We performed a comparison between Microsoft Defender for Cloud and Tenable.sc based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Features: Microsoft Defender for Cloud focuses on regulatory compliance, ransomware protection, and access controls, while also providing real-time assessment, incident alerts, and UEBA features. On the other hand, Tenable.sc's strengths lie in accuracy in vulnerability detection, prioritization, automation, and risk-based approach. In terms of room for improvement, some users have cited issues with Microsoft Defender for Cloud's reporting capabilities and ease of use. On the other hand, Tenable.sc users have mentioned a need for more user-friendly interfaces and better integration with other security tools.
Service and Support: Some Microsoft Defender users faced challenges with slow response times and difficulty reaching the appropriate support level. Tenable.sc's support is generally positive, with some users finding it prompt and helpful, but others reporting delays and a lack of helpful information.
Ease of Deployment: The setup process for both Microsoft Defender for Cloud and Tenable.sc is reportedly easy, with Microsoft's requiring less maintenance. However, the on-prem version of Tenable.sc can take longer to deploy and needs integration with other solutions.
Pricing: The cost of Microsoft Defender for Cloud depends on the license and metrics, but is often seen as reasonable. Tenable.sc's pricing is based on the number of addresses to be scanned and can include extra costs for advanced support, leading to mixed opinions on its affordability.
ROI: Microsoft Defender for Cloud and Tenable.sc are two different tools that offer unique benefits. Microsoft Defender for Cloud has improved security measures and saved time, while Tenable.sc is useful for reducing the workload and has impressive reporting features.
Comparison Results: Microsoft Defender for Cloud is the preferred option over Tenable.sc due to its comprehensive cloud environment features, including regulatory compliance, ransomware protection, and access controls. Tenable.sc has accurate vulnerability detection and a user-friendly interface, but it lacks some critical cloud environment features and has mixed reviews on customer support and pricing.
"The product has given us more insight into potential avenues for attack paths."
"We saw improvement from a regulatory compliance perspective due to having a single dashboard."
"Defender for Cloud is a plug-and-play solution that provides continuous posture management once enabled."
"Using Security Center, you have a full view, at any given time, of what's deployed, and that is something that is very useful."
"It's quite a good product. It helps to understand the infections and issues you are facing."
"Microsoft Defender has a lot of features including regulatory compliance and attaching workbooks but the most valuable is the recommendations it provides for each and every resource when we open Microsoft Defender."
"Everything is built into Azure, and if we go for cross-cloud development with Azure Arc, we can use most of the features. While it's possible to deploy and convert third-party applications, it is difficult to maintain, whereas Azure deployments to the cloud are always easier. Also, Microsoft is a big company, so they always provide enough support, and we trust the Microsoft brand."
"Good compliance policies."
"This product has the best results in terms of the lowest number of false-positives and false-negatives."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the vulnerability assessment."
"It is a very good and user-friendly product."
"I found the dashboard features very useful. It made it easy to track remediation progress. I could publish dashboards to remediation teams and track the progress on the dashboards."
"The scanning part, the agent part – that's the valuable aspect."
"What is useful to me is being able to fulfill very customized scanning policies. In the clinical environment, because of vendor control, we can't perform credential-vulnerability scanning. And network scans, which I've done before, can cause a lot of impact. Being able to create very customized policies to be able to routinely scan and audit our clinical networks, while simultaneously not causing impact, is important to us."
"The most valuable features in Tenable SC are scanning and analysis."
"The most important features are the dashboard and reporting. The dashboard provides statistics with graphs and bar charts for our management."
"There is no perfect product in the world and there are always features that can be added."
"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 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."
"Sometimes, it's very difficult to determine when I need Microsoft Defender for Cloud for a special resource group or certain kinds of products. That's not an issue directly with the product, though."
"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."
"The remediation process could be improved."
"Consistency is the area where the most improvement is needed. For example, there are some areas where the UI is not uniform across the board."
"Azure Security Center takes a long time to update, compared to the on-premises version of Microsoft Defender."
"Tenable's reporting engine needs improvement. It needs to be more efficient and add more features."
"Security can always be improved."
"The reporting side can be improved. The dashboards are nice, but exporting things out for reports for management was a little tough."
"Deploying Tenable.sc is highly complex because it's an on-prem solution, whereas Tenable.io is cloud-based, so you can go live as soon as you log in. Tenable.sc involves significant integration with other on-prem solutions, and the deployment takes about two to three weeks with the help of a system integrator"
"The vulnerability scan does not work correctly until the access privileges are set by the system administrator."
"Its reporting can be improved. It is not easy to generate a scan report the way we want. The data is okay, but we can't easily change the template to make it look the way we want."
"The web application is not very functional."
"The solution needs to improve its support. I would like to see a bird's eye view of my network architecture. I would also like to see the continuous view feature in the tool."
Microsoft Defender for Cloud is ranked 7th in Vulnerability Management with 46 reviews while Tenable Security Center is ranked 1st in Vulnerability Management with 48 reviews. Microsoft Defender for Cloud is rated 8.0, while Tenable Security Center is rated 8.2. 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 Tenable Security Center writes "A security solution for vulnerability assessment with automated scans". 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 Tenable Security Center is most compared with Tenable Vulnerability Management, Qualys VMDR, Rapid7 InsightVM, Tenable Nessus and Cisco Vulnerability Management (formerly Kenna.VM). See our Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. Tenable Security Center report.
See our list of best Vulnerability Management vendors and best Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) vendors.
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