Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps comparison

The compared Check Point Software Technologies and Microsoft solutions aren't in the same category. Check Point Software Technologies is ranked #9 in VM , with an average rating of 8.5, and holds a 1.5% mindshare in the category. Microsoft is ranked #4 in CASB , with an average rating of 8.4, and holds a 8.9% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of Check Point Software Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 13, 2025

Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP and Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps are competitors in the cloud security market. Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP appears to have a slight advantage, particularly in areas of compliance and advanced threat protection, while Microsoft Defender benefits from tight integration within the Microsoft ecosystem.

Features: Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP is noted for its robust compliance engine, granular IAM control, and centralized firewall management. It offers comprehensive visibility across multi-cloud environments. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps stands out with seamless integration with Microsoft 365 services, strong threat detection, and real-time anomaly alerts.

Room for Improvement: Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP could enhance integration with on-premise and hybrid environments, reduce false positives, and offer more support documentation. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps needs better integration with non-Microsoft environments, improved reporting capabilities, and enhanced support for local IAM users.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP is praised for easy deployment in public and hybrid clouds with strong technical support. Microsoft Defender integrates seamlessly within Microsoft's ecosystem, providing consistent support but may require additional configuration for non-Microsoft environments.

Pricing and ROI: Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP offers flexible pricing models based on cloud assets, noted for higher initial costs but justified by comprehensive features, leading to ROI through enhanced security compliance. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is often included with Microsoft 365 E5 licenses, offering cost-effectiveness and a competitive pricing advantage when part of Microsoft's suite.

To learn more, read our detailed Vulnerability Management Report (Updated: August 2025).

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August 2025

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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

Zafran Security

Mindshare comparison

Vulnerability Management Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP	1.5%
Wiz	10.8%
Tenable Nessus	8.0%
Other	79.7%

Vulnerability Management

Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps	8.9%
Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks	17.9%
Netskope	14.9%
Other	58.300000000000004%

Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)

Featured Reviews

Israel Cavazos Landini

Associate Director IT Security Operations at a pharma/biotech company with 10,001+ employees

Weekly insights and risk analysis facilitate informed security decisions

I appreciate the weekly insights Zafran provides, which include critical topics for networks and IT security, allowing us to evaluate which insights apply to our environment. The organization score feature is valuable to keep the leadership team updated on how our infrastructure fares security-wise. The applicable risk level versus base risk level feature is beneficial because prior to Zafran, we only used the base risk level, but now understand that risk depends on the asset itself. Zafran is an excellent tool.

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Bart Coddens

Cloud Engineer at Cloudar

Evolved cloud security with active monitoring but needs interface consistency

The user interface needs work. Sometimes, it is a transition from the old tool to the new CNAPP Two that I currently have, and remnants of the old environment can still be detected. I require consistency in the user interface to ensure everything is streamlined into the same look and feel. More work is needed in fine-tuning the threat data towards your CSPM and activity logs, aligning them with business intelligence, which requires a cohesive console interface. My assessment of CloudGuard CDRs in intrusion detection and threat hunting capabilities is that it still needs some work. All the threat data that comes in, you need to fine tune it a bit.

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Abdulrahman Muhammadi

information Security and IT Manager at Discover Dollar Technologies Pvt Ltd.

Integration with existing cloud workflows has simplified compliance and threat detection

Licensing cost is a significant concern. With Defender Plan 1, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps comes with a pay-per-use model. Each feature has its own pricing when activated on VMs. For example, the vulnerability assessment has separate pricing, the base model including encryptions has separate pricing, and the compliance features have separate pricing. This applies to each VM and Azure resource individually. It is not straightforward where you can take one license and apply it to everything. Each feature has its own pricing model which can be tedious, as the costs keep accumulating. The only lacking feature currently is XDR (extended detection and response). Apart from that, I have only positive experiences with the whole Microsoft suite, except for the pricing structure.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"Overall, we have seen about eighty-seven percent reduction of the number of vulnerabilities that require urgency to remediate, specifically the number of criticals."

"Zafran is an excellent tool."

"Zafran has become an indispensable tool in our cybersecurity arsenal."

"We are able to see the real risk of a vulnerability on our environment with our security tools."

"We saw benefits from Zafran Security almost immediately after deploying it."

"It offers a range of features tailored to address the unique security challenges."

"It's helped with misconfigurations."

