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AWS Security Hub vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 8, 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

Qualys TotalCloud
Sponsored
Ranking in Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)
8th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
46
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (10th), Container Security (11th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (9th), SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) (2nd), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (7th)
AWS Security Hub
Ranking in Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)
17th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
27
Ranking in other categories
Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (7th)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Ranking in Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
89
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (9th), Container Management (8th), Container Security (4th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (1st), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (5th), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (7th), Microsoft Security Suite (6th), Compliance Management (4th), Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) category, the mindshare of Qualys TotalCloud is 2.0%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of AWS Security Hub is 2.5%, down from 4.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is 5.2%, down from 9.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud5.2%
Qualys TotalCloud2.0%
AWS Security Hub2.5%
Other90.3%
Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2859021 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr Security Engineer at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees
Risk-based triage has transformed container security and now prioritizes high-impact threats
The best features Qualys TotalCloud offers currently include managing cloud infrastructure and container security while facing major challenges such as alert fatigue. Traditional vulnerability scanners flag hundreds of CVEs on short-lived Kubernetes containers, some of which have no internet exposure or are gone before we can even triage them. I leverage Qualys TotalCloud to move beyond static CVSS. I use it to implement runtime exposure, correlation risk reprioritization, and shift-left integration. This notifies developers to fix a base image upstream rather than patching live ephemeral instances. In my work with cloud and container security, the biggest operational hurdle was alert fatigue. I use Qualys to shift left from static CVSS severity to context-aware risk prioritization. I correlated raw vulnerability data with real-time risk factors such as public network exposure, active runtime execution, or overly permissive IAM roles. This allows us to immediately drop the priority of isolated containers and escalate lower-severity CVEs that sit on an exposed, high-risk path. We can map these findings directly back to our CI/CD pipelines so developers can patch the root base images upstream. We have drastically cut down the signal-to-noise ratio, saved a lot of manual hours doing triage work, and ensured engineering effort goes directly towards high-impact risk reduction.
Karthik Ekambaram - PeerSpot reviewer
Director at Scybers
Has helped identify misconfigurations and prioritize risks but lacks multi-cloud support and deeper integration features
AWS Security Hub cannot scale up to multiple different cloud environments; it only works for AWS. There are other products in the market for CSPM that can give you multi-cloud environment misconfigurations, even Microsoft for that matter. Regarding the integration of AWS Security Hub with third-party tools, I am not certain whether we can integrate them, but there is no need to do so. However, AWS Security Hub cannot integrate with other cloud providers, so it only supports the AWS environment. The compliance checks within AWS Security Hub are good, but we don't use them much. We utilize compliance frameworks such as CIS compliance frameworks and ISO 27017 framework, which are beneficial, but it can improve in other areas too, such as including NIST and other frameworks beyond just ISO and CIS. Improvements can be applicable for scalability, particularly on integration with multi-cloud environments, and compliance frameworks can be added for more variety as well. The unified dashboard in AWS Security Hub is adequate; I cannot say it is exceptional, but the content available in the dashboards is satisfactory for now.
RW
Head Of IT at Cirrus Response
Cloud security has cut investigation time and now reveals threats faster but needs simpler oversight
