve by having more skilled support personnel."
"I do not like that all of the data is stored on the cloud."
"When tested on Zero day, there were errors."
"Make some minimal dashboard improvements."
"This solution could be improved by extending the agent capabilities to different operating systems including Mac and Linux. We would also like the capability to easily check for vulnerability in assets in the IOTs."
"Qualys does have an on-prem solution, but it is very expensive."
"We are moving away from Qualys to Defender ATP because I find that Defender ATP is much better at prioritizing the vulnerabilities that I should be looking at."
"The reporting and dashboards could improve in Qualys VM. However, they have improved since the previous versions."
More Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps Pricing and Cost Advice →
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is ranked 2nd in Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) with 30 reviews while Qualys VMDR is ranked 3rd in Risk-Based Vulnerability Management with 77 reviews. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is rated 8.4, while Qualys VMDR is rated 8.2. 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 Qualys VMDR writes "Good visibility but expensive and needs better support". Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is most compared with Zscaler Internet Access, Cisco Umbrella, Netskope , Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks and FortiSASE , whereas Qualys VMDR is most compared with Tenable Nessus, Tenable Security Center, Rapid7 InsightVM, Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management and Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks.
We monitor all Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) 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.