"The solution offers an excellent price, benefit, and installation relationship."

"Assets Management as it provide complete visibility of our workload inkling EC2 instance or Serverless"

"Most of the features are pretty valuable, whether that's a description of the attacks or the attack graph showing the vulnerabilities. If a single tool does all this work, the value is centralizing all these functions on a single tool. These are the cloud-native applications we talk about — containers, Kubernetes, and cloud infrastructure — and all those things are the primary focus of the CNAPP solution."

"Dome9 has improved our organization; we have a centralized view of all of our assets, our visible assets our ECs, our inventories. And then all the policies are centralized, and it is easier to manage because everything is one component console."

"I love the work involved in maintaining and scaling security services and configurations across multiple public clouds using this solution, versus using native native cloud security controls. It is so much better. The different cloud platforms all have their own way that they handle a lot of the stuff that Dome9 handles. Even within their platform, they are in a lot of disparate places, e.g., in AWS, there are five different tools. You have to jump between them to get the same information that you can just pull in automatically on Dome9, which is just one platform. We are using multiple platforms, so that makes it even more complicated and time consuming if you had to just rely on them to get all of your information. Whereas, it's all just summarized and put together on the Dome9 end."

"The administration portal panel is very intuitive."

More Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP pros

"The ability to sanction unsanctioned apps using Secure Score benchmarking, included in Cloud, is also beneficial."

"In Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps, there is an option to enable files. Once you enable that, it will give you all the files in your organization and where they are located in the cloud... That feature is very useful for investigation purposes."

"Better logging allows us to find problems and take appropriate steps to lock them out."

"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."

"The most valuable feature is the ease of management. It's important."

"One of the most valuable features is auditing. Some of the other protection services have issues with auditing. Microsoft Defender for Cloud has an excellent auditing technique that helps us avoid the risk of filtering or information loss. You can use different tools to guarantee these things. It allows you to conduct an in-depth exploration of applications, users, and files that are harmful or suspicious. You can also enhance your security setup by creating personalized rules or policies that help you better control traffic in the cloud."

"The compliance capabilities of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps are quite extensive."

"The general usability of the solution is very straightforward."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps pros

Cons

"The dashboarding and reporting functionality of Zafran Security is an area that definitely could use some improvements."

"I think the ability to have some enhanced reporting capabilities is something they can improve on, as they have good reports but we have asked for some specific reporting enhancements."

"Initially, we were somewhat concerned about the scalability of Zafran due to our large asset count and the substantial amount of information we needed to process."

"The dashboard customization has room for improvement."

"The reporting has a lot of opportunities to continuously improve so that we can continue to show value."

"The tool has a lot of potential, but today, it lacks a lot of Scripts/Bots for Azure."

"We're looking for a solution that can incorporate legacy infrastructure for some of our business needs."

"Currently, I would like this solution extended to cellular devices or tablets."

"CloudGuard's reporting could be better. It's good now, but there is room for improvement. If you're looking for a centralized platform, there are a lot of features that can be appreciated. However, you want complete security integration with SaaS, DAST, secret scanning, etc., and a single platform for all these features."

"Making basic rules is easy, but it's complex if you want to do something a little more nuanced. I've been unable to make some rules that I wanted. I couldn't evaluate some values or parameters of the components I look for. I haven't always been able to assess them."

"The accuracy of its remediation is a 7.5 out of 10. Before, I would have given it a ten but now, to handle remediation for fully qualified domain names, it's not working as it did in the past. We're finding some difficulties there."

More Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP cons

"Licensing cost is a significant concern. With Defender Plan 1, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps comes with a pay-per-use model."

"Sometimes the support is actually lacking."

"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..."

"I believe it's only set to be integrated with Microsoft Defender for identity and identity protection. I would like to see it available for use with something like Office 365 Defender. I don't think it's integrated with that yet."

"I want them to enhance in-session policy."

"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."

"There are some features, such as user navigation content filtering, that are disabled by default, and it probably makes sense to enable them by default."

"There are certain areas where the product could improve, such as some functionalities that did not work as expected."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

"The pricing is extremely competitive."

"We have the enterprise-level license and we renew it annually because it is worth the cost."

"CloudGuard is fairly priced."

"The pricing is tremendous and super cheap. It is shockingly cheap for what you get out of it. I am happy with that. I hope that doesn't get reported back and they increase the prices. I love the pricing and the licensing makes sense. It is just assets: The more stuff that you have, the more you pay."