When deploying AI applications, my key security concerns with Microsoft Defender for Cloud are data loss, leakage of data, and guardrails around the actual AI, and I am hoping that this is going to help me put those guardrails in place and identify data exfiltration. Microsoft Defender for Cloud has not helped me manage and secure multi-cloud environments, as we are 100 percent Microsoft and have not really got it in any other environment at all. I am not yet using the unified AI-powered security feature offered by Microsoft Defender for Cloud, but that is coming. I am not yet using the integrated XDR feature of Microsoft Defender for Cloud, but that is coming. I am not yet utilizing the GenAI threat protection features of Microsoft Defender for Cloud. That is also coming and a lot of that will come from learning it here. I have enabled the agentless scanning in my cloud environment with Microsoft Defender for Cloud. Assessing the impact on my workload protection without needing to install agents with Microsoft Defender for Cloud makes it a lot easier, but it also identifies a lot more, which puts more load on me sometimes. I would advise another organization considering Microsoft Defender for Cloud that it is the most logical route to follow if their whole ecosystem is Microsoft. It is easy to implement and it is very self-explanatory when doing it, making sense to just follow the steps as it is too simple, really. I would rate this review a 7.5 out of 10.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Qualys TotalCloud helps you not just to identify misconfigurations, but you can actually also fix issues."
"I would rate Qualys TotalCloud ten out of ten."
"The platform's unified view of the organization proves particularly valuable for leadership team meetings."
"The most valuable feature is the consolidated information that it provides from various platforms."
"Its dashboards are brilliant. It provides in-depth insights."
"One of the features I appreciate is the ability to generate daily reports without relying on anyone else."
"TotalCloud has been excellent in providing us with immediate access to all the products and features we need, such as CSPM, TruRisk Insights, and compliance reports, including CIS and HIPAA."
"Qualys TotalCloud provides unified vulnerability and threat assessment for IaaS and SaaS and a single prioritized view of risk, which helps reduce my workload by not having to combine multiple sources."
"This solution is for security posture management for the cloud, showing the security posture of your cloud infrastructure and giving you good insight into whether your infrastructure is secure or not."
"One of the most effective features of AWS Security Hub is the easy access to a dashboard with a ready-to-use security score."
"I rate Security Hub ten out of ten for stability."
"Finding out if your infrastructure is secure is a valuable feature."
"The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that it is easy to manage...It is a scalable solution."
"The best feature of AWS Security Hub is that you can get compliance or your cloud's current security posture."
"AWS Security Hub has very good integration features. It allows for AWS native services integration, and it helps us to integrate some of the services outside of AWS. They have partners, such as Amazon Preferred Network Partners (APN). If you have different security tools around APN, we can integrate those findings with AWS Security Hub reducing the need to refer to different portals or different UIs. You can have AWS Security Hub act as a single common go-to dashboard."
"The advantage is that it is cloud-native, and we do not need to install agents or sensors to find findings."
"The solution's coordinated detection and response across devices and identities is impressive because it is complete."
"Some of the most valuable features of Microsoft Defender for Cloud include its effectiveness in threat detection through unsupervised machine learning, CTI, and advanced sandboxing."
"For any type of service, I would recommend the go-to solution for security on Azure is Security Center."
"The most valuable features are ransomware protection and access controls. The solution has helped us secure some folders on our systems from unauthorized modifications."
"The tool's most valuable feature is its support for cloud-native services like Kubernetes, containers, managed storage, and databases. Protecting these without Microsoft Defender for Cloud would be extremely challenging. For threat protection specifically, I find the signature-based detection and heuristic detection features very effective."
"Threat protection is comprehensive and simple."
"Defender is user-friendly and provides decent visibility into threats."
"The entire Defender Suite is tightly coupled, integrated, and collaborative."
 

