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Akamai Enterprise Application Access vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 2026

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

Akamai Enterprise Applicati...
Ranking in Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)
15th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Access Management (19th), ZTNA as a Service (20th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (18th)
Microsoft Defender for Clou...
Ranking in Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (16th), Microsoft Security Suite (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) category, the mindshare of Akamai Enterprise Application Access is 3.6%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is 5.6%, down from 8.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps5.6%
Akamai Enterprise Application Access3.6%
Other90.8%
Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)
 

Featured Reviews

DE
Platform Manager at Globe Telecom
Centralized authentication streamlines global access with single sign-on and auto-scaling for seamless user experience
We use Akamai Enterprise Application Access for centralized authentication for our global customers. It provides a solution for consolidated authentication on our platform. We use the service to manage access for our global consumers, not for remote access for our employees My favorite part of…
Abdulrahman Muhammadi - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"My favorite part of the Akamai Enterprise Application Access service is its SSO and auto-scaling capabilities."
"The solution is very convenient and stable because you don't have to worry about attacks to public IPs or public networks."
"The cost and the capability are great."
"Application Access's most valuable feature is the accessibility of enterprise tech protection."
"The capability of Akamai Enterprise Application Access is what you're looking for, it's giving you the service that you're looking for. It's simple and doesn't use an agent. It uses LCSD responders, and they have a lot of services around the globe. That's the reason that we were very interested in using it because it has a lot of coverage. This is because it's under the GDS umbrella."
"We've had a good ROI from Application Access."
"It has helped identify areas where we should improve, make changes to improve, the reason why we should make a change, and the impact of making the change."
"The product’s most valuable feature is SQL database."
"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."
"In summary, we have just begun using this product but so far, it works well and we are satisfied with it."
"The compliance capabilities of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps are quite extensive."
"The benefit you get is that you are able to monitor all your applications and control the data that goes out of those applications."
"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."
 

Cons

"If you provide enterprise services we have to stop telling the customers it's going to be per users or the transactions. That's not good for the customers, it's good for the vendors."
"We need another approach to bring the solution to the cloud. In addition to Access Management, we would like to see if we can jump into Directories. I think ADs are going to go away and everything is going to be cloud-based and minimize the use of ADs because of the cost and some other dependencies to the cloud. Every time you buy AD it is more hardware, and everything's changing to software. The network's changing, the applications are changing, and for IT it is hard to keep up with it."
"The solution has two agents so should combine its enterprise application and security access into one agent."
"The pricing could be lower for Akamai Enterprise Application Access."
"The technical enablement sessions are quite limited, and Akamai could help by providing more of them."
"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."
"We sometimes get errors when we create policies, which is somewhat annoying because some policies stop working due to misconfigurations. We find this challenging because it limits our options for troubleshooting an issue."
"The insights could be improved, especially in reporting. While it is possible for me to see the usage from different cloud apps, determining if critical data has been uploaded or if it is just normal transport data is difficult."
"There have been instances where the alerts generated have been false positives."
"Improved communication and follow-up would be helpful. Sometimes, we don’t hear back after creating a ticket for a day or two."
"We are having trouble with our continuous reporting configuration and struggling with configuring the collector properly with our log parsing. We've also faced difficulties getting support for this issue. It's taken us months to figure this out after going through a couple of different support channels."
"The interface needs to be more user-friendly."
"An area of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps that needs to be improved or enhanced is the reporting function. In the beginning, there was a good reporting function which gave us a sort of monthly overview report. But that has gone away."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Licensing is based on user count."
"The price is great it is all-inclusive, they use an enterprise cost model. That's what we like compared to other users. This is one of the main attractions of Akamai Enterprise Application Access. It's already an enterprise cost model established with us for services."
"The license can be shared based on the number of active users."
"I'm not totally involved in the pricing part, but I think its pricing is quite aggressive, and its price is quite similar to Netskope. Netskope has separate licensing fees or additional charges if you want to monitor certain SaaS services, whereas, with MCAS, you get 5,000 applications with their Office 365. It is all bundled, and there's no cost for using that. You only have the operational costs. In the country I am in, it is a bit difficult to get people with the required skill sets."
"We have an educational licensing agreement. It's a customer agreement for multiple years."
"The pricing is in the middle. It isn't too cheap or expensive compared to other antivirus or security products. It is priced according to industry standards."
"The price could be better and should be reconsidered."
"The E5 license offers everything bundled. People are moving to Microsoft because you buy one license and it gives you everything."
"The cost could be improved when you need to pay for anything. For example, refreshing files takes time to load, though it may be my Internet. To improve the refresh time, Microsoft says that we need to pay for a Premium license, and I don't like paying for things that help make a solution better."
"Microsoft offers bundle discounts and a pay-as-you-go option."
"The product's pricing seems fair."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Construction Company
8%
Healthcare Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise19
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Akamai Enterprise Application Access?
The pricing is a bit expensive for our market. Although it is cheaper compared to alternatives, Akamai Enterprise Application Access offers a more robust solution overall, particularly for authenti...
What is your primary use case for Akamai Enterprise Application Access?
We use Akamai Enterprise Application Access ( /products/akamai-enterprise-application-access-reviews ) for centralized authentication for our global customers. It provides a solution for consolidat...
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-native solution, unifying multiple features like DNS-layer security, threat intelli...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Cloud App Security?
At the time of implementation, when the size of our organization was small, it was a more affordable product. Since all our productivity applications were on O365, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Cloud App Security?
The fidelity of the signal in Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps has been a challenge in some areas. There have been instances where the alerts generated have been false positives. A lot of work has...
 

Also Known As

Soha
MS Cloud App Security, Microsoft Cloud App Security
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Bugcrowd, InPowered, Spirent Communications
Customers for Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps include Accenture, St. Luke’s University Health Network, Ansell, and Nakilat.
Find out what your peers are saying about Akamai Enterprise Application Access vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,701 professionals have used our research since 2012.