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Aqua Cloud Security Platform vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 13, 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

SentinelOne Singularity Clo...
Sponsored
Ranking in Container Security
3rd
Ranking in Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
4th
Ranking in Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP)
3rd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
114
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (5th), Cloud and Data Center Security (2nd), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (3rd), Compliance Management (1st)
Aqua Cloud Security Platform
Ranking in Container Security
16th
Ranking in Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
15th
Ranking in Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP)
13th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
Cloud and Data Center Security (12th), Software Supply Chain Security (9th), DevSecOps (10th)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Ranking in Container Security
7th
Ranking in Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
1st
Ranking in Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP)
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
79
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (7th), Container Management (8th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (4th), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (5th), Microsoft Security Suite (7th), Compliance Management (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) category, the mindshare of SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security is 3.6%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Aqua Cloud Security Platform is 2.6%, down from 3.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is 14.3%, down from 16.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud14.3%
SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security3.6%
Aqua Cloud Security Platform2.6%
Other79.5%
Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
 

Featured Reviews

Mike Bulyk - PeerSpot reviewer
Custom correlation searches enhance threat detection efficiency
Singularity Cloud Security significantly reduced our organization's threat detection time by providing immediate data visibility. This allows our team to analyze telemetry in real-time, query it, and identify anomalies or potential threats using the Singularity platform. We can create rules that automatically trigger alerts based on this real-time data, enabling immediate response. This instant threat detection and response capability is a major improvement over our previous reliance on multiple tools with delayed data flows. Singularity Cloud Security eliminates those delays, saving valuable time in incident response scenarios. MTTR and MTTD are critical metrics for incident response processes. They measure the time it takes to fully address an incident, from initial detection to complete remediation. Minimizing these times is crucial to limit damage, as attackers can quickly exploit vulnerabilities and compromise additional systems. Rapid detection and response are essential to disrupt attackers and prevent further progression within the attack chain. Singularity Cloud helps reduce false positives by allowing engineers direct access to data. This access enables querying, validation, and the creation of correlation searches for improved data analysis. Instead of a black box approach, Singularity provides full visibility into the code and syntax used, increasing confidence in the results. Ultimately, Singularity offers greater control over correlation searches, detection rules, and response scenarios due to the enhanced engagement and control it provides. Singularity's ability to create custom correlation searches significantly reduces noise by avoiding reliance on generic, pre-built searches that often lead to false positives in diverse organizational environments. This targeted approach results in a high positive rate and efficacy, allowing for focused detection and response. By designing and running custom searches, Singularity minimizes the need to sift through irrelevant alerts, unlike systems using default rules that inundate analysts with noise. This translates to a very low noise-to-efficacy ratio, enabling efficient and accurate incident response. Singularity Cloud offers valuable data and capabilities extending beyond security, benefiting various business units. For example, it helped troubleshoot a newly introduced service with limited telemetry. My team created custom correlation searches to track specific event types, confirming the software's functionality. This success garnered positive feedback throughout the company, reaching even the CIO and CSR, as it enabled the business to showcase the software's effectiveness in a way that was previously impossible. SentinelOne improves our regulatory compliance by fulfilling the endpoint detection and response requirements of various frameworks. Many federal regulations require businesses to meet specific security standards, including those related to endpoint, identity, and cloud security. SentinelOne enables us to meet these requirements and assure potential partners that we have a robust security posture. This strengthens our partnerships and streamlines procurement processes, demonstrating how SentinelOne contributes to our compliance efforts. SentinelOne's evidence-based reporting, particularly the CNS reports, fosters trust due to the transparency of the data source and the ability to understand the underlying mechanisms. Knowing the search criteria, data types, and information gathering process, especially when customized for detection engineering, creates confidence in the product and the relationship with SentinelOne. This transparency and customization allow users to delve into the mechanics of the reporting, understand its functionality, and ultimately trust the evidence provided. AI is a crucial consideration for security strategies. While some view AI as a potential replacement for human analysts, others see it as a powerful tool to enhance their capabilities. The latter approach emphasizes AI's ability to accelerate incident response, improve threat detection, and provide valuable insights to analysts. This perspective suggests that AI should be used to augment human expertise, enabling analysts to make faster and more informed decisions, particularly in prioritizing threats and developing a sixth sense for identifying malicious activity. By integrating AI as an enabler, organizations can empower their security teams to become more efficient and effective, ultimately strengthening their overall security posture.
