BMC Helix Cloud Security vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud comparison

BMC and Microsoft are both solutions in the Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) category. BMC is ranked #22 with an average rating of 7.5, while Microsoft is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.1. BMC holds a 0.4% mindshare in CWPP, compared to Microsoft’s 13.6% mindshare. Additionally, 80% of BMC users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 13, 2025

BMC Helix Cloud Security and Microsoft Defender for Cloud are products competing in the cloud security space. Microsoft Defender for Cloud appears to lead with its extensive feature set and strong value proposition.

Features: BMC Helix Cloud Security emphasizes policy compliance, real-time monitoring, and provides a unified view of cloud environments. It includes automatic remediation, multi-cloud support, and effective vulnerability management, ensuring maximum security. Microsoft Defender for Cloud excels with its advanced threat protection, integration with Azure services, and comprehensive regulatory compliance monitoring. Its features also include robust security alerts, automated recommendations for security improvements, and seamless integration within the Microsoft ecosystem.

Room for Improvement: BMC Helix Cloud Security can enhance its integration capabilities with third-party applications and could refine its user interface for better user experience. Improvements in the reporting features could also add value. Microsoft Defender for Cloud could benefit from including more detailed metrics for non-Azure environments and improve its multi-cloud operational capabilities. Enhancing ease of use for new users can be another focus area along with broader support for third-party tools.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: BMC Helix Cloud Security offers a straightforward deployment process with extensive support channels, making it appealing to users who prefer guided setup. Microsoft Defender for Cloud features seamless integration with existing Microsoft ecosystems, which may present a learning curve but offers substantial support once users are acclimated.

Pricing and ROI: BMC Helix Cloud Security presents competitive pricing, focusing on its cost-effectiveness for policy-centric organizations. In contrast, Microsoft Defender for Cloud requires a higher initial investment but justifies it with a comprehensive range of features that promise significant long-term ROI especially beneficial for organizations using Azure services.

To learn more, read our detailed BMC Helix Cloud Security vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

BMC Helix Cloud Security vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud

July 2025

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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

SentinelOne Singularity Clo...

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) category, the mindshare of SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security is 3.2%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of BMC Helix Cloud Security is 0.4%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is 13.6%, down from 16.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)

Featured Reviews

Andrew W

VP - Information Technology at a financial services firm with 201-500 employees

Tells us about vulnerabilities as well as their impact and helps to focus on real issues

Looking at all the different pieces, it has got everything we need. Some of the pieces we do not even use. For example, we do not have Kubernetes Security. We are not running any K8 clusters, so it is good for us. Overall, we find the solution to be fantastic. There can be additional education components. This may not be truly fair to them because of what the product is going for, but it would be great to see additional education for compliance. It is not a criticism of the tool per se, but anything to help non-development resources understand some of the complexities of the cloud is always appreciated. Any additional educational resources are always helpful for security teams, especially those without a development background.

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GregoireSoukiassian

Consultant at Ministry of Research and Education

Effectively addresses security concerns but could use enhancement in terms of integration

BMC Helix Cloud Security has room for improvement in terms of integrating its various features. It currently consists of separate point solutions that don't flow together as seamlessly as they could. This lack of integration, unlike platforms like ServiceNow, may be due to historical factors. Enhancing this integration would make it a more compelling choice from a business perspective and offer a smoother user experience. In the next release of BMC Helix Cloud Security, I would like to see additional features, particularly AI integration, which has already been announced. AI integration could bring more precision to the platform, making it even more interesting and effective.

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Vibhor Goel

Senior Cloud Platform Engineer at Deutsche Börse

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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"All the features we use are equal and get the job done."

"It saves us time based on savings on manual activities."

"The solution's most valuable features are its ability to detect vulnerabilities inside AWS resources and its ability to rescan after a specific duration set by the administrator."

"My favorite feature is Storyline."

"I would rate their support a ten out of ten."

"The user-friendly dashboard offers both convenience and security by providing quick access to solutions and keeping us informed of potential threats."

"I would rate this solution a nine out of ten."

"Singularity Cloud Security's most valuable features are its ease of scalability and comprehensive security measures."

More SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security pros

"The features that I've found most valuable are its container security aspect. I also like its vulnerability management tools."

"The most valuable aspects of BMC Helix Cloud Security are its security features and regulatory compliance capabilities."

"The cool feature of Helix Cloud Security is that you can do all that — understand and remediate issues — in one dashboard, based on the different policies that are available for security, out-of-the-box."