Cons

"It has been working very well, but it would be helpful if the dashboard could generate reports tailored to specific compliance needs. For example, in India, we have to comply with RBI and SEBI guidelines. It w"
"Their support could be improved."
"Overall, we are satisfied with it. However, the response part of the Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) module can be improved. It is not yet in place according to requirements; it is not completely available even though the module has been released."
"Areas that need improvement in every solution include the remediation part. The remediation steps should be simple enough for everyone to understand."
"In a future release, I suggest that zero-day vulnerabilities should be predicted in advance using AI technologies. The system is not 100% secure yet, so proactive threat hunting could be enhanced to be more proactive than the current system."
"The downside is only in container security, but it has not been a long time since they introduced these models."
"The price is very expensive, actually."
"An area for improvement would be to focus on risks related to AI, such as large language models and potential data leakage."
"The solution is not wholly self-sufficient."
"However, the sheer number of services can be overwhelming when implementing something new."
"Whenever my team gets some alarms from the central team, my team needs to initiate whether it's a real or false trigger. The central team needs to keep adjusting to the parameters or at least the concerned IPs, whether it's really from the company's pool of IPs, so the trigger process can be improved. In the next release of AWS Security Hub, I'd like a better dashboard that could result in better alert visibility."
"The integration of AWS Security Hub has not helped much in maintaining my organization's security posture."
"Right now, there are some difficulties we're facing with AWS Security Hub, and we need our central team to mitigate the issues."
"The telemetry doesn't always go into the control center. When you have multiple instances running in AWS, you need a control tower to take feeds from Security Hub and analyze your results. Sometimes exemptions aren't passed between the control tower and Security Hub. The configuration gets mixed up or you don't get the desired results."
"AWS Security Hub should improve the time it takes to update. It takes a long period of time when updating. It can take 24 hours sometimes to update. Additionally, when integrating this solution with more security tools, takes time."
"Feature-wise, we are not able to do multi-cloud. We are doing individual cloud monitoring, and we see other tools are better than AWS Security Hub."
"I recommend that they extend the scope for legacy infra assets."
"Another thing is that Defender for Cloud uses more resources than CrowdStrike, which my current company uses. Defender for Cloud has two or three processes running simultaneously that consume memory and processor time. I had the chance to compare that with CrowdStrike a few days ago, which was significantly less. It would be nice if Defender were a little lighter. It's a relatively large installation that consumes more resources than competitors do."
"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."
"One of the main challenges that we have been facing with Azure Security Center is the cost."
"Agent features need to be improved. They support agents through Azure Arc or Workbench. Sometimes, we are not able to get correct signals from the machines on which we have installed these agents. We are not able to see how many are currently reporting to Azure Security Center, and how many are currently not reporting. For example, we have 1,000 machines, and we have enrolled 1,000 OMS agents on these machines to collect the log. When I look at the status, even though at some places, it shows that it is connected, but when I actually go and check, I'm not getting any alerts from those. There are some discrepancies on the agent, and the agent features are not up to the mark."
"The process of deploying Microsoft Defender for Cloud was not smooth. It was always a challenge migrating, as a lot of it involved application dependencies and what was required before being able to use Azure for those services."
"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."
"Customer service and support from Microsoft are very poor. Even for high-severity cases, response or resolution time can extend to three or four weeks."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"While Qualys TotalCloud's pricing is currently acceptable, it is becoming increasingly expensive and may soon be considered overpriced."
"Qualys TotalCloud is expensive, but it offers a premier solution with no headaches."
"Qualys TotalCloud offers good pricing that is affordable and competitive with the market. Our partnership also provides us with additional benefits."
"TotalCloud's price is about right where I would expect it to be."
"The pricing for TotalCloud is attractive and competitive in the market. Given the features, especially the dashboard, I have no concerns regarding pricing."
"It isn't cheap, but it's reasonable. It helps us to manage things with very few resources."
"As a middle management member, I do not have direct pricing knowledge, but based on the knowledge from our meetings, its pricing is competitive."
"Although Qualys TotalCloud is relatively expensive due to its unique automation features, its cost-effectiveness is rated an eight out of ten, with ten being the most costly."
"The price of the solution is not very competitive but it is reasonable."
"There are multiple subscription models, like yearly, monthly, and packaged."
"AWS Security Hub is not an expensive tool. I would consider it to be a cheap solution. AWS Security Hub follows the PAYG pricing model, meaning you will have to pay for whatever you use."
"The pricing is fine. It is not an expensive tool."
"The price of AWS Security Hub is average compared to other solutions."
"The cost is based on the number of compliances, core checks, and services required, and for more than 10,000 recommendations, the charge is just one dollar."
"Security Hub is not an expensive solution."
"AWS Security Hub's pricing is pretty reasonable."
"Pricing is difficult because each license has its own metrics and cost."
"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."
"I am not involved much with the pricing but the bundle offering is good."
"The cost of the license is based on the subscriptions that you have."
"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."
"This is a worldwide service and depending on the country, there will be different prices."
"Microsoft Defender for Cloud is pricey, especially for Kubernetes clusters."
"We are using the free version of the Azure Security Center."
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Comparison Review

it_user186927 - PeerSpot reviewer
Director of Operations at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
Feb 16, 2015
Cybereason vs. Interset vs. SQRRL
Capture DB - they all use NoSQL db and hence solve the ad hoc query and 'go back in time' problem with current best of breed SIEM and DLP solutions that rely on real time analysis of incoming logs (and don't store them). This means deeper and quicker iterative threat analysis and assessment…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
16%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise35
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise14
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise49
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Qualys TotalCloud?
In terms of improvement, remediation still belongs to the cloud team, which is one of the issues we faced with Qualys...
What is your primary use case for Qualys TotalCloud?
My main use case for Qualys TotalCloud is regarding the cloud visibility that we were not having previously. Previous...
Which is better - Azure Sentinel or AWS Security Hub?
We like that Azure Sentinel does not require as much maintenance as legacy SIEMs that are on-premises. Azure Sentinel...
What needs improvement with AWS Security Hub?
I do not see any areas for improvement in AWS Security Hub itself, but the cost factor is something that is the main ...
What is your primary use case for AWS Security Hub?
AWS Security Hub is something I have used daily as it is a part of my job for cloud security purposes. If you are dea...
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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender for Cloud?
My experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing was that the license cost was the only consideration. Setup an...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for Cloud?
To improve Microsoft Defender for Cloud, I think pricing-wise, the license price is a little bit higher from an inges...
 

Also Known As

Qualys TotalCloud with FlexScan
SQRRL
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
Edmunds, Frame.io, GoDaddy, Realtor.com
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 AWS Security Hub vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
915,325 professionals have used our research since 2012.