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Anomali vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 1, 2025

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

Anomali
Ranking in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
31st
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (56th), User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) (25th), Threat Intelligence Platforms (9th), Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (41st)
Microsoft Defender for Clou...
Ranking in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
12th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
37
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (5th), Microsoft Security Suite (13th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) category, the mindshare of Anomali is 1.1%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is 1.6%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
 

Featured Reviews

PP
Easy and quick credential monitoring; tech support could be improved
Currently, we are not using any other solution for this use case, but previously we used MISP, which is an open-source project that requires a lot of effort to make work. That way, it required a lot of attention from our system administrator, and we had to sanitize the data very frequently because the peers we had. Sometimes they flooded our systems with chunk data and that needs to be handled and we decided to go with a paid solution instead.
Jagadeesh Gunasekaran - PeerSpot reviewer
Saves us time, has good visibility, and a single dashboard
The solution is user-friendly and provides great visibility into threats. There are easy options available for specific workflow inspections. We can also get support by going through the Microsoft documentation, which is straightforward. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps helps us prioritize threats across our enterprise. It covers us from a compliance perspective and protects our organization's data. Data protection is a very important aspect of any new organization, as we need to protect our data from both external attacks and insider threats. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps helps us monitor for abnormal activity by insiders, which is one of the most important access points for attackers today. Additionally, the different cloud apps that Defender for Cloud Apps supports provide us with much more visibility into potential threats and activities on the internet. We have integrated Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps alerts with Sentinel. The integration is straightforward. We can find the configuration details on Microsoft's official documentation website. If we are familiar with how Microsoft products work, we will be able to follow the instructions clearly. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps and Sentinel work natively together to deliver coordinated detection and response across our environment. Our integrated Microsoft solutions provide comprehensive threat protection, covering most of the tactics and techniques relevant to the MITRE ATT&CK framework. Sentinel allows us to ingest data from our entire ecosystem. When implementing an SIEM solution, there are always prerequisites such as Active Directory logs, security logs, firewall logs, and DNS logs. These are important logs that need to be ingested into the environment. Sentinel has many third-party connectors available that make integrations straightforward. Microsoft provides the configuration details in the Sentinel platform. It is important to integrate all relevant log sources into the SIEM solution so that we can detect and be alerted to any type of threat factor, whether it is from an internal or external source. Integrating third-party solutions into the platform requires a separate configuration, but Microsoft provides the necessary information. However, we need to have the appropriate permissions to execute these setups. Sentinel provides a centralized dashboard that covers threat management and configuration. It gives us complete insight into what entities are accessing, as well as full details for investigation. We can see how the alerts and threats are relevant to suspicious activities, whether they are related to malicious IP addresses, suspicious ASHAs, or any other indicators of compromise. All of this relevant data can be seen in a single pane. Recently, Microsoft introduced a new investigation experience in a single pane. This means that we can now get a lot of details in a single pane, without having to go there and execute a query. There are a lot of new insights being developed in the Sentinel platform these days. It has software intelligence. They recently introduced Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence, which covers almost all IOCs. This protects organizational assets from threats and suspicious traffic associated with IOCs. If a match is found, alerts are generated. This is a very interesting feature. Another great feature is automation and logic apps. We can create a number of operations, such as posting in a team's channel if a severe incident occurs or sending an email notification. There are many operations available, so we can automate a lot of tasks. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps helps us stay compliant. It has predefined mechanisms in place to prevent attacks. For example, if an external user tries to access our SharePoint folders or files, an attack will be blocked. This is why it is important to give appropriate access to guest users. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps has many features and benefits. It provides a number of policies that can be configured to meet the specific needs of our security team. These policies can be used to customize cloud applications so that only authorized users can access them and perform operations that benefit the organization. In terms of safety and security, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is top-notch. Using the solution's automation features, we can suppress false positive alerts. We can also close alerts, lower their severity from "high" to "low" or "informational," or close them immediately with the appropriate commands. This will depend on the configuration automation rule and the perspective from which we are testing. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps provides a single console. We are also provided with Microsoft templates to enable workbooks instantly. Alternatively, we can build our own customized workbooks to provide better insights and improve our SOC efficiency and overall performance. Consolidating all of our security data into one dashboard has saved our security operations team a significant amount of time. From an analyst's perspective, it is now much easier to correlate events, investigate alerts, and visualize specific entities. For example, an analyst can quickly see all of the alerts associated with a particular IP address, or they can view all of the activity for a specific entity over the past 24 hours or 7 days. This level of detail and insight would not be possible if our data were siloed in multiple dashboards. The single dashboard saves our operations approximately 20 hours per week by eliminating the need to access multiple consoles and tabs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps threat intelligence can help us prepare for potential threats before they happen. However, it depends on how we develop the policies for the database to block or ignore things in our environment.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The feature I have found most valuable is credential monitoring. This feature is easy and quick."
"I have found Cyber threat intelligence (CTI) very useful and concise. The solution is easy to use."
"The most valuable aspect of Anomali is the threat modeling capability."
"Shadow IT discovery is the feature I like the most."
"The most valuable feature is the ease of management. It's important."
"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."
"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."
"The product’s most valuable feature is SQL database."
"I would rate it a ten because I have not experienced any stability issues so far with Defender for Cloud Apps."
"If your business requirements are relatively simple, it can get the job done."
"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."
 

Cons

"A lot of tools can give you many features, such as CTI intelligence and a tax service reduction. However, many people are combining different tools together to have more capabilities. It is up to the consumer whether they want to have multiple tools or have one tool that serves the purpose. Anomali Enterprise could improve by combining all the other tools' features into one solution."
"An area for improvement is the intelligence sharing within the Anomali community. The tagging system can be inconsistent, as any company can use any tags for their reporting."
"Less code in integration would be nice when building blocks."
"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."
"The product is very good so far, however, it would be better if it could include more up-to-date threat protection."
"The technical support team has room for improvement."
"I want them to enhance in-session policy."
"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 could integrate better with multi-cloud and hybrid environments. It requires some additional configuration to ingest data from non-Azure environments and integrate it with Sentinel."
"The interface needs to be more user-friendly."
"Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps' initial setup was quite technical but we were prepared. The time of the implementation depends on the job and how many users are being set up."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"When comparing the price of Anomali Enterprise to other solutions it is in the medium to high range. However, I am satisfied with the price."
"It has fair pricing. You pay for what you get. As far as I know, there are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fee."
"It has pretty good pricing."
"The product's pricing seems fair."
"It is a little bit expensive. When you want to have the complete package with Office 365, Defender, and everything else, it is expensive."
"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 are an MST and we do not pay for the solution. However, the price of the solution could be better."
"The price could be better and should be reconsidered."
"Microsoft offers bundle discounts and a pay-as-you-go option."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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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-native solution, unifying multiple features like DNS-layer security, threat intelli...
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 notifications are pretty good.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Cloud App Security?
The pricing for Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is acceptable. If a product is of high quality, it justifies the expense.
 

Also Known As

Match, Lens, ThreatStream, STAXX, Anomali Security Analytics
MS Cloud App Security, Microsoft Cloud App Security
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Bank of England, First Energy, UBISOFT, Bank of Hope, Blackhawk Network
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 Anomali vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.