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

CensorNet Cloud Application Security vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps 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

CensorNet Cloud Application...
Ranking in Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)
22nd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Microsoft Defender for Clou...
Ranking in Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (16th), Microsoft Security Suite (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) category, the mindshare of CensorNet Cloud Application Security is 0.9%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is 5.6%, down from 8.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps5.6%
CensorNet Cloud Application Security0.9%
Other93.5%
Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)
 

Featured Reviews

Aman-Yadav - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr technical support executive at Immenzza
User-friendly, affordable, and provides visibility into user activities on the corporate network
The solution works for both corporate and home networks. We can create policies based on keywords for DLP purposes. We can create policies based on regular expressions. We can also scan PDFs and Microsoft Word files. If users are not able to access any website, they can raise an unlock request via the browser. The request will be passed to the web security administrator on the web security portal. It is the most important feature of the tool. Users need not send emails to the administrators. For reporting purposes, we get real-time visibility of the user activities. It also shows when a certain activity was done. We can get details like hostname, IP address, and user name. For CASB purposes, we can see whether users are typing anything on the web or WhatsApp. Everything is captured on CASB. We can see the messages in the CASB visibility report using keywords. Policy creation is very easy. It is just drag and drop. The solution is very user-friendly. We need not create policies manually.
Abdulrahman Muhammadi - PeerSpot reviewer
information Security and IT Manager at Discover Dollar Technologies Pvt Ltd.
Integration with existing cloud workflows has simplified compliance and threat detection
Licensing cost is a significant concern. With Defender Plan 1, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps comes with a pay-per-use model. Each feature has its own pricing when activated on VMs. For example, the vulnerability assessment has separate pricing, the base model including encryptions has separate pricing, and the compliance features have separate pricing. This applies to each VM and Azure resource individually. It is not straightforward where you can take one license and apply it to everything. Each feature has its own pricing model which can be tedious, as the costs keep accumulating. The only lacking feature currently is XDR (extended detection and response). Apart from that, I have only positive experiences with the whole Microsoft suite, except for the pricing structure.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is very user-friendly."
"The major benefit is that it is a Microsoft tool, so if you're in a Microsoft ecosystem, this is the best tool that you can get in the market."
"The most valuable feature is the seamless integration across different clouds."
"I like the alert policies because they are quite robust. It has some built-in templates that we can easily pick up. One of them is the alert for mass downloads, when a particular user is running a massive download on your SharePoint site."
"It's very easy to install and it includes the Intune portal from Microsoft where I can control all the devices from one place."
"It's a full engine that you can use to discover all your assets in the cloud, whether they are on a public cloud or a private cloud."
"The product’s most valuable feature is SQL database."
"The most valuable feature is its policy implementation."
"If your business requirements are relatively simple, it can get the job done."
 

Cons

"We face some API errors on the portal."
"Generally, the pricing can always be improved along with the management system."
"There are challenges with detection and there are challenges with false-positive rates."
"I would prefer to have filtering options incorporated within the policies, enabling the solution to perform tasks beyond mere blocking or allowing."
"I want them to enhance in-session policy."
"They should continue integration with all other Microsoft security-related products. The integration with all the other products is still ongoing."
"The insights could be improved, especially in reporting."
"An area of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps that needs to be improved or enhanced is the reporting function. In the beginning, there was a good reporting function which gave us a sort of monthly overview report. But that has gone away."
"There could be more granular roles that are out of the box included in the product."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is cheap."
"The pricing is in the middle. It isn't too cheap or expensive compared to other antivirus or security products. It is priced according to industry standards."
"The E5 license offers everything bundled. People are moving to Microsoft because you buy one license and it gives you everything."
"We are an MST and we do not pay for the solution. However, the price of the solution could be better."
"This product is not expensive."
"The price could be better and should be reconsidered."
"We have an educational licensing agreement. It's a customer agreement for multiple years."
"I'm not totally involved in the pricing part, but I think its pricing is quite aggressive, and its price is quite similar to Netskope. Netskope has separate licensing fees or additional charges if you want to monitor certain SaaS services, whereas, with MCAS, you get 5,000 applications with their Office 365. It is all bundled, and there's no cost for using that. You only have the operational costs. In the country I am in, it is a bit difficult to get people with the required skill sets."
"The pricing is a little bit high but right now, we are okay with it because of the compatibility with Office 365, Teams, and Azure AD."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) solutions are best for your needs.
909,679 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise19
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
Which is the better security solution - Cisco Umbrella or Microsoft Cloud App Security?
Cisco Umbrella is an integral component of the Cisco SASE architecture. It integrates security in a single, cloud-native solution, unifying multiple features like DNS-layer security, threat intelli...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Cloud App Security?
At the time of implementation, when the size of our organization was small, it was a more affordable product. Since all our productivity applications were on O365, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Cloud App Security?
The fidelity of the signal in Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps has been a challenge in some areas. There have been instances where the alerts generated have been false positives. A lot of work has...
 

Also Known As

CensorNet CASB
MS Cloud App Security, Microsoft Cloud App Security
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

National Portrait Gallery, Gama Aviation
Customers for Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps include Accenture, St. Luke’s University Health Network, Ansell, and Nakilat.
Find out what your peers are saying about Palo Alto Networks, Cisco, Netskope and others in Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB). Updated: August 2026.
909,679 professionals have used our research since 2012.