Acunetix vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud comparison

Invicti and Microsoft are both solutions in the Vulnerability Management category. Invicti is ranked #23 with an average rating of 8.4, while Microsoft is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.1. Invicti holds a 1.2% mindshare in VM, compared to Microsoft’s 5.2% mindshare. Additionally, 86% of Invicti users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 13, 2025

Acunetix and Microsoft Defender for Cloud are key players in the cybersecurity domain. Acunetix shows strength in web application vulnerability scanning, while Microsoft Defender for Cloud is adept at enhancing compliance and managing security postures across multi-cloud environments.

Features: Acunetix offers automatic testing modules, IAS for detailed analysis, and scheduling scans with detailed reports. Microsoft Defender for Cloud is strong in compliance, security posture management, and seamless integration with multi-cloud setups.

Room for Improvement: Acunetix needs to work on reducing false positives, enhancing authentication settings, and improving scan speed. Microsoft Defender for Cloud could enhance compatibility with non-Microsoft tools, simplify its pricing structure, and improve real-time alerting and user interface consistency.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Acunetix can be deployed both on-premises and in private clouds, though it requires more setup. Its customer support is mixed, with some reports of delays. Microsoft Defender for Cloud integrates seamlessly in public cloud environments but relies on tickets, often leading to slow support responses.

Pricing and ROI: Acunetix faces criticism for high costs, especially in comparison to competitors like Burp Suite, but it is valued for its flexibility and ROI through reduced manual testing. Microsoft Defender for Cloud is competitively priced but has complex pricing for additional features. Customers of both solutions appreciate their ability to improve security postures, with Acunetix reporting higher direct ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Acunetix vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Acunetix vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud

September 2025

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Helped 869,760 peers since 2012

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

As of October 2025, in the Vulnerability Management category, the mindshare of Zafran Security is 1.0%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Acunetix is 1.2%, down from 1.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is 5.2%, up from 5.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Vulnerability Management Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud	5.2%
Zafran Security	1.0%
Acunetix	1.2%
Other	92.6%

Vulnerability Management

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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KashifJamil

CEO at Xcelliti

Has enabled teams to improve security testing with smooth integration and high accuracy

Acunetix has a very good ratio of fewer false positives, so users don't need to retest everything. Acunetix operates smoothly with no interruptions required, and it performs at 100% efficiency without issues in scanning anything. The solution is excellent at detecting SQL injection and cross-site scripting vulnerabilities. Acunetix integrates with every type of tool, including CI/CD tools, offering 100% integration in DevOps environments. The main benefit of Acunetix is that at the first level, users can address security issues related to penetration testing, allowing them to expose vulnerabilities and ensure all required testing is completed with very few false positives.

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Vibhor Goel

Senior Cloud Platform Engineer at Deutsche Börse

A single tool for complete visibility and addressing security gaps

Currently, issues are structured in Microsoft Defender for Cloud at severity levels of high, critical, or warning, but these severity levels are not always right. For example, Microsoft might consider a port being open as critical, but that might not be the case for our company. Similarly, it might suggest closing some management ports, but you might need them to be able to log in, so the severity levels for certain things can be improved. Even though Microsoft Defender for Cloud provides a way to temporarily disable certain alerts or notifications without affecting our security score, it would be better to have more granularized control over these recommendations. Currently, we cannot even disable certain alerts or notifications. There should be an automated mechanism to design Azure policies based on the recommendations, possibly with AI integration. Instead of an engineer having to write a policy to fix security gaps, which is very time-consuming, there should be an inbuilt capability to auto-remediate everything and have proper control in place. Additionally, enabling Defender for Cloud at the resource group level, rather than only at the subscription level, would be beneficial.

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."

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

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

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

"Overall, it's a very good tool and a very good engine."

"I haven't seen reporting of that level in any other tool."

"For us, the most valuable aspect of the solution is the log-sequence feature."

"Acunetix has an awesome crawler. It gives a referral site map of near targets and also goes really deep to find all the inputs without issues. This was valuable because it helped me find some files or directories, like web admin panels without authentication, which were hidden."

"The solution is highly stable."

"By integrating with CI/CD tools, it enables a shift-left approach in the development process."

"There is a lot of documentation on their website which makes setting it up and using it quite simple."