"The license fee is high."

"Its price is very fair."

"I suggest that you pay attention to the product pricing because while there are no tricks, and the licensing model is transparent, the final numbers may surprise you."

"It is difficult to contextualize the pricing because we are used to Indian pricing and licensing."

More Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP pricing and cost advice

"The pricing is a little bit high but right now, we are okay with it because of the compatibility with Office 365, Teams, and Azure AD."

"This product is not expensive."

"We have an educational licensing agreement. It's a customer agreement for multiple years."

"Microsoft offers bundle discounts and a pay-as-you-go option."

"The price could be better and should be reconsidered."

"Where we are right now, this is an acceptable pricing. I would like to see more transparency given to the end user. The end user given to us is via the cloud service provider. There are different programs and license models. Some include this, and some include that. It is all over the place. There can be a little more consistency or simplification in the pricing so that your parts list is not ten pages long, and you are not trying to determine, "If I have an E3, does this cover that?", or "Do I need to pay separately for the license?" Simplification would probably be better."

"The product's pricing seems fair."

"It has pretty good pricing."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

11%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	54
Midsize Enterprise	17
Large Enterprise	57

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	13
Midsize Enterprise	10
Large Enterprise	18

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zafran Security?

Since we stood Zafran Security up in our private cloud, we handle the maintenance on our side. As we opted not to use...

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What needs improvement with Zafran Security?

In terms of areas for improvement, Zafran Security is doing a really great job as a new and emerging company. Oftenti...

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What is your primary use case for Zafran Security?

My use cases for Zafran Security revolve around two primary areas. One is around vulnerability management and priorit...

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What do you like most about Check Point CloudGuard Posture Management?

The visibility in our cloud environment is the most valuable feature.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Check Point CloudGuard Posture Management?

The price is on the higher end.

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What needs improvement with Check Point CloudGuard Posture Management?

We have concerns regarding the pricing and would appreciate seeing some improvements.

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Which is the better security solution - Cisco Umbrella or Microsoft Cloud App Security?

Cisco Umbrella is an integral component of the Cisco SASE architecture. It integrates security in a single, cloud-nat...

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What do you like most about Microsoft Cloud App Security?

It does a great job of monitoring and maintaining a security baseline. For us, that is a key element. The notificatio...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Cloud App Security?

My impression on the pricing, setup costs, and licensing of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is that it's fair. I do...

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Comparisons

Wiz Code vs Zafran Security

Compared 37% of the time

Vulcan Cyber vs Zafran Security

Compared 16% of the time

Tenable Vulnerability Management vs Zafran Security

Compared 9% of the time

Nucleus vs Zafran Security

Compared 7% of the time

Qualys VMDR vs Zafran Security

Compared 7% of the time

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Wiz vs Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP

Compared 15% of the time

Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks vs Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP

Compared 14% of the time

SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security vs Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP

Compared 7% of the time

AWS GuardDuty vs Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP

Compared 5% of the time

Cloudflare vs Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP

Compared 5% of the time

More Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP Competitors

Zscaler Internet Access vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps

Compared 18% of the time

Cisco Umbrella vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps

Compared 15% of the time

Netskope vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps

Compared 12% of the time

Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps

Compared 6% of the time

Skyhigh Security vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps

Compared 6% of the time

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Zafran Security

August 2025

Download Zafran Security product report

Buyer's Guide

Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP

September 2025

Download Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps

August 2025

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps report

Download Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps product report

Also Known As

No data available

Check Point CloudGuard Posture Management, Dome9, Check Point CloudGuard Workload Protection, Check Point CloudGuard Intelligence

MS Cloud App Security, Microsoft Cloud App Security

Overview

Zafran Security integrates with existing security tools to identify and mitigate vulnerabilities effectively, proving that most critical vulnerabilities are not exploitable, optimizing threat management.

Zafran Security introduces an innovative operating model for managing security threats and vulnerabilities. By leveraging the threat exposure management platform, it pinpoints and prioritizes exploitable vulnerabilities, reducing risk through immediate remediation. This platform enhances your hybrid cloud security by normalizing vulnerability signals and integrating specific IT context data, such as CVE runtime presence and internet asset reachability, into its analysis. No longer reliant on patch windows, Zafran Security allows you to manage risks actively.

What are the key features of Zafran Security?

