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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 Oct 19, 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
7.7
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 (2nd)
Aqua Cloud Security Platform
Ranking in Container Security
17th
Ranking in Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
15th
Ranking in Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP)
12th
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 (10th), 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 (9th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (4th), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (4th), Microsoft Security Suite (8th), Compliance Management (5th), Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2025, in the Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) category, the mindshare of SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security is 3.6%, up from 1.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Aqua Cloud Security Platform is 2.5%, down from 3.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is 15.4%, up from 15.4% 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 Cloud15.4%
SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security3.6%
Aqua Cloud Security Platform2.5%
Other78.5%
Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
 

Featured Reviews

Chetan Yelve - PeerSpot reviewer
Enhancing workflow with automation and comprehensive security monitoring
Since I have been using it, I have seen many improvements. SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security is an excellent CSSPM tool, but the CSC CWPP features need improvement. There is scope for more application security posture management features and other than that, there are not many ASPM solutions on the market, and existing ones are more costly. I would prefer to see SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security develop into a single pane of glass for ASPM and CSPM, and I would also appreciate runtime protection highlighted immediately if I'm changing anything in my environment. The dashboard needs more widgets added so that customers or users can see everything on the dashboard itself without needing to go too deep.
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 feature is the easy-to-understand user interface, which allows even non-technical users to comprehend and resolve issues."
"Overall, I would rate it a ten on ten for cloud security."
"SentinelOne stands out with its responsiveness to feature requests for Singularity Cloud Security."
"The most valuable feature of SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security is its integration with most of our technology stack, specifically all of our cloud platforms and ticketing software."
"It has a user-friendly dashboard that I can access without any difficulty."
"Its performance impact on the systems is low, which means there is a minimal impact on system performance compared to traditional antivirus solutions."
"The dashboard is intuitive in terms of design and functionality. Additionally, it gives me an email for all the findings that are open."
"The tool identifies issues quickly."
"From what I understand, the initial setup is simple."
"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."
"Aqua Security helps us to check the vulnerability of image assurance and check for malware."
"The DTA, which stands for Dynamic Threat Analysis, allows me to analyze Docker images in a sandbox environment before deployment, helping me anticipate risks."
"Support is very helpful."
"We use Aqua Security for the container security features."
"Customers find it invaluable to have the ability to check for vulnerabilities in an image before deployment, similar to a sandbox environment."
"The solution was very user-friendly."
"Most importantly, it's an integrated solution. We not only have Defender for Cloud, but we also have Defender for Endpoint, Defender for Office 365, and Defender for Identity. It's an integrated, holistic solution."
"Defender is a robust platform for dealing with many kinds of threats. We're protected from various threats, like viruses. Attacks can be easily minimized with this solution defending our infrastructure."
"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."
"It helps you to identify the gaps in your solution and remediate them. It produces a compliance checklist against known standards such as ISO 27001, HIPAA, iTrust, etc."
"The security alerts and correlated alerts are most valuable. It correlates the logs and gives us correlated alerts, which can be fed into any security information and event management (SIEM) tool. It is an analyzed correlation tool for monitoring security. It gives us alerts when there is any kind of unauthorized access, or when there is any malfunctioning in multifactor authentication (MFA). If our Azure is connected with Azure Security Center, we get to know what types of authentication are happening in our infra."
"The vulnerability reporting is helpful. When we initially deployed Defender, it reported many more threats than we currently see. It gave us insight into areas we had not previously considered, so we knew where we needed to act."
"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."
"Microsoft Defender for Cloud is stable and reliable as advertised."
 

Cons

"The cloud-based operations might pose challenges in areas with limited or unavailable internet connectivity. Desktop features might be useful for smaller organizations with less complex security needs."
"For vulnerabilities, they are showing CVE ID. The naming convention should be better so that it indicates the container where a vulnerability is present. Currently, they are only showing CVE ID, but the same CVE ID might be present in multiple containers. We would like to have the container name so that we can easily fix the issue."
"I'd like to see better onboarding documentation."
"To enhance the notification system's efficiency, resolved issues should be promptly removed from the portal."
"SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security's current documentation could be improved to better assist customers during the cluster onboarding process."
"While SentinelOne offers robust security features, its higher cost may present a challenge for budget-conscious organizations."
"SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security can improve by eliminating 100 percent of the false positives."
"here is a bit of a learning curve. However, you only need two to three days to identify options and get accustomed."
"The solution could improve user-friendliness."
"Sometimes I got stressed with the UI."
"Since we are working from home, we would like to have the proper training for Aqua."
"Aqua Security could improve the forwarding of logging into Splunk and into other tools, it should be easier."
"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."
"Aqua Security could provide more open documentation so that their learning resources can be more easily accessed and searched through online. Right now, a lot of the documentation is closed and not available to the public."
"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."
"It's a bit hard to use the user roles. That was a bit confusing."
"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."
"Microsoft Graph needs improvement."
"However, some Copilot features aren't available in the GCP environment. This is something we hope will be addressed in the future."
"Defender could improve how data is represented. It can be unstructured or slow to load."
"The solution could extend its capabilities to other cloud providers. Right now, if you want to monitor a virtual machine on another cloud, you can do that. However, this cannot be done with other cloud platform services. I hope once that is available then Defender for Cloud will be a unified solution for all cloud platform services."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I understand that SentinelOne is a market leader, but the bill we received was astronomical."
"PingSafe is less expensive than other options."
"SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security is costly."
"Its pricing is okay. It is in line with what other providers were providing. It is not cheap. It is not expensive."
"PingSafe's pricing is good because it provides us with a solution."
"It's not expensive. The product is in its initial growth stages and appears more competitive compared to others. It comes in different variants, and I believe the enterprise version costs around $55 per user per year. I would rate it a five, somewhere fairly moderate."
"PingSafe is priced reasonably for our workload."
"The price depends on the extension of the solution that you want to buy. If you want to buy just EDR, the price is less. XDR is a little bit more expensive. There are going to be different add-ons for Singularity."
"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."
"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."
"It comes at a reasonable cost."
"The pricing of this solution could be improved."
"The pricing and licensing of Microsoft Defender for Cloud have been good for us. We appreciate the licensing approach based on employee count rather than a big enterprise license."
"Pricing is difficult because each license has its own metrics and cost."
"The tool is pretty expensive."
"Microsoft's licensing and pricing are sometimes complicated. If someone is new to Microsoft's licensing, they might have difficulty with it."
"They have a free version, but the license for this one isn't too high. It's free to start with, and you're charged for using it beyond 30 days. Some other pieces of Defender are charged based on usage, so you will be charged more for a high volume of transactions. I believe Defender for Cloud is a daily charge based on Azure's App Service Pricing."
"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."
"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."
"We only use the free tier, so we haven't faced any pricing, setup costs, or licensing challenges."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
24%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business46
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise53
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise9
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business26
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise45
 

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 think the pricing of SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security is a bit high.
What needs improvement with PingSafe?
One area that could be improved in SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security is their policies; the way they have config...
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: September 2025.
872,846 professionals have used our research since 2012.