Burak AKCAGUN - PeerSpot reviewer
A robust and cost-effective solution, excelling in scalability, on-premises support, and responsive technical support, making it well-suited for enterprises navigating stringent regulatory environment
The most crucial aspect is runtime protection, specifically image scanning before preproduction and deployment. Customers find it invaluable to have the ability to check for vulnerabilities in an image before deployment, similar to a sandbox environment. This feature ensures that customers can identify any potential issues with the image, such as misconfigurations or vulnerabilities, before integrating it into their workloads and infrastructure. In their source pipeline, companies can identify issues before deploying changes. This is crucial because customers prefer resolving any problems or misconfigurations before the deployment process. Software change security, including GSPM Cloud, is a key feature customers seek in their infrastructure.
Vibhor Goel - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable aspects of SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security are its alerting system and the remediation guidance it provides."
"The features that stand out are threat detection using advanced artificial intelligence and machine learning, helping to identify and respond to threats in real-time."
"Cloud Native Security offers a valuable tool called an offensive search engine."
"SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security offers comprehensive security posture management."
"Cloud Native Security helps us discover vulnerabilities in a cloud environment like open ports that allow people to attack our environment. If someone unintentionally opens a port, we are exposed. Cloud Native Security alerts us so we can remediate the problem. We can also automate it so that Cloud Native Security will fix it."
"The most valuable feature is the easy-to-understand user interface, which allows even non-technical users to comprehend and resolve issues."
"Cloud Native Security's most valuable features include cloud misconfiguration detection and remediation, compliance monitoring, a robust authentication security engine, and cloud threat detection and response capabilities."
"SentinelOne is far superior to our previous solution, Accops, due to its seamless updates, effortless maintenance, and user-friendly interface and dashboard."
"The DTA, which stands for Dynamic Threat Analysis, allows me to analyze Docker images in a sandbox environment before deployment, helping me anticipate risks."
"Aqua Security helps us to check the vulnerability of image assurance and check for malware."
"The solution was very user-friendly."
"Support is very helpful."
"The most valuable feature of Aqua Security is the scanner."
"Customers find it invaluable to have the ability to check for vulnerabilities in an image before deployment, similar to a sandbox environment."
"Aqua Security allowed us to gain visibility into the vulnerabilities that were present in the container images, that were being rolled out, the amount of risk that we were introducing to the platform, and provided us a look into the container environment by introducing access control mechanisms. In addition, when it came to runtime-level policies, we could restrict container access to resources in our environment, such as network-level or other application-level access."
"We use Aqua Security for the container security features."
"Microsoft Defender for Cloud is stable and reliable as advertised."
"The most valuable feature is the recommendations provided on how to improve security."
"The notification process of Microsoft Defender for Cloud has been the most valuable feature. The notification process is effortless, as it can tell me right there and then locate issues pretty fast, saving us a lot of time by not having to dig through all the warnings."
"The most valuable feature is the regulatory compliance aspect, where we utilize predefined initiatives like NIST. Alert management is another useful feature. Alerts are directly integrated with our email or DevOps board for easy viewing, allowing us to identify problem areas efficiently."
"Defender for Cloud is an improvement over Trend Micro, our previous solution. We like integrating our endpoints and visualizing everything in one place. It provides comprehensive coverage for endpoints, servers, and overall environmental security."
"One important security feature is the incident alerts. Now, with all these cyberattacks, there are a lot of incident alerts that get triggered. It is very difficult to keep monitoring everything automatically, instead our organization is utilizing the automated use case that we get from Microsoft. That has helped bring down the manual work for a lot of things."
"We can create alerts that trigger if there is any malicious activity happening in the workflow and these alerts can be retrieved using the query language."
"The most valuable feature for me is the variety of APIs available."
 