"We are able to create a report which shows the PCI DSS scoring and share it with the application teams. Then, they can correlate and see exactly what they need to fix, and why."

More Acunetix pros

"The main feature is the security posture assessment through the security score. I find that to be very helpful because it gives us guidance on what needs to be secured and recommendations on how to secure the workloads that have been onboarded."

"The most valuable feature is the hunting feature, which integrates well into the entire Microsoft ecosystem."

"The most valuable feature is the recommendations provided on how to improve security."

"The valuable features include the ability to manage devices and the fact that Defender can replace other security tools like SCCM."

"The solution's coordinated detection and response across devices and identities is impressive because it is complete."

"Defender lets you orchestrate the roll-out from a single pane. Using the Azure portal, you can roll it out over all the servers covered by the entire subscription."

"The solution is quite good and addresses many security gaps."

"Defender for Cloud is a plug-and-play solution that provides continuous posture management once enabled."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud pros

Cons

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

"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."

"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."

"The solution limits the number of scans. It would be much better if we could have unlimited scans."

"Acunetix needs to be dynamic with JavaScript code, unlike Netsparker which can scan complex agents."

"The vulnerability identification speed should be improved."

"In terms of what needs improvement, the way the licensing model is currently is not very convenient for us because initially, when we bought it, the licensing model was very flexible, but now it restricts us."

"The cost can be reduced as management has noted it to be on the higher side."

"The pricing is a bit on the higher side."

"The solution can be improved by adding the ability to scan subdomains automatically, and by providing reports that can be exported to external databases to share with other solutions."

"It should be easier to recreate something manually, with the manual tool, because Acunetix is an automatic tool. If it finds something, it should be easier to manually replicate it. Sometimes you don't get the raw data from the input and output, so that could be improved."

More Acunetix cons

"I would like to see better automation when it comes to pushing out security features to the recommendations, and better documentation on the step-by-step procedures for enabling certain features."

"You cannot create custom use cases."

"Sometimes it's very difficult to determine when I need Microsoft Defender for Cloud for a special resource group or a special kind of product."

"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."

"Microsoft has much room for improvement regarding the support for Microsoft Defender for Cloud. Their competitors are much better regarding support."

"Customer service and support from Microsoft are very poor. Even for high-severity cases, response or resolution time can extend to three or four weeks."

"With the new Copilot functionality available everywhere, it is challenging to pinpoint areas for improvement. If I put in a lot of thought, I might identify things, but right now, nothing significant pops into my mind, but there is always room for more transparency, especially in pricing."

"Microsoft sources most of their threat intelligence internally, but I think they should open themselves up to bodies that provide feel intelligence to build a better engine. There may be threats out there that they don't report because their team is not doing anything on that and they don't have arrangements with another party that is involved in that research."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

"The price is exceptionally high."

"The pricing is a little high, and moreover, it's kind of domain-based."

"The solution is expensive."

"All things considered, I think it has a good price/value ratio."

"The cost is based on two types of licenses, ConsultLite, and ConsultPlus, as well as the number of domains that are scanned."

"When we looked at all other vendors and what they were asking for, to provide a third of what Acunetix was capable of doing, it was an easy decision... But now that it's coming to a cost where it's line with market value, it becomes more of a competition... Acunetix is raising the cost of licensing. It's 3.5 times what we were initially quoted."

"It is a bit expensive. If you need to check five applications, you have to pay almost 14,000. It is an agreement for two years at 7,000 per year for only five applications. You cannot change the applications in the license. So, you are stuck with the same license for the five applications for one full year."

"The pricing and licensing are reasonable to a point. In order to run multiple scans at a time, we are going to have to purchase a 100 count license, which is an overkill. Though, compared to what we were paying for, the cost seems reasonable."

More Acunetix pricing and cost advice

"Pricing is difficult because each license has its own metrics and cost."

"Pricing depends on your workload size, but it is very cheap. If you're talking about virtual machines, it is $5 or something for each machine, which is minimal. If you go for some agent-based solution for every virtual machine, then you need to pay the same thing or more than that. For an on-premises solution like this, we were paying around $30 to $50 based on size. With Defender, Microsoft doesn't bother about the size. You pay based on the number of machines. So, if you have 10 virtual machines, and 10 virtual machines are being monitored, you are paying based on that rather than the size of the virtual machine. Thus, you are paying for the number of units rather than paying for the size of your units."

