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Bitdefender GravityZone XDR vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Bitdefender GravityZone XDR
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
Extended Detection and Response (XDR) (21st)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
78
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (7th), Container Management (9th), Container Security (6th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (2nd), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (4th), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (4th), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (5th), Microsoft Security Suite (7th), Compliance Management (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Security Software solutions, they serve different purposes. Bitdefender GravityZone XDR is designed for Extended Detection and Response (XDR) and holds a mindshare of 0.7%, up 0.5% compared to last year.
Microsoft Defender for Cloud, on the other hand, focuses on Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP), holds 13.3% mindshare, down 16.8% since last year.
Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
 

Featured Reviews

Sazzad Khan - PeerSpot reviewer
AI improves incident response with quick auto response capability
I am using Bitdefender GravityZone XDR in my capacity as a CTO and a partner or reseller of Bitdefender I find that the auto-response capability is most valuable. It improves incident response times. I also appreciate the overall utilization of AI to enhance security posture. The product could…
Vibhor Goel - PeerSpot reviewer
A single tool for complete visibility and addressing security gaps
Currently, issues are structured in Microsoft Defender for Cloud at severity levels of high, critical, or warning, but these severity levels are not always right. For example, Microsoft might consider a port being open as critical, but that might not be the case for our company. Similarly, it might suggest closing some management ports, but you might need them to be able to log in, so the severity levels for certain things can be improved. Even though Microsoft Defender for Cloud provides a way to temporarily disable certain alerts or notifications without affecting our security score, it would be better to have more granularized control over these recommendations. Currently, we cannot even disable certain alerts or notifications. There should be an automated mechanism to design Azure policies based on the recommendations, possibly with AI integration. Instead of an engineer having to write a policy to fix security gaps, which is very time-consuming, there should be an inbuilt capability to auto-remediate everything and have proper control in place. Additionally, enabling Defender for Cloud at the resource group level, rather than only at the subscription level, would be beneficial.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I appreciate the overall utilization of AI to enhance security posture."
"It provides an in-depth analysis and gives recommendations, along with a historical search capability."
"I would rate GravityZone XDR more than nine out of ten."
"Scalability is pretty easy. It's easy to increase the capacity. You can just add on licenses to the existing license, and the duration of the license can be adjusted. For example, you've already bought a license for a year, and you want to add some more users. We can just add on licenses for the remaining period so that the entire organization can have the same expiry date. That makes renewal easier."
"The solution has an automatic patch management capability."
"I find that the auto-response capability is most valuable."
"The HyperDetect feature in GravityZone XDR is effective."
"The product has given us more insight into potential avenues for attack paths."
"Defender for Cloud is an improvement over Trend Micro, our previous solution. We like integrating our endpoints and visualizing everything in one place. It provides comprehensive coverage for endpoints, servers, and overall environmental security."
"The scalability of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is very good."
"When you have commissioned Defender, you have these things visible already on your dashboard. This gives the efficiency to the people to do their actual work rather than bothering about the email, sorting out the email, or looking at it through an ITSM solution, whey they have to look at the description and use cases. Efficiency increases with this optimized, ready-made solution since you don't need to invest in something externally. You can start using the dashboard and auditing capability provided from day one. Thus, you have fewer costs with a more optimized, easier-to-use solution, providing operational efficiency for your team."
"The valuable features include the ability to manage devices and the fact that Defender can replace other security tools like SCCM."
"The solution's robust security posture is the most valuable feature."
"Scalability is great, and I would rate it a ten out of ten."
"Microsoft Defender for Cloud has definitely helped us manage and secure our multi-cloud environment by providing ease of use."
 

