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Automox vs Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

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
Sponsored
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
18th
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) (3rd)
Automox
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
34th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
2.4
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (39th), Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) (12th), Patch Management (13th)
Microsoft Defender Vulnerab...
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
12th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (18th), Microsoft Security Suite (19th), Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Vulnerability Management category, the mindshare of Zafran Security is 1.1%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Automox is 0.5%, down from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management is 2.1%, down from 3.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Vulnerability Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management2.1%
Zafran Security1.1%
Automox0.5%
Other96.3%
Vulnerability Management
 

Featured Reviews

Reviewer6233 - PeerSpot reviewer
Works at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees
Has become an indispensable tool in our cybersecurity arsenal
While Zafran Security is already a powerful tool, there are areas where it could be further improved to provide even greater value. One key area for enhancement is the searching capabilities within its vulnerabilities module. By incorporating the ability to create Boolean searches, users would gain the ability to apply more complex filters and customize their search criteria. This would greatly enhance the precision and efficiency with which security teams can identify and prioritize vulnerabilities. Having such tailored search capabilities would save time and resources by narrowing down vast lists of vulnerabilities to those that meet specific parameters relevant to our unique risk environment. Additionally, integrating more robust reporting and visualization tools would be advantageous. Enhanced dashboards that offer customizable visual representations of risk configurations and threat landscapes would facilitate better communication with stakeholders, making it easier to explain vulnerabilities and the rationale behind certain security measures. This would also aid in demonstrating the improvements and value derived from existing security investments to leadership and non-technical team members.
RA
Network & Security Administrator at a legal firm with 51-200 employees
Provides real-time application updates with exceptional support
Some of the better features with Automox include its nice GUI, which looks intuitive, and it doesn't have a huge learning curve. Automox's real-time visibility and control through its intuitive dashboard is important for our response to emerging threats because it tells us which applications need to be updated on a real-time basis.
OB
Microsoft Solutions Manager at Self-Employed
Ensures strong threat and vulnerability management with continuous risk assessment
The major priority is identity, which is crucial; we have lots of companies in manufacturing, energy, or various sectors, and it varies from one to another. I assess Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management as very effective in continuously assessing vulnerabilities without requiring scans. We use automatic investigation and remediation features, safe attachments, safe links, and real-time reports, which are also very effective. For Active Directory, Defender has threat intelligence, and we are using that. The risk-based prioritization within Vulnerability Management affects my ability to manage vulnerabilities, particularly in relation to the Zero Trust Model utilized by our customers. The end-users often do as they please in their systems.

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 has become an indispensable tool in our cybersecurity arsenal."
"Zafran is an excellent tool."
"We are able to see the real risk of a vulnerability on our environment with our security tools."
"We saw benefits from Zafran Security almost immediately after deploying it."
"With Zafran Security, it integrates with your security controls, allowing you to take that risk score and reduce it based on the controls in place or increase the risk based on different factors, such as if the issue is internet reachable or if there's an exploit in the wild."
"The fact that it's just one product that can patch multiple operating systems is really great."
"They've been adding some new features lately, which I'm not nearly as familiar with, but the ability to just deploy patches and exempt certain machines from certain patches is helpful. For instance, for our servers, we may not want to roll out zero-day patches. We are able to exempt those and make sure that they don't get those policies. We've got certain servers that have to run a particular version of Java, and being able to exempt those servers from receiving Java updates is pretty fantastic."
"Previously, we would run a report, scan it, and compare it. We were spending 15 to 30 minutes a month on each machine on this stuff because you would find stuff that wasn't up to date, then you had to fix it. This solution takes that time down to minutes. Automox saves us easily many hours a month."
"Automox's real-time visibility and control through its intuitive dashboard is important for our response to emerging threats because it tells us which applications need to be updated on a real-time basis."
"Coming from prior solutions that were a lot more effort, Automox's patch management abilities are transformational. When I took over patching at my company, they were using on-premise architecture to patch. As the workforce shifted from being in the office into their home offices, I was able to lift and shift with no effort other than deploying the new agent out into the environment."
"It's super easy to use and we haven't found anything easier."
"Its flexibility is most valuable."
"It's easy to deploy agents to endpoints."
"The most valuable aspect is the kind of assessment results I get, and the recommendations provided in Microsoft products really help in taking care of the resources."
"Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management is versatile and assesses vulnerabilities, providing detailed information on CVEs, their categories, and exploit statuses."
"Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management is versatile and assesses vulnerabilities, providing detailed information on CVEs, their categories, and exploit statuses."
"Overall, I would rate Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management a nine out of ten."
"A valuable feature is the ease of management and integration with Microsoft products."
"A valuable feature is the ease of management and integration with Microsoft products."
"The recommendations, scores, and steps to remediate actions are highly useful."
"The solution helps identify threats and vulnerabilities."
 

