No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

AWS Security Hub vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud comparison

Why PeerSpot?
Sponsored
 

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
44
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (11th), Container Security (11th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (8th), 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) (8th)
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 (6th), Container Management (6th), Container Security (4th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (1st), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (4th), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (6th), Microsoft Security Suite (7th), Compliance Management (4th), Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 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 2.7%, down from 4.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is 5.3%, 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 Cloud5.3%
Qualys TotalCloud2.0%
AWS Security Hub2.7%
Other90.0%
Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)
 

Featured Reviews

RO
IT Security Expert at Alior Bank S.A.
Unified risk scoring has improved our cloud visibility and simplifies remediation priorities
Qualys TotalCloud provides unified vulnerability and threat assessment across both IAS and SaaS. This solution provides a single prioritized view of risk, which helps reduce the work I would have to do. We are no longer based on CVSS; we are based on Qualys risk scoring, which is based on CVSS plus internal findings made by Qualys, and then assigns its own score. The TruRisk insight feature has found a small number of assets with high vulnerability scores, though I am cautious since some information is classified. Qualys TotalCloud has positively impacted our bank's performance, and we have definitely seen benefits after implementing this solution.
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 has saved our time by giving us better asset visibility and risk-based prioritization, as it has reduced the time spent manually reviewing CVEs and deciding what to address first."
"Qualys TotalCloud provides a single, prioritized view of risk, reducing the workload associated with consolidating multiple sources for risk prioritization."
"The agent and agentless scanning in TotalCloud, particularly the FlexScan method, is incredibly valuable. With traditional scanning approaches, we had to give IP ranges and whitelist IPs. All that is now simplified. FlexScan requires minimal intervention, and after configuration, it automatically collects data and performs necessary scans."
"The scalability is good as well. I would rate it ten out of ten."
"I appreciate Qualys TotalCloud's ability to onboard any type of device with ease, including containers."
"Qualys TotalCloud helps you not just to identify misconfigurations, but you can actually also fix issues."
"Qualys TotalCloud has significantly improved our organization by automating our reporting processes, reducing the time spent on report creation from two hours to less than fifteen to twenty minutes."
"Once you have your vulnerabilities fixed and your patches pushed out using Qualys TotalCloud, then you are able to eliminate threats and cyber risk."
"The solution is very good at detection and providing real-time alerts."
"Finding out if your infrastructure is secure is a valuable feature."
"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."
"Currently, our organization utilizes AWS for various purposes, including SaaS (Software as a Service), PaaS (Platform as a Service), and hosting applications in the cloud. We develop our applications and use AWS services as a platform for basic functions and secondary development needs. Additionally, we rely on PaaS for accounting services. Approximately, 50% of our applications are hosted in the cloud environment, making it a significant part of our current setup."
"I find all of the features to be highly valuable."
"Though I'm still in the initial evaluation phase for AWS Security Hub, I would recommend it to others because it has good features."
"Security Hub provides insightful information about what is running and where there might be weaknesses."
"Easily integrates with third-party tools"
"The strong point of Defender, especially when using Azure Arc to bring in on-premises systems, is that it doesn't matter where these systems are; they're just resources in the portal."
"The solution is quite good and addresses many security gaps."
"The feature of Microsoft Defender for Cloud that I appreciate most is the ability to view logs of applications, as I find it much clearer to understand what is running."
"Defender for Cloud has improved our security posture, providing us with a prioritized list of security issues to remedy, which improves our security operations because we know what to tackle first."
"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."
"No doubt it is useful as per the log analysis and threat protection analysis."
"It helps you to identify the gaps in your solution and remediate them, and it produces a compliance checklist against known standards such as ISO 27001, HIPAA, iTrust, etc."
"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."
 