Cons

"The resource consumption is high for Bitdefender GravityZone XDR, nearly using one gigabyte of RAM, especially on Windows 10 and 11."
"The resource consumption is high for Bitdefender GravityZone XDR, nearly using one gigabyte of RAM, especially on Windows 10 and 11."
"The product could be improved by offering a single panel for the management of all Bitdefender products."
"The product could be improved by offering a single panel for the management of all Bitdefender products. Additionally, there might be a need to simplify the interface in the future."
"The solution’s pricing could be improved."
"It's not very mature, and additional costs are involved."
"Another area of improvement is CPU utilization. CPU utilization could be improved."
"As an analyst, there is no way to configure or create a playbook to automate the process of flagging suspicious domains."
"There needs to be improvement in the security recommendations, particularly in attack path mapping. Sometimes, it misleads users about the real exposure of external-facing assets."
"For Kubernetes, I was using Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS). To see that whatever is getting deployed into AKS goes through the correct checks and balances in terms of affinities and other similar aspects and follows all the policies, we had to use a product called Stackrox. At a granular level, the built-in policies were good for Kubernetes, but to protect our containers from a coding point of view, we had to use a few other products. For example, from a programming point of view, we were using Checkmarx for static code analysis. For CIS compliance, there are no CIS benchmarks for AKS. So, we had to use other plugins to see that the CIS benchmarks are compliant. There are CIS benchmarks for Kubernetes on AWS and GCP, but there are no CIS benchmarks for AKS. So, Azure Security Center fell short from the regulatory compliance point of view, and we had to use one more product. We ended up with two different dashboards. We had Azure Security Center, and we had Stackrox that had its own dashboard. The operations team and the security team had to look at two dashboards, and they couldn't get an integrated piece. That's a drawback of Azure Security Center. Azure Security Center should provide APIs so that we can integrate its dashboard within other enterprise dashboards, such as the PowerBI dashboard. We couldn't get through these aspects, and we ended up giving Reader security permission to too many people, which was okay to some extent, but when we had to administer the users for the Stackrox portal and Azure Security Center, it became painful."
"The documentation and implementation guides could be improved."
"I would like to see better automation when it comes to pushing out security features to the recommendations, and better documentation on the step-by-step procedures for enabling certain features."
"Another thing that could be improved was that they could recommend processes on how to react to alerts, or recommend best practices based on how other organizations do things if they receive an alert about XYZ."
"The product must improve its UI."
"One of the main challenges that we have been facing with Azure Security Center is the cost. The costs are really a complex calculation, e.g., to calculate the monthly costs. Azure is calculating on an hourly basis for use of the resource. Because of this, we found it really complex to promote what will be our costs for the next couple of months. I think if Azure could reduce the complex calculation and come up with straightforward cost mapping that would be very useful from a product point of view."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a six out of ten."
"It's not the price of the software itself that makes it expensive. It's because you have to buy a VM; you have to buy additional hardware. All those things make it slightly costlier."
"Although I am outside of the discussion on budget and costing, I can say that the importance of security provided by this solution is of such importance that whatever the cost is, it is not a factor."
"The tool is pretty expensive."
"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."
"Its pricing is a little bit high in terms of Azure Security Center, but the good thing is that we don't need to maintain and deploy it. So, while the pricing is high, it is native to Azure which is why we prefer using this tool."
"There are improvements that have to be made to the licensing. Currently, for servers, it has to be done by grouping the servers on a single subscription... We don't have an option whereby, if all those resources are in one subscription, we can have each of the individual servers subject to different planning."
"The pricing is very difficult because every type of Defender for Cloud has its own metrics and pricing. If you have Cloud for Key Vault, the pricing is different than it is for storage. Every type has its own pricing list and rules."
"The solution is expensive, and I rate it a five to six out of ten."
"Azure Defender is definitely pricey, but their competitors cost about the same. For example, a Palo Alto solution is the same price per endpoint, but the ground strikes cost a bit more than Azure Defender. Still, it's pricey for a company like ours. Maybe well-established organizations can afford it, but it might be too costly for a startup."
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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Extended Detection and Response (XDR) solutions are best for your needs.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
16%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Hospitality Company
6%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Bitdefender GravityZone XDR?
Scalability is pretty easy. It's easy to increase the capacity. You can just add on licenses to the existing license, and the duration of the license can be adjusted. For example, you've already b...
What needs improvement with Bitdefender GravityZone XDR?
The product could be improved by offering a single panel for the management of all Bitdefender products. Additionally, there might be a need to simplify the interface in the future.
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 do you like most about Microsoft Defender for Cloud?
The entire Defender Suite is tightly coupled, integrated, and collaborative.
 

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

Information Not Available
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 CrowdStrike, SentinelOne, Microsoft and others in Extended Detection and Response (XDR). Updated: June 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.