Cons

"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 dashboarding and reporting functionality of Zafran Security is an area that definitely could use some improvements."
"They need to improve the automation features."
"Asset management would be a great feature to add to Automox. We would run easier scripts or more out of the box scripts that would help us in audits. \"
"The stability has come a long way from what it was like when it started and now it's really good."
"The biggest area they need to fix, without a doubt, is the ability to copy and sync profiles and worklets between all of the organizations you manage, and the ability to have top-level user access control across all of the companies that you manage."
"The only thing that we've ever truly wanted is an onsite repository. Currently, all updates are provided directly from the internet. So, if you have 1,000 devices, all 1,000 devices go directly out to the internet. We would love the option of being able to put the updates on local storage so that we're not consuming as much bandwidth. That is literally the only thing that we've ever wanted."
"We would like to see additional detailed reporting for Service providers like us. We had to build our own reports via their APIs to meet our needs."
"As concerns the patching concepts, there's a bit of a learning curve in terms of working out how Automox wants you to work within the console, not only splitting up everything into groups, but then having the various policies assigned."
"There should be better inventory capabilities. Right now, they only allow you to have insight into software out-of-the-box. It would be nice to also extend that into custom inventory that can be modified and managed by the practitioner."
"It is challenging to extract and customize reports from the system."
"The general support could be improved."
"Probably my only criticism would be the cost. It is expensive."
"The documentation from Microsoft needs significant improvement. The documents are disorganized, with one document linking to another, making the steps unclear and difficult to follow."
"They may need to improve the portal refresh rate for Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management because it takes time for recommendations to disappear after mitigation; sometimes, it takes one week, when it should ideally take only one to two hours."
"The worst aspect is the refresh rate of the dashboard. A vulnerability I patch within 15 minutes takes 24 additional hours for an update."
"The setup phase of the product is not that easy and needs a person to have a certain level of expertise."
"Sometimes the stability of the agents could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The pricing and licensing costs have been great for us... My advice to others who are evaluating or thinking of implementing Automox is to give it a shot. If a free trial is still available, definitely use it, because it makes life a lot easier."
"Its licensing for a year was nine grand. There was no additional fee."
"For all these software tools, it is usually a subscription model. There is a monthly charge that we need to pass along to our clients because we are doing all this for their benefit. It is only a couple of bucks a month per computer, and that is a low enough price point where our clients, without exception, have accepted it, and said, "This is great. We will pay that. It sounds like a worthwhile thing.""
"We're doing it annually directly through Automox. It is per endpoint. It is $2 and some change per endpoint, but I believe the cost is right around $28,000. Everything is covered in this fee."
"Automox just charges us a set amount per user, per month, for using the product. That is very important to us. Because it's a cloud-native solution, you're saving on the cost of hosting an on-premises solution on your servers."
"The cost is very reasonable compared to the competition."
"We are on the premium licensing, which is the one that has the API capability that we use."
"The product is a great value."
"The product’s pricing is medium."
"The licensing costs are reasonable."
"The tool is a bit costly."
"I rate the product's price a three on a scale of one to ten, where one is a low price, and ten is a high price."
"The licensing model follows a per-user per-month structure."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
6%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise1
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise5
 

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...
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...
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...
What needs improvement with Automox?
I wouldn't be able to tell you how Automox can be improved; it seems to work very nicely already.
What is your primary use case for Automox?
We use Automox to maintain the software on all our computers. We were using Qualys before and we're still using it, b...
What advice do you have for others considering Automox?
Since switching over from Qualys, we have seen no positive impacts for our organization other than being able to upda...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management?
The documentation from Microsoft needs significant improvement. The documents are disorganized, with one document lin...
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Automox vs. Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.