Cons

"There is no break-glass account feature. They should implement this as soon as possible because we can't implement SSO without a break-glass feature."
"In version 2, a lot of rules have been deployed for Kubernetes security and CDR, which makes a lot of issues of critical severity, whereas they are not critical or of high severity. There is a mismatch of severities. They need to work on severity management."
"We are getting reports only in a predefined form. I would like to have customized reports so that I can see how many issues are open or closed today or in two weeks."
"The main area for improvement I want to see is for the platform to become less resource-intensive. Right now, it can slow down processes on the machine, and it would be a massive improvement if it were more lightweight than it currently is."
"The cost has the potential for improvement."
"SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security filtering has some areas that cause problems, and to achieve single sign-on functionality, a break-glass feature, which is currently unavailable, is necessary."
"They could generally give us better comprehensive rules."
"There is scope for more application security posture management features. Additionally, the runtime protection needs attention."
"It's a bit hard to use the user roles. That was a bit confusing."
"I would like Aqua Security to look into is the development of a web security portal."
"They want to release improvements to their product to work with other servers because now there are more focused on the Kubernetes environment. They need to improve the normal servers. I would like to have more options."
"Since we are working from home, we would like to have the proper training for Aqua."
"The integrations on CICD could be improved. If Aqua had more plugins or container images to integrate and automate more easily on CICD, it would be better."
"There's room for improvement, particularly in management capabilities as it may not be comprehensive enough for all customers, and it has been lacking in the realm of cloud security posture management."
"The solution could improve user-friendliness."
"Aqua Security lacks a lot in reporting."
"While we are satisfied with Defender for Cloud's features, an AI enhancement could potentially provide better advice and adapt more effectively to our environment."
"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."
"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."
"I would like to have the ability to customize executive reporting."
"It needs to be simplified and made more user-friendly for a non-technical person."
"Defender is occasionally unreliable. It isn't 100% efficient in terms of antivirus detection, but it isn't an issue most of the time. It's also somewhat difficult to train new security analysts to use Defender."
"When you work with it, the only problem that we're struggling with is that we have 21 different subscriptions we're trying to apply security to. It's impossible to keep everything organized."
"Customizing some of the compliance requirements based on individual needs seems like the biggest area of improvement. There should be an option to turn specific controls on and off based on how your solution is configured."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost for PingSafe is average when compared to other CSPM tools."
"Singularity Cloud Security by SentinelOne is cost-efficient."
"I understand that SentinelOne is a market leader, but the bill we received was astronomical."
"The tool is cost-effective."
"I am personally not taking care of the pricing part, but when we moved from CrowdStrike to PingSafe, there were some savings. The price of CrowdStrike was quite high. Compared to that, the price of PingSafe was low. PingSafe is charging based on the subscription model. If I want to add an AWS subscription, I need to pay more. It should not be based on subscription. It should be based on the number of servers that I am scanning."
"It's not cheap, but it is worth the price."
"PingSafe is less expensive than other options."
"PingSafe is cost-effective for the amount of infrastructure we have. It's reasonable for what they offer compared to our previous solution. It's at least 25 percent to 30 percent less."
"It comes at a reasonable cost."
"The pricing of this solution could be improved."
"Dealing with licensing costs isn't my responsibility, but I know that the licenses don't depend on the number of users, but instead are priced according to your workload."
"Aqua Security is not cheap, and it's not very expensive, such as Splunk, they are in the middle."
"They were reasonable with their pricing. They were pretty down-to-earth about the way they pitched their product and the way they tried to close the deal. They were one of the rare companies that approached the whole valuation in a way that made sense for our company, for our needs, and for their own requirements as well... They will accommodate your needs if they are able to understand them and they're stated clearly."
"The licensing is straightforward but can become expensive if you cover everything. You must balance the cost against the importance of what needs covering."
"Understanding the costs of cloud services can be complicated at first. As with a lot of things in the cloud, it can be quite hard to understand the end cost, but it becomes clearer over time. Early on, the lack of transparency is a challenge. Microsoft does not tell you the cost when they launch something. It is clever marketing, and there is room for improvement there. There should be clarity from the start."
"Its pricing is a little bit high in terms of Azure Security Center, but the good thing is that we don't need to maintain and deploy it. So, while the pricing is high, it is native to Azure which is why we prefer using this tool."
"Microsoft's licensing and pricing are sometimes complicated. If someone is new to Microsoft's licensing, they might have difficulty with it."
"We only use the free tier, so we haven't faced any pricing, setup costs, or licensing challenges."
"I rate Microsoft Defender a three out of ten for affordability. The price could be a little lower."
"We are using the free version of the Azure Security Center."
"This is a worldwide service and depending on the country, there will be different prices."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
23%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business43
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise53
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise9
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business26
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise44
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about PingSafe?
The dashboard gives me an overview of all the things happening in the product, making it one of the tool's best featu...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for PingSafe?
I don't handle the price part, but it isn't more expensive than Palo Alto Prisma Cloud. It's not cheap, but it is wor...
What needs improvement with PingSafe?
There is scope for more application security posture management features. Additionally, the runtime protection needs ...
What do you think of Aqua Security vs Prisma Cloud?
Aqua Security is easy to use and very manageable. Its main focus is on Kubernetes and Docker. Security is a very valu...
What do you like most about Aqua Security?
Customers find it invaluable to have the ability to check for vulnerabilities in an image before deployment, similar ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Aqua Security?
It comes at a reasonable cost. When compared to Prisma Cloud, it is more budget-friendly.
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...
What do you like most about Microsoft Defender for Cloud?
The entire Defender Suite is tightly coupled, integrated, and collaborative.
 

Also Known As

PingSafe
Aqua Security Platform, CloudSploit, Argon
Microsoft Azure Security Center, Azure Security Center, Microsoft ASC, Azure Defender
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
HPE Salesforce Telstra Ellie Mae Cathay Pacific HomeAway
Microsoft Defender for Cloud is trusted by companies such as ASOS, Vatenfall, SWC Technology Partners, and more.
Find out what your peers are saying about Aqua Cloud Security Platform vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud and other solutions. Updated: August 2025.
867,445 professionals have used our research since 2012.