Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps comparison

The compared Check Point Software Technologies and Microsoft solutions aren't in the same category. Check Point Software Technologies is ranked #9 in VM , with an average rating of 8.5, and holds a 1.5% mindshare in the category. Microsoft is ranked #4 in CASB , with an average rating of 8.4, and holds a 8.9% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of Check Point Software Technologies users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 13, 2025

Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP and Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps are competitors in the cloud security market. Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP appears to have a slight advantage, particularly in areas of compliance and advanced threat protection, while Microsoft Defender benefits from tight integration within the Microsoft ecosystem.

Features: Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP is noted for its robust compliance engine, granular IAM control, and centralized firewall management. It offers comprehensive visibility across multi-cloud environments. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps stands out with seamless integration with Microsoft 365 services, strong threat detection, and real-time anomaly alerts.

Room for Improvement: Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP could enhance integration with on-premise and hybrid environments, reduce false positives, and offer more support documentation. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps needs better integration with non-Microsoft environments, improved reporting capabilities, and enhanced support for local IAM users.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP is praised for easy deployment in public and hybrid clouds with strong technical support. Microsoft Defender integrates seamlessly within Microsoft's ecosystem, providing consistent support but may require additional configuration for non-Microsoft environments.

Pricing and ROI: Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP offers flexible pricing models based on cloud assets, noted for higher initial costs but justified by comprehensive features, leading to ROI through enhanced security compliance. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is often included with Microsoft 365 E5 licenses, offering cost-effectiveness and a competitive pricing advantage when part of Microsoft's suite.

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August 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

Zafran Security

Mindshare comparison

Vulnerability Management Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP	1.5%
Wiz	10.8%
Tenable Nessus	8.0%
Other	79.7%

Vulnerability Management

Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps	8.9%
Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks	17.9%
Netskope	14.9%
Other	58.300000000000004%

Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)

Featured Reviews

Israel Cavazos Landini

Associate Director IT Security Operations at a pharma/biotech company with 10,001+ employees

Weekly insights and risk analysis facilitate informed security decisions

I appreciate the weekly insights Zafran provides, which include critical topics for networks and IT security, allowing us to evaluate which insights apply to our environment. The organization score feature is valuable to keep the leadership team updated on how our infrastructure fares security-wise. The applicable risk level versus base risk level feature is beneficial because prior to Zafran, we only used the base risk level, but now understand that risk depends on the asset itself. Zafran is an excellent tool.

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Bart Coddens

Cloud Engineer at Cloudar

Evolved cloud security with active monitoring but needs interface consistency

The user interface needs work. Sometimes, it is a transition from the old tool to the new CNAPP Two that I currently have, and remnants of the old environment can still be detected. I require consistency in the user interface to ensure everything is streamlined into the same look and feel. More work is needed in fine-tuning the threat data towards your CSPM and activity logs, aligning them with business intelligence, which requires a cohesive console interface. My assessment of CloudGuard CDRs in intrusion detection and threat hunting capabilities is that it still needs some work. All the threat data that comes in, you need to fine tune it a bit.

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Abdulrahman Muhammadi

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.

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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

"Overall, we have seen about eighty-seven percent reduction of the number of vulnerabilities that require urgency to remediate, specifically the number of criticals."

"We are able to see the real risk of a vulnerability on our environment with our security tools."

"Zafran has become an indispensable tool in our cybersecurity arsenal."

"We saw benefits from Zafran Security almost immediately after deploying it."

"Zafran is an excellent tool."

"The solution has intelligence that integrates with a range of threat intelligence feeds, including Check Point's ThreatCloud, to provide real-time intelligence on emerging threats."

"It saves time because I can look across the organization. Instead of checking 50 different accounts atomically and spending 15 minutes investigating each, I can spend 15 minutes exploring all 50 accounts. It allows me to quickly look across the org for similar problems when one comes up. That's a huge time saver."

"The most valuable feature is posture management, which gives you complete visibility of all your assets in the cloud and allows you to do governance and compliance."

"The ability to drill down to individual hosts on an account and see which ones are affected is valuable."

"The administration portal panel is very intuitive."

"Visibility is a key feature. It helps me to validate my overall network posture."

"Alerts of cloud activity happening across all accounts is helpful."

"On Dome9, you can have reports on compliance, users created, and EAM access to the cloud infrastructure. For example, if some machine is exposed to the Internet, importing and exporting to the Internet when it shouldn't, we get immediate alerts if someone does this type of configuration by mistake. Dome9 is very important because AWS doesn't protect us for this. It is the client's responsibility to make sure that we don't export things to the Internet. This solution helps us ensure that we comply with our security measures."

More Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP pros

"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is to stop shadow IT."

"All of the features are valuable because all of the features are related."

"The most effective features for data protection are data loss prevention (DLP) and data classification."