"The best feature is time to value. With very minimal effort, you are able to have a cohesive view into your security posture on one or multiple cloud accounts, particularly if you are dealing with multicloud. If you have Azure and AWS deployments, you might have multiple subscriptions in Azure and usually multiple accounts in AWS. You may even be doing some GCP work (around Google Cloud Platform). It's very difficult to manage a common set of policies, even less reporting, across multiple subscriptions, accounts, and cloud environments. What BMC Helix Cloud Security does is provide a unified view or single pane of glass as to your baseline. Then, it also facilitates the ability for Level 1 or 2 operations support to take action and report on security vulnerabilities."

"Role-based security is a valuable feature."

"It's also multi-cloud. You can look at several cloud providers: AWS, Azure, or GCP."

"We saw improvement from a regulatory compliance perspective due to having a single dashboard."

"The most valuable feature for me is the variety of APIs available."

"The most valuable features are the security recommendations provided by Defender for Cloud."

"It offers virus management and addresses threats such as viruses, worms, spyware, and other critical security concerns."

"Scalability is great, and I would rate it a ten out of ten."

"Defender for Cloud is a plug-and-play solution that provides continuous posture management once enabled."

"Microsoft Defender for Cloud has improved our security poster by at least 100 percent."

"The product has given us more insight into potential avenues for attack paths."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud pros

Cons

"I'd like to see better onboarding documentation."

"One potential drawback is the cost of SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security, which may be prohibitive for smaller businesses or startups, particularly those in regions with lower average incomes, such as India."

"They can add more widgets to its dashboard. A centralized dashboard with numerous metrics would improve user understanding."

"There is no break-glass account feature. They should implement this as soon as possible because we can't implement SSO without a break-glass feature."

"I believe the UI/UX updates for SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security have room for improvement."

"They need more experienced support personnel."

"I would like SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security's detections to be openly available online instead of only accessible through their portal. Other tools have detections that are openly available without going through the tool."

"SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security could be improved with easier integrations to the Singularity Data Lake, particularly for various vendors."

More SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security cons

"I want the role-based security feature to be improved."

"We've had some with issues connectors. The connectors have seemed to have caused a little bit of trouble, perhaps with the APIs trying to scan the environment. The only time I've had to reach out to tech support was for that. It seems it may not have been scanning correctly or I wasn't seeing data within a specific time. But we've set up a couple of connectors in the past couple of weeks and they actually scanned the AWS environment and we had data within about 10 minutes. It's working a lot faster and I think they're making improvements as they go."

"BMC Helix Cloud Security has room for improvement in terms of integrating its various features."

"Every organization out there doesn't rely on just one control body. They use FISMA control. They may use HIPAA, CIS, PCI, or SOX, then blend them. One of the things that is now in big demand for BMC Helix Cloud Security is content. That's the next journey in its lifespan, making it easier for the community to share and collaborate on content for security controls that can be measured and remediated."

"The UI could be more user-friendly."

"The cost is always a concern, but overall, it's not too bad because it is easy to use and pretty friendly."

"Microsoft Defender for Cloud could be improved by adding capabilities for NetApp files and more PaaS resources from other vendors, not just Microsoft."

"The product's advanced analytics and reporting features could be improved."

"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."

"I recommend that they extend the scope for legacy infra assets."

"The user interface of Microsoft Defender for Cloud, like many Microsoft portals, undergoes frequent changes and feature relocation."

"For improvements, I'd like to see more use cases integrated with Microsoft Sentinel and support for multi-cloud environments beyond just Azure."

"The most significant areas for improvement are in the security of our identity and endpoints and the posture of the cloud environment. Better protection for our cloud users and cloud apps is always welcome."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"PingSafe falls somewhere in the middle price range, neither particularly cheap nor expensive."

"SentinelOne is relatively cheap. If ten is the most expensive, I would rate it a seven."

"PingSafe is not very expensive compared to Prisma Cloud, but it's also not that cheap. However, because of its features, it makes sense to us as a company. It's fairly priced."

"PingSafe is less expensive than other options."

"I understand that SentinelOne is a market leader, but the bill we received was astronomical."

"Singularity Cloud Workload Security's pricing is good."

"While I'm slightly out of touch with pricing, I know SentinelOne is much cheaper than other products."

"PingSafe's pricing is good because it provides us with a solution."

More SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security pricing and cost advice

"The pricing is based on an annual subscription, upfront, and it's based on cloud assets. Whether your assets are in Azure and AWS combined, the tool tells you how many assets are being scanned and that's the number used for pricing."

