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BigID Next vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 22, 2026

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
7.3
BigID Next offers strong ROI through compliance, data management integration, cost savings, automation, and reduced staffing, avoiding fines.
Sentiment score
6.9
Microsoft Defender for Cloud boosts security and efficiency, integrates with Azure, reduces costs, prevents breaches, and offers proactive defense.
It is one of the best tools in the market.
Senior Manager at KPMG
We have seen returns across all three aspects: fewer employees needed, money saved, and time saved with BigID.
Senior Security Consultant at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
I have seen a return on investment from using BigID, particularly as it is a regulatory and compliance tool that helps avoid potential penalties for non-compliance.
Senior Security Consultant at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Defender proactively indexes and analyzes documents, identifying potential threats even when inactive, enhancing preventative security.
Endpoint management at a government with 10,001+ employees
Identifying potential vulnerabilities has helped us avoid costly data losses.
Manager at CBTS
Compared to not having Microsoft Defender for Cloud in place, we definitely saw an advantage by not having downtime due to a security threat.
Principal Microsoft Consultant at MicroAge
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.5
BigID Next's support is praised for responsiveness, efficiency, and high customer satisfaction, despite occasional delays and time-consuming initial contact.
Sentiment score
6.3
Microsoft Defender for Cloud support is responsive at higher levels, but experiences vary with mixed satisfaction due to delays.
BigID has one of the best technical support teams.
Senior Manager at KPMG
I would rate the customer support a six because you cannot directly reach out to L3 or L2 support if there's a major issue.
Senior Security Consultant at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
developing the custom connectors was relatively easy because of the courses I attended at BigID University and the support given by the BigID engineering team.
Senior Security Consultant at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Since security is critical, we prefer a quicker response time.
Manager at CBTS
The support team was very responsive to queries.
Programme Manager- Cyber Fusion- Group CISO at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
They understand their product, but much like us, they struggle with the finer details, especially with new features.
Endpoint management at a government with 10,001+ employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.7
BigID Next is scalable with mixed opinions, excelling in large environments but facing data handling and presentation challenges.
Sentiment score
7.4
Microsoft Defender for Cloud is scalable, integrating across environments effortlessly, suitable for all enterprise sizes with flexible performance.
I have added very large data sources to the BigID environment, and it remains stable.
Senior Security Consultant at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
BigID is scalable, allowing you to purchase as many scanners as you want.
Senior Security Consultant at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
As we have reduced our on-premises infrastructure, it is about how we can migrate workloads to the cloud to make it easier, and then having everything fully encompassed and secured within that area makes it much easier for us to scale as needed and grow.
Principal Microsoft Consultant at MicroAge
We are using infrastructure as a code, so we do not have any scalability issues with Microsoft Defender for Cloud implementation because our cloud automatically does it.
Senior Cloud Platform Engineer at Deutsche Börse
It has multiple licenses and features, covering infrastructures from a hundred to five hundred virtual machines, without any issues.
Snr. Infrastructure Architect (Data Centre) at LogicEra
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
BigID Next is often seen as reliable with some stability concerns but praised for data security and ease of use.
Sentiment score
7.5
Microsoft Defender for Cloud is stable and reliable, with minimal issues mainly during updates, ensuring strong user satisfaction.
BigID is generally stable, however, there is a noted issue with bulk tagging that can affect scan results.
Senior Associate - IT Governance and Compliance at Fulcrum Digital Inc
Defender's stability has been flawless for us.
Engineer at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
Microsoft Defender for Cloud is very stable.
Cloud architect at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
Microsoft sometimes changes settings or configurations without transparency.
Senior Cloud Platform Engineer at Deutsche Börse
 

Room For Improvement

BigID Next needs enhancements in file access, security, automation, UI navigation, deployment, data governance, and support features.
Microsoft Defender for Cloud users seek better automation, clarity, integration, AI features, and comprehensive analytics for improved security management.
There is also an issue with incident tagging, where all objects get tagged without an option to untag specific ones, and reverting changes is only possible through MongoDB Central, which can lead to data loss for certain periods.
Senior Associate - IT Governance and Compliance at Fulcrum Digital Inc
I want them to focus on data mapping, assessment, automation workflow, and privacy incident management.
Senior Manager at KPMG
BigID deserves recognition for the data discovery part, which has been wonderful and quite accurate, along with the confidence level process that allows us to fine-tune results for better accuracy from the database.
Assistant Manager - Cyber : Digital Privacy and Trust at Deloitte
Microsoft, in general, could significantly improve its communication and support.
Endpoint management at a government with 10,001+ employees
It would be beneficial to streamline recommendations to avoid unnecessary alerts and to refine the severity of alerts based on specific environments or environmental attributes.
Works at Coca-Cola HBC
The artificial intelligence features could be expanded to allow the system to autonomously manage security issues without needing intervention from admins.
Cloud Consultant at i-Community AG
 