"Everything from Microsoft is integrated. You receive regular reports on them all. You can push your reports, logs, and security alerts, which are all integrated. It is crucial that these solutions work natively together to deliver coordinated detection and response across our environment."

"The ability to prevent users from using certain applications is one of the most valuable features. It doesn't require any configuration for implementation from the client perspective. It just works right away and gives you the information you need."

"The general usability of the solution is very straightforward."

"On-demand scanning is the most valuable feature. In addition, it's a fairly fluid product. It syncs back to the cloud and provides metrics. It's pretty intelligent."

"The most valuable feature is the alerting system."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps pros

Cons

"Initially, we were somewhat concerned about the scalability of Zafran due to our large asset count and the substantial amount of information we needed to process."

"I think the ability to have some enhanced reporting capabilities is something they can improve on, as they have good reports but we have asked for some specific reporting enhancements."

"The dashboarding and reporting functionality of Zafran Security is an area that definitely could use some improvements."

"It does not support on-premise deployments such as VMware Tanzu, and this has been a major drawback when it comes to integrations with some applications."

"I would like to see improvements in the vulnerability assessments in terms of how the solution discovers vulnerabilities or compromised workloads. Also, customizable reports would be nice."

"You do need to pay extra in order to get better support."

"Currently, this solution is somewhat expensive."

"When rules change, it messes up the remediation. They haven't found a fix for that yet. The remediation rule goes into limbo. It's an architectural design flaw within their end compliance engine—a serious bug."

"It should have some options to activate API calls to the platform in the cloud, another improvement would be that when the rules are colonized and they want to be published."

"The biggest thing is the documentation aspect of Dome9 is a little lacking. They were purchased by Check Point about a year and a half to two years ago. When they integrated into Check Point's support system, a lot of the documentation that they had previously got mangled in the transition, e.g., linking to stuff on the Dome9 website that no longer exists. There are still a lot of spaces with incomplete links and stuff that is not as fully explained as it could be."

"The license cost is expensive and has room for improvement."

More Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP cons

"Currently, reporting is not very straightforward and it needs to be enhanced. Specific reports are not included and you need to run a query, drill down, and then export it and share it. I would love to have reports with more fine-tuning or granularity, and more predefined reports."

"A significant improvement I would like to see is the integration into a single pane of glass, which would allow me to view everything in one place rather than having to switch between different areas."

"We sometimes get errors when we create policies, which is somewhat annoying because some policies stop working due to misconfigurations. We find this challenging because it limits our options for troubleshooting an issue."

"This service would be better if it had a separate license, only for this service, that could be used to track usage."

"It doesn't actually decrease the time to respond. This has been an issue with Microsoft recently. Sometimes, there is a delay when it comes to getting an alert policy email... Sometimes it takes two or three hours for that email to be sent."

"The interface needs to be more user-friendly."

"We are having trouble with our continuous reporting configuration and struggling with configuring the collector properly with our log parsing. We've also faced difficulties getting support for this issue. It's taken us months to figure this out after going through a couple of different support channels."

"There could be more granular roles that are out of the box included in the product."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

"Check Point CloudGuard Posture Management is always known as a good solution but an expensive one. When you're using Cisco, Check Point, or Palo Alto, you know that you will pay more, but you know that it will work."

"Right now, we have licenses on 500 machines, and they are not cheap."

"I suggest that you pay attention to the product pricing because while there are no tricks, and the licensing model is transparent, the final numbers may surprise you."

"The tool's pricing is moderate. Its licensing costs are yearly."

"From a pricing perspective, they are pretty expensive."

"The licensing part still needs some work. The issue that I have is that we do not use all the services in the cloud, but sometimes, CloudGuard identifies them as an asset."

"The license fee is high."

"The price is on the higher end."

More Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP pricing and cost advice

"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."

"The E5 license offers everything bundled. People are moving to Microsoft because you buy one license and it gives you everything."

"We have an educational licensing agreement. It's a customer agreement for multiple years."

"The product's pricing seems fair."

"Where we are right now, this is an acceptable pricing. I would like to see more transparency given to the end user. The end user given to us is via the cloud service provider. There are different programs and license models. Some include this, and some include that. It is all over the place. There can be a little more consistency or simplification in the pricing so that your parts list is not ten pages long, and you are not trying to determine, "If I have an E3, does this cover that?", or "Do I need to pay separately for the license?" Simplification would probably be better."

"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."

"This product is not expensive."

"The price could be better and should be reconsidered."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

11%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	54
Midsize Enterprise	17
Large Enterprise	57

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	13
Midsize Enterprise	10
Large Enterprise	18

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zafran Security?

Since we stood Zafran Security up in our private cloud, we handle the maintenance on our side. As we opted not to use...