"It is a subscription model with term licensing that is usually yearly. This includes, not only the product, but support and maintenance. It is based on cloud assets. Therefore, if you have 100 cloud assets, those cloud assets are measured based on evaluation or transactions. For example, if I'm evaluating that cloud asset for CIS compliance, PCI compliance, and AWS best practices, that asset gets evaluated three times, as those are three transactions. However, the license model is based on peak asset usage. So, over a year, if you deploy 100, 1000, 500, and then 2000 assets, you will be charged for the 2000 peak of assets managed by Helix Cloud Security."

"Microsoft's licensing and pricing are sometimes complicated. If someone is new to Microsoft's licensing, they might have difficulty with it."

"We only use the free tier, so we haven't faced any pricing, setup costs, or licensing challenges."

"The tool is pretty expensive."

"The product's pricing policy is generally favorable."

"Security Center charges $15 per resource for any workload that you onboard into it. They charge per VM or per data-base server or per application. It's not like Microsoft 365 licensing, where there are levels like E3 and E5. Security Center is pretty straightforward."

"I rate Microsoft Defender a three out of ten for affordability. The price could be a little lower."

"Microsoft Defender for Cloud is pricey, especially for Kubernetes clusters."

"There is a helpful cost-reducing option that allows you to integrate production subscriptions with non-production subscriptions."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

16%

Financial Services Firm

14%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

14%

Manufacturing Company

12%

Performing Arts

12%

Computer Software Company

10%

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about PingSafe?

The dashboard gives me an overview of all the things happening in the product, making it one of the tool's best featu...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for PingSafe?

I don't handle the price part, but it isn't more expensive than Palo Alto Prisma Cloud. It's not cheap, but it is wor...

See all answers

What needs improvement with PingSafe?

There is scope for more application security posture management features. Additionally, the runtime protection needs ...

See all answers

What do you like most about BMC Helix Cloud Security?

The most valuable aspects of BMC Helix Cloud Security are its security features and regulatory compliance capabilities.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for BMC Helix Cloud Security?

I would rate the price of BMC Helix Cloud Security as a seven in terms of costliness. It is not the cheapest option a...

See all answers

What needs improvement with BMC Helix Cloud Security?

BMC Helix Cloud Security has room for improvement in terms of integrating its various features. It currently consists...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What do you like most about Microsoft Defender for Cloud?

The entire Defender Suite is tightly coupled, integrated, and collaborative.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender for Cloud?

The pricing is pretty standard.

See all answers

Comparisons

Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks vs SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security

Compared 14% of the time

Wiz vs SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security

Compared 13% of the time

AWS GuardDuty vs SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security

Compared 8% of the time

Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP vs SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security

Compared 5% of the time

Orca Security vs SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security

Compared 4% of the time

More SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security Competitors

CloudBolt vs BMC Helix Cloud Security

Compared 28% of the time

Snyk vs BMC Helix Cloud Security

Compared 22% of the time

Zscaler Internet Access vs BMC Helix Cloud Security

Compared 18% of the time

Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks vs BMC Helix Cloud Security

Compared 17% of the time

Cisco Secure Workload vs BMC Helix Cloud Security

Compared 15% of the time

More BMC Helix Cloud Security Competitors

AWS GuardDuty vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 25% of the time

Wiz vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 12% of the time

Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 8% of the time

Microsoft Defender XDR vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 4% of the time

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 1% of the time

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security

July 2025

SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security report

Download SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security product report

Buyer's Guide

BMC Helix Cloud Security

August 2025

Download BMC Helix Cloud Security product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Defender for Cloud

August 2025

Download Microsoft Defender for Cloud product report

Also Known As

PingSafe

TrueSight Cloud Security, SecOps Policy Service

Microsoft Azure Security Center, Azure Security Center, Microsoft ASC, Azure Defender

Interactive Demo

Demo not available

SentinelOne

Demo not available

BMC

Microsoft

Overview

SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security offers a streamlined approach to cloud security with intuitive operation and strong integration capabilities for heightened threat detection and remediation efficiency.

Singularity Cloud Security stands out for its real-time detection and response, effectively minimizing detection and remediation timelines. Its automated remediation integrates smoothly with third-party tools enhancing operational efficiency. The comprehensive console ensures visibility and support for forensic investigations. Seamless platform integration and robust support for innovation are notable advantages. Areas for development include improved search functionality, affordability, better firewall capabilities for remote users, stable agents, comprehensive reporting, and efficient third-party integrations. Clarity in the interface, responsive support, and real-time alerting need enhancement, with a call for more automation and customization. Better scalability and cost-effective integration without compromising capabilities are desired.

What are SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security's standout features?

Ease of Use: Intuitive operation simplifies navigation across platforms.
Real-Time Detection: Quick identification and response to threats.
Automated Remediation: Streamlines recovery processes with integration capabilities.
Forensic Visibility: Aids in thorough threat analysis and prevention strategies.
Comprehensive Console: Offers full visibility and historical data tracking.
Platform Integration: Supports seamless operation across cloud and hybrid environments.