"Although I am outside of the discussion on budget and costing, I can say that the importance of security provided by this solution is of such importance that whatever the cost is, it is not a factor."

"The cost is fair. There aren't any costs in addition to the standard licensing fee."

"Azure Defender is a bit pricey. The price could be lower."

"Our clients complain about the cost of Microsoft Defender for Cloud."

"This is a worldwide service and depending on the country, there will be different prices."

"This solution is more cost-effective than some competing products. My understanding is that it is based on the number of integrations that you have, so if you have fewer subscriptions then you pay less for the service."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

11%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

University

Financial Services Firm

13%

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	15
Midsize Enterprise	5
Large Enterprise	14

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	26
Midsize Enterprise	7
Large Enterprise	45

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 Acunetix Vulnerability Scanner?

The tool's most valuable feature is scan configurations. We use it for external physical applications. The scanning t...

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What is your primary use case for Acunetix Vulnerability Scanner?

The primary use case for Acunetix Vulnerability Scanner is automated scanning and detection of security vulnerabiliti...

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What advice do you have for others considering Acunetix Vulnerability Scanner?

Acunetix supports multi-user environments effectively. Acunetix is targeted for small to mid-size teams in a DevSecOp...

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How is Prisma Cloud vs Azure Security Center for security?

Azure Security Center is very easy to use, integrates well, and gives very good visibility on what is happening acros...

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What do you like most about Microsoft Defender for Cloud?

The entire Defender Suite is tightly coupled, integrated, and collaborative.

See all answers

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

The pricing is pretty standard.

See all answers

Comparisons

Wiz Code vs Zafran Security

Compared 34% of the time

Vulcan Cyber vs Zafran Security

Compared 14% of the time

Tenable Vulnerability Management vs Zafran Security

Compared 8% of the time

Qualys VMDR vs Zafran Security

Compared 7% of the time

Nucleus vs Zafran Security

Compared 7% of the time

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OWASP Zap vs Acunetix

Compared 16% of the time

PortSwigger Burp Suite Professional vs Acunetix

Compared 9% of the time

HCL AppScan vs Acunetix

Compared 8% of the time

Invicti vs Acunetix

Compared 7% of the time

Veracode vs Acunetix

Compared 5% of the time

More Acunetix Competitors

AWS GuardDuty vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 30% of the time

Wiz vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 11% of the time

Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 7% of the time

Microsoft Defender XDR vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 4% of the time

Orca Security vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 3% of the time

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Zafran Security

September 2025

Download Zafran Security product report

Buyer's Guide

Acunetix

October 2025

Download Acunetix product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Defender for Cloud

September 2025

Download Microsoft Defender for Cloud product report

Also Known As

No data available

AcuSensor

Microsoft Azure Security Center, Azure Security Center, Microsoft ASC, Azure Defender

Interactive Demo

Demo not available

Zafran Security

Demo not available

Invicti

Microsoft

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

Acunetix Web Vulnerability Scanner is an automated web application security testing tool that audits your web applications by checking for vulnerabilities like SQL Injection, Cross site scripting, and other exploitable vulnerabilities.

Invicti

Microsoft Defender for Cloud is a comprehensive security solution that provides advanced threat protection for cloud workloads. It offers real-time visibility into the security posture of cloud environments, enabling organizations to quickly identify and respond to potential threats. With its advanced machine learning capabilities, Microsoft Defender for Cloud can detect and block sophisticated attacks, including zero-day exploits and fileless malware.

The solution also provides automated remediation capabilities, allowing security teams to quickly and easily respond to security incidents. With Microsoft Defender for Cloud, organizations can ensure the security and compliance of their cloud workloads, while reducing the burden on their security teams.

Microsoft

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

Joomla!, Digicure, Team Random, Credit Suisse, Samsung, Air New Zealand

Microsoft Defender for Cloud is trusted by companies such as ASOS, Vatenfall, SWC Technology Partners, and more.

Buyer's Guide

Acunetix vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud

September 2025

Free Report: Acunetix vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Find out what your peers are saying about Acunetix vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.

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