Setup Cost

BigID Next offers premium, capacity-based pricing; valued by large enterprises for advanced features, less feasible for smaller businesses.
Microsoft Defender for Cloud is scalable, offering free and paid versions with costs averaging $15 monthly per server.
BigID might be expensive as it involves various paid services, like data retention and graphic rights management.
Senior Associate - IT Governance and Compliance at Fulcrum Digital Inc
The pricing is competitive in the market, however, I need to ask for the right price.
Senior Manager at KPMG
Security has essentially no cost when compared to the cost of a breach.
Director, Cloud and Modern Workplace at Informanix Technology Group
Every time we consider expanding usage, we carefully evaluate the necessity due to cost concerns.
Programme Manager- Cyber Fusion- Group CISO at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
We appreciate the licensing approach based on employee count rather than a big enterprise license.
Manager, Microsoft Technology Alliance at Silverfort
 

Valuable Features

BigID Next offers a user-friendly design, seamless Microsoft integration, and powerful data discovery, classification, and protection capabilities.
Microsoft Defender for Cloud enhances security with AI-based threat detection, multi-cloud support, and a unified portal for comprehensive management.
One of the best features of BigID is its strength in data discovery and governance.
Senior Manager at KPMG
BigID simplifies things by integrating both data protection and data privacy in one environment, making it easier for end users.
Senior Security Consultant at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
The most valuable feature of BigID is its large number of classifiers, which allow us to scan for specific data such as SSN numbers.
Senior Associate - IT Governance and Compliance at Fulcrum Digital Inc
The most valuable feature for me is the variety of APIs available.
Programme Manager- Cyber Fusion- Group CISO at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
This feature significantly aids in threat detection and enhances the user experience by streamlining security management.
Cloud Consultant at i-Community AG
The most valuable feature is the recommendations provided on how to improve security.
Cloud architect at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Categories and Ranking

BigID Next
Ranking in Data Security Posture Management (DSPM)
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (7th), Data Governance (6th), Data Privacy Management Software (2nd), AI Data Analysis (2nd)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Ranking in Data Security Posture Management (DSPM)
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
87
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (6th), Container Management (7th), Container Security (7th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (4th), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (4th), Microsoft Security Suite (7th), Compliance Management (4th), Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) category, the mindshare of BigID Next is 5.6%, down from 6.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is 8.7%, down from 13.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
BigID5.6%
Microsoft Defender for Cloud8.7%
Other85.7%
Data Security Posture Management (DSPM)
 

Featured Reviews

Aniruddha Nath - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Security Consultant at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Data discovery has transformed compliance workflows and automation now speeds up requests and remediation
The best feature that BigID offers is data discovery and classification, which is the most powerful engine. It allows connecting to many different data sources, ranging from cloud to on-premises to structured to unstructured data. If there is no connector available, you can build your own classifiers as well. Regarding the custom classifier option, you can build custom classifiers using regular expressions, and I have done that if you know how to create regular expressions. Custom connectors are something you create to connect to a database where the connector is not available. BigID has positively impacted my organization as it's a very powerful tool, especially with the increasing regulatory compliances for different countries such as GDPR, CCPA, and India's recent DPDPA act. Having these tools in place greatly helps organizations avoid any penal charges for not being compliant with the regulatory compliances. For example, regarding compliance or reduced risks for my clients, the DSAR process I was talking about allows organizations to respond quickly to user data deletion requests under GDPR law, which traditionally has a 30-day or 60-day timeline. In larger organizations, when the number of requests is high, it becomes tedious. However, using DSAR automation with BigID, it's almost instantaneous; instead of 30 days, you can respond in just one day to what users have requested.
David Birhange - PeerSpot reviewer
Director, Cloud and Modern Workplace at Informanix Technology Group
Brings together cloud security insights through a unified view and supports agentless protection for virtual machines
Copilot and similar features are already being used, though not necessarily for Microsoft Defender for Cloud specifically. We are trying to get more experience before rolling out most of Microsoft Defender for Cloud's AI capabilities. This is definitely on our to-do list, and the priority is urgent as we seek to learn more about these capabilities. The GenAI threat protection from Microsoft Defender for Cloud has not been enabled yet. There are many unknowns with AI applications. AI agents will operate while you're not present, whether you are sleeping or awake, and it's unclear whether there would be any exfiltration of data or how data is being managed. Microsoft Purview is being used extensively, and there is significant development going on with DSPM that will be rolled out to address security concerns. Data labeling and proper demarcation for sensitivity of data before it is received are being actively pursued.
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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) solutions are best for your needs.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
22%
Insurance Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Large Enterprise11
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business27
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise49
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about BigID?
I like BigID's in-depth discovery and scanning capabilities, especially for unstructured data. This feature is a standout compared to competitors. The tool's data classification capabilities are i...
What needs improvement with BigID?
One improvement I would suggest is addressing the intermittent failures of BigID scans, as there are times when some errors occur. I think the BigID team is aware of this and works on resolving iss...
What is your primary use case for BigID?
BigID's main use case is connecting to various data sources to perform the data discovery process, classify the data within those systems, and identify sensitive information across various structur...
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 across your ecosystem. It also has great remote workforce capabilities and supports a...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender for Cloud?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Microsoft Defender for Cloud was pretty straightforward. We did have a consultation with a third party to go over different tiers and produ...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for Cloud?
Microsoft Defender for Cloud can be improved. An additional feature that should be included in the next release is Zero Trust, similar to ThreatLocker software.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Microsoft Azure Security Center, Azure Security Center, Microsoft ASC, Azure Defender
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Home Depot, Grant Thornton LLP, Cimpress, Fidelity Investments
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 BigID Next vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.