What benefits should users expect from SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security?

Enhanced Efficiency: Automation and third-party integration improve threat response.
Improved Detection: Reduces mean time to detect and respond to threats.
Operational Support: Comprehensive visibility and forensic tools aid operational decisions.
Cost Efficiency: Affordable integration with scaling capabilities without high overhead.

SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security is deployed in industries needing robust cloud security posture management, endpoint protection, and threat hunting. Utilized frequently across AWS and Azure, it assists in monitoring, threat detection, and maintaining compliance in diverse environments while providing real-time alerts and recommendations for proactive threat management.

SentinelOne

BMC Helix Cloud Security is a SaaS tool designed to help organizations reduce compliance and security lapses resulting from next-gen container and cloud technologies. The solution offers a fully transparent, user-friendly view of all compliance data gathered throughout container resources, cloud, and data centers. BMC Helix Cloud Security can be used to insert compliance inquiries precisely in DevOps workflows for immediate assessment in relation to critical “go, no-go” conclusions throughout the entire workflow.

BMC Helix Cloud Security offers enterprise organizations a unique compliance solution with robust functionalities to concentrate on numerous use processes that may interfere with digital transfigurations, such as:

Discovering resources, accounts, and configurations that are non-compliant with standard regulations or the organization's own policies and protocols.
Multi-source cloud compliance for PaaS service infrastructures, networks, storage, and containers.
DevOps workflows with melded security and compliance for WebApp application blueprints and weaknesses, and all application libraries.
Out-of-box capabilities for immediate compliance integration for DevOps workflows.

BMC Helix Cloud Security is SaaS, which makes it a very flexible solution. It is able to integrate seamlessly with many of today’s enterprises’ demands. BMC Helix Cloud Security can easily perform as a policy-as-code (YAML) based protocol language, open RESTful APIs, or by seamlessly compiling extensible data connectors.

Many of today's enterprise organizations must comply with numerous policies and regulations to maintain effective operations. BMC Helix Cloud Security ensures an enterprise organization is able to satisfy regulatory standards such as Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Act, Defense Information System Agency (DISA), or any other stringent government or internal organizational compliance standards. The solution has a comprehensive compliance policy that utilizes mode-two capabilities and will ensure that an enterprise organization will greatly minimize or even negate the threat of ransomware and data breaches throughout its network.

BMC Helix Cloud Security will also see that container and container hosts are configured correctly and will then regularly audit to ensure compliance at the three important levels of compliance - images, daemon configuration, and host configuration.

BMC Helix Cloud Security is designed to identify vulnerabilities by dissecting and thoroughly investigating compliance data for container and cloud resources and delivering the outcomes through a friendly, easy-to-understand dashboard. The solution can also provide support for unique or custom sources, provided that data is in a JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) format.

BMC Helix Cloud security is also able to help discover and minimize vulnerabilities created by new services, objects, and resources instituted by containers and public clouds. These can sometimes be forgotten, creating a tremendous risk to an organization. BMC Helix Cloud Security will ensure these new services will be carefully and continually monitored to ensure industry and government standards and regulations are not being compromised. The solution is continually dissecting data and then will deliver outcomes in a dynamic, easy-to-understand dashboard.

BMC Helix Cloud Security offers a user-friendly, robust, complete compliance strategy to ensure organizations maintain the highest levels of productivity and profitability while negating the risk of any type of compliance vulnerabilities.

BMC

Microsoft Defender for Cloud is a comprehensive security solution that provides advanced threat protection for cloud workloads. It offers real-time visibility into the security posture of cloud environments, enabling organizations to quickly identify and respond to potential threats. With its advanced machine learning capabilities, Microsoft Defender for Cloud can detect and block sophisticated attacks, including zero-day exploits and fileless malware.

The solution also provides automated remediation capabilities, allowing security teams to quickly and easily respond to security incidents. With Microsoft Defender for Cloud, organizations can ensure the security and compliance of their cloud workloads, while reducing the burden on their security teams.

Microsoft

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

NHS, Vodafone, Kansas City Life, SKY Italia, Cybera

Microsoft Defender for Cloud is trusted by companies such as ASOS, Vatenfall, SWC Technology Partners, and more.

Buyer's Guide

BMC Helix Cloud Security vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud

July 2025

Free Report: BMC Helix Cloud Security vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Find out what your peers are saying about BMC Helix Cloud Security vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.

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See our BMC Helix Cloud Security vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud report.

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