Cons

"The onboarding process is a bit difficult. In the initial phase, it is very difficult to understand the features, what the dashboard contains, and what criteria they are using."
"It is already perfect, but they can bring some newer dashboards and customization options for the dashboard. It would be great to be able to include on-prem assets on the dashboard."
"In my opinion, what can be improved in Qualys TotalCloud includes pricing and container scanning."
"Their customer support needs improvement."
"With the growing integration of AI, I would like Qualys to enhance its service offerings to better accommodate AI-related risks."
"TotalCloud could improve its scanning of niche devices like Wi-Fi dongles and USB modems because they are often untested. It covers everything else, like laptops, mobile devices, and Bluetooth IoT devices. They can improve on the small IoT devices because hackers and testers use these."
"Although TotalCloud is a helpful tool, some of its advanced features are still under development."
"To improve the user experience, reporting could be simplified for better comprehension by end users and project managers, facilitating issue resolution."
"It is not flexible for multi-cloud environments."
"AWS Security Hub cannot scale up to multiple different cloud environments; it only works for AWS."
"It's not user-friendly. Too much going on, too many unnecessary findings, not very visual. You can't do much compared to other similar tools that are cheaper and better."
"Although AWS Security Hub does a periodic scan of your overall infrastructure, it doesn't do it in real time."
"The support must be quicker."
"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 user interface, graphs, and dashboards of the solution could improve in the future. They are not very sophisticated and could use an update."
"Right now, there are some difficulties we're facing with AWS Security Hub, and we need our central team to mitigate the issues."
"The documentation could be much clearer."
"Azure Security Center should be more easily understood by a non-technical person. It needs to be simplified and made more user-friendly for a non-technical person."
"There is a slight gap between the real-time monitoring and real-time alerts."
"So, Azure Security Center fell short from the regulatory compliance point of view, and we had to use one more product."
"I don't appreciate Microsoft Defender for Cloud because it seems to interfere with many things. That's the problem I've been experiencing with it."
"The product was a bit complex to set up earlier, however, it is a bit streamlined now."
"After getting a recommendation, it takes time for the solution to refresh properly to show that the problem has been eliminated."
"One of the issues with the product is that it's not possible to write or edit any capability."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Its price seems higher compared to other tools, but it is worth it. If they could adjust the pricing and make it comparable with other tools, that would be great."
"As a middle management member, I do not have direct pricing knowledge, but based on the knowledge from our meetings, its pricing is competitive."
"The cost is high, but it meets our organizational needs."
"I am not sure about the pricing. From what I understand, it is a bit on the higher side, but I do not have the exact numbers."
"Qualys TotalCloud offers cost-effective licensing flexibility."
"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."
"Qualys TotalCloud is cost-efficient and was selected for its value compared to other products."
"Qualys TotalCloud is expensive."
"There are multiple subscription models, like yearly, monthly, and packaged."
"The pricing is fine. It is not an expensive tool."
"The price of the solution is not very competitive but it is reasonable."
"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 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."
"Defender for Cloud is pretty costly for a single line. It's incredibly high to pay monthly for security per server. The cost is considerable for an enterprise with 500-plus virtual machines, and the monthly bill can spike."
"Pricing is difficult because each license has its own metrics and cost."
"This solution is more cost-effective than some competing products. My understanding is that it is based on the number of integrations that you have, so if you have fewer subscriptions then you pay less for the service."
"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."
"There is a helpful cost-reducing option that allows you to integrate production subscriptions with non-production subscriptions."
"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."
"Pricing depends on your workload size, but it is very cheap. If you're talking about virtual machines, it is $5 or something for each machine, which is minimal. If you go for some agent-based solution for every virtual machine, then you need to pay the same thing or more than that. For an on-premises solution like this, we were paying around $30 to $50 based on size. With Defender, Microsoft doesn't bother about the size. You pay based on the number of machines. So, if you have 10 virtual machines, and 10 virtual machines are being monitored, you are paying based on that rather than the size of the virtual machine. Thus, you are paying for the number of units rather than paying for the size of your units."
"It is bundled with our enterprise subscription, which makes it easy to go for it. It is available by default, and there is no extra cost for using the standard features."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) solutions are best for your needs.
913,422 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

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
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise32
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: August 2026.
913,422 professionals have used our research since 2012.