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Azure DDoS Protection vs Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
7.2
Azure DDoS Protection offers cost-effective security for public IPs, benefiting users with ROI despite varying enterprise costs.
Sentiment score
5.6
Determining ROI from Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management is challenging due to package inclusion and unclear financial benefits.
As a Microsoft partner, we receive significant discounts, making the solution affordable for us.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.3
Educational institutions commend Azure DDoS Protection's swift support, while others experience slower response times affecting satisfaction.
Sentiment score
7.6
Microsoft Defender's customer service receives mixed reviews, highlighting inconsistent support and varying effectiveness in technical assistance.
The response time is very slow, especially when multiple teams are required to collaborate on a case.
They are sometimes responsive, however, often issues cannot be reproduced on their end, making it challenging.
The support we receive from Microsoft is declining, and for example, after taking advanced support, we have not received satisfactory answers.
My team raised multiple support tickets for the product, and we were able to get responses from Microsoft support team.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.9
Azure DDoS Protection excels in scalability and reliability, ideal for large enterprises, enhancing security in extensive environments.
Sentiment score
8.4
Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management is praised for its high scalability and seamless integration, receiving consistently high user ratings.
It is scalable; I evaluated the product and decided to use Defender on over 700 of our company servers.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
Azure DDoS Protection is highly stable, rated 8/10, with minimal configuration issues and no downtime or false positives reported.
Sentiment score
6.6
Microsoft Defender is rated highly stable with 99% availability, despite minor portal, compatibility, logging, and memory issues.
There are compatibility issues occasionally arising with false positives when other security tools are not whitelisted in Microsoft Defender.
It is very resource-intensive, consuming a lot of memory and CPU.
I would rate the overall stability as an eight.
 

Room For Improvement

Azure DDoS Protection requires improved interface consistency, reporting, configuration simplicity, bandwidth optimization, enhanced services, and AI-driven auto-remediation.
Microsoft Defender needs improvements in accuracy, customization, integration, resource efficiency, macOS support, user-friendliness, and affordability.
It would be beneficial to have more detailed insights available directly on the dashboard.
I have noticed some false positives with the Web Application Firewall yet not with DDoS Protection.
I suggest adding more services and additional services, which would be beneficial.
This scoring should be for specific industries as well. If I belong to the healthcare industry using Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management, it should provide me with a risk score and show how I fare against the risk score of my industry.
A vulnerability I patch within 15 minutes takes 24 additional hours for an update.
The product is not stable; it often uses excessive memory and CPU, which makes it slow.
 

Setup Cost

Azure DDoS Protection offers expensive but comprehensive protection with trial, special pricing for education, and no extra fees for some uses.
Microsoft Defender offers varying pricing; complex licensing may incur additional costs, but security benefits can justify the investment.
If used with Front Door or Web Application Firewall, DDoS Protection is included without additional cost.
The pricing is somewhat costly, usually around $3,000 to $4,000 per month.
Compared to competitors, it is good.
Overall, every organization wishes for cheaper options, but we look at the security side as well, so we are good for now.
For non-partners, however, the cost could be seen as higher, between seven to ten.
The pricing is reasonable, and it's included in the whole Microsoft E5 bundle, so it's all-inclusive.
 

Valuable Features

Azure DDoS Protection offers seamless integration, robust security, and scalability, despite higher costs, providing significant ROI for vulnerable environments.
Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management excels in integration, compliance, risk prioritization, and real-time assessments, enhancing security across diverse environments.
The security architecture with Azure DDoS Protection is critical for safeguarding our financial organization's infrastructure.
The ability to do research and development quickly without waiting for infrastructure is a plus.
The integration of various tools with Azure Firewall, like DDoS Protection, Web Application Firewall, and Azure Front Door, is quite effective.
The main advantage of Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management is that it can locate and prevent most threats even when the endpoints are not connected to the corporate network, as long as the internet is available.
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.
The integration with Sentinel has been one of the most valuable features for my organization.
 

Categories and Ranking

Azure DDoS Protection
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
22nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (7th)
Microsoft Defender Vulnerab...
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
21st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (12th), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (17th), Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Microsoft Security Suite category, the mindshare of Azure DDoS Protection is 2.0%, down from 2.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management is 0.6%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Microsoft Security Suite
 

Featured Reviews

Venkat Raju Mallipudi - PeerSpot reviewer
Acts as an additional layer of protection, provides endpoint security but not very easy to configure
It's not very easy to configure, in my view. We have to do some work behind the scenes. It's not very simple. We have to do it very carefully, and we need to monitor this enablement as well. But apart from that, I didn't see any kind of challenges. So, in my opinion, configuration is the main trouble for them. It is something that can be done to be better. Not just configuration. You need an expert who knows the ins and outs of these security solutions. In my experience, people struggle with configuration. While configuring, we get this error, we get that error, and then we try to fix those issues. I have seen those. It's not straightforward.
NaySan @ Suraj Verma - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides actionable vulnerability insights and recommendations with notable efficiency
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. Overall, everything is good with Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management, but the portal refresh rate can take up to seven days in some cases and three or four days in others to reflect changes.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Azure DDoS Protection?
Azure DDoS Protection offers superior protection against denial-of-service attacks.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure DDoS Protection?
The pricing is somewhat costly, usually around $3,000 to $4,000 per month. Managing this expense is tough, especially since we haven't received everything we need for our capital expenditure manage...
What needs improvement with Azure DDoS Protection?
The dashboard lacks insights and user-friendliness, as most data is logged into metrics like Log Analytics workspaces. It would be beneficial to have more detailed insights available directly on th...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management?
I would rate the price as a three for us due to the partnership discounts. For non-partners, however, the cost could be seen as higher, between seven to ten.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management?
I have not thought about improvements for Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management as of now, but this is typically an operational maintenance process. The operational maintenance process refers...
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Azure DDoS Protection vs. Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
857,162 professionals have used our research since 2012.