Threat Exposure Management: Utilizes existing tools to prioritize vulnerabilities and manage threats.
Integrative Analysis: Combines security data with IT context for precise vulnerability management.
Real-time Risk Reduction: Enables immediate risk management without waiting for patches.
Hybrid Cloud Compatibility: Functions across diverse cloud environments for comprehensive security.

What benefits can users expect from Zafran Security?

Improved Security: Enhances protection by efficiently identifying and mitigating risks.
Cost Efficiency: Reduces unnecessary patching expenses by confirming non-exploitable vulnerabilities.
Time Savings: Frees developers to focus on root causes by handling immediate threats.
Comprehensive Insight: Offers a holistic view of security threats and vulnerabilities.

In industries where security is paramount, such as finance and healthcare, Zafran Security provides invaluable protection by ensuring that only exploitable vulnerabilities are addressed. It allows entities to maintain robust security measures while allocating resources efficiently, fitting seamlessly into existing security strategies.

Zafran Security

Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP offers comprehensive cloud security with features like dynamic access control, asset protection, and compliance checks, tailored for organizations seeking enhanced governance across AWS, Azure, and GCP platforms.

Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP provides robust capabilities, including centralized firewall management, IAM scanning, and real-time visibility. Its strengths lie in predictive visualization, threat intelligence, and auto-remediation, making it a valuable tool for risk mitigation and compliance management. The platform's integration and responsiveness enhance cloud security, ensuring alignment with industry standards and effective threat protection.

What are the key features of Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP?

Dynamic Access Control: Enables granular security permissions for cloud resources.
Asset Protection: Safeguards cloud assets from unauthorized access and threats.
Compliance Checks: Ensures alignment with industry regulations like PCI DSS and SOC 2.
Centralized Firewall Management: Simplifies firewall rule configuration across cloud environments.
IAM Scanning: Audits and secures identity and access management configurations.
Real-Time Visibility: Provides insights into cloud environments for proactive threat detection.

What benefits and ROI should you expect from Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP?

Threat Intelligence: Identifies and mitigates potential risks before exploitation.
Auto-Remediation: Automates responses to security incidents, reducing manual intervention.
Intuitive Interface: Simplifies management and enhances operational efficiency.
Posture Management: Maintains strong security posture through continuous assessment.

Organizations in finance, healthcare, and retail frequently implement Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP for compliance and security across cloud environments. It assists with workload protection, threat detection, and regulatory obligation fulfillment, proving effective for securing applications and monitoring API interactions.

Check Point Software Technologies

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is a comprehensive security solution that provides protection for cloud-based applications and services. It offers real-time threat detection and response, as well as advanced analytics and reporting capabilities. With Defender for Cloud Apps, organizations can ensure the security of their cloud environments and safeguard against cyber threats. Whether you're running SaaS applications, IaaS workloads, or PaaS services, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps can help you secure your cloud environment and protect your business from cyber threats.

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps Benefits:

Provides comprehensive security for cloud applications
Integrates with other Microsoft security tools
Easy to use and deploy
Provides real-time threat detection and response
Strong protection against phishing attacks and other common threats
Highly customizable to meet specific needs of different organizations

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps Use Cases:

Governance, authentication, security, and compliance.
Detects shadow IT and anomalous user behavior
Controls access to applications
Provides auditing and filtering setups
Used for end-user compute devices, file monitoring, user investigation, and activity
Used for data governance, threat detection, and getting visibility over cloud applications
Used to identify information about applications beyond organizational boundaries
Prevent exfiltration and data filtration of corporate data
Used to deal with spam emails and detect shadow IT

Reviews from Real Users

Ram-Krish, Cloud Security & Governance at a financial services firm, says that Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps "Integrates well and helps us in protecting sensitive information, but takes time to scan and apply the policies and cannot detect everything we need".

PeerSpot user, Senior Cloud & Security Consultant at a tech services, writes that Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps "Great for monitoring user activity and protecting data while integrating well with other applications".

Simon Burgess,Infrastructure Engineer at SBITSC, states that Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is "A fluid, intelligent product for great visibility, centralized management, and increased uptime".

Microsoft

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

Symantec, Citrix, Car and Driver, Virgin, Cloud Technology Partners

Customers for Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps include Accenture, St. Luke’s University Health Network, Ansell, and Nakilat.

Buyer's Guide

Vulnerability Management

August 2025

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