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What needs improvement with Zafran Security?

In terms of areas for improvement, Zafran Security is doing a really great job as a new and emerging company. Oftenti...

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What is your primary use case for Zafran Security?

My use cases for Zafran Security revolve around two primary areas. One is around vulnerability management and priorit...

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What do you like most about Check Point CloudGuard Posture Management?

The visibility in our cloud environment is the most valuable feature.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Check Point CloudGuard Posture Management?

The price is on the higher end.

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What needs improvement with Check Point CloudGuard Posture Management?

We have concerns regarding the pricing and would appreciate seeing some improvements.

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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-nat...

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What do you like most about Microsoft Cloud App Security?

It does a great job of monitoring and maintaining a security baseline. For us, that is a key element. The notificatio...

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

My impression on the pricing, setup costs, and licensing of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is that it's fair. I do...

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Comparisons

Wiz Code vs Zafran Security

Compared 37% of the time

Vulcan Cyber vs Zafran Security

Compared 16% of the time

Tenable Vulnerability Management vs Zafran Security

Compared 9% of the time

Nucleus vs Zafran Security

Compared 7% of the time

Qualys VMDR vs Zafran Security

Compared 7% of the time

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Wiz vs Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP

Compared 15% of the time

Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks vs Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP

Compared 14% of the time

SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security vs Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP

Compared 7% of the time

AWS GuardDuty vs Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP

Compared 5% of the time

Cloudflare vs Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP

Compared 5% of the time

More Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP Competitors

Zscaler Internet Access vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps

Compared 19% of the time

Cisco Umbrella vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps

Compared 15% of the time

Netskope vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps

Compared 12% of the time

Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps

Compared 6% of the time

Skyhigh Security vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps

Compared 6% of the time

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Zafran Security

August 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP

September 2025

Download Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps

August 2025

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps report

Download Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps product report

Also Known As

No data available

Check Point CloudGuard Posture Management, Dome9, Check Point CloudGuard Workload Protection, Check Point CloudGuard Intelligence

MS Cloud App Security, Microsoft Cloud App Security

Overview

Zafran Security integrates with existing security tools to identify and mitigate vulnerabilities effectively, proving that most critical vulnerabilities are not exploitable, optimizing threat management.

Zafran Security introduces an innovative operating model for managing security threats and vulnerabilities. By leveraging the threat exposure management platform, it pinpoints and prioritizes exploitable vulnerabilities, reducing risk through immediate remediation. This platform enhances your hybrid cloud security by normalizing vulnerability signals and integrating specific IT context data, such as CVE runtime presence and internet asset reachability, into its analysis. No longer reliant on patch windows, Zafran Security allows you to manage risks actively.

What are the key features of Zafran Security?

Threat Exposure Management: Utilizes existing tools to prioritize vulnerabilities and manage threats.
Integrative Analysis: Combines security data with IT context for precise vulnerability management.
Real-time Risk Reduction: Enables immediate risk management without waiting for patches.
Hybrid Cloud Compatibility: Functions across diverse cloud environments for comprehensive security.

What benefits can users expect from Zafran Security?

Improved Security: Enhances protection by efficiently identifying and mitigating risks.
Cost Efficiency: Reduces unnecessary patching expenses by confirming non-exploitable vulnerabilities.
Time Savings: Frees developers to focus on root causes by handling immediate threats.
Comprehensive Insight: Offers a holistic view of security threats and vulnerabilities.

In industries where security is paramount, such as finance and healthcare, Zafran Security provides invaluable protection by ensuring that only exploitable vulnerabilities are addressed. It allows entities to maintain robust security measures while allocating resources efficiently, fitting seamlessly into existing security strategies.

Zafran Security

Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP offers comprehensive cloud security with features like dynamic access control, asset protection, and compliance checks, tailored for organizations seeking enhanced governance across AWS, Azure, and GCP platforms.

Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP provides robust capabilities, including centralized firewall management, IAM scanning, and real-time visibility. Its strengths lie in predictive visualization, threat intelligence, and auto-remediation, making it a valuable tool for risk mitigation and compliance management. The platform's integration and responsiveness enhance cloud security, ensuring alignment with industry standards and effective threat protection.

What are the key features of Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP?

Dynamic Access Control: Enables granular security permissions for cloud resources.
Asset Protection: Safeguards cloud assets from unauthorized access and threats.
Compliance Checks: Ensures alignment with industry regulations like PCI DSS and SOC 2.
Centralized Firewall Management: Simplifies firewall rule configuration across cloud environments.
IAM Scanning: Audits and secures identity and access management configurations.
Real-Time Visibility: Provides insights into cloud environments for proactive threat detection.

What benefits and ROI should you expect from Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP?

Threat Intelligence: Identifies and mitigates potential risks before exploitation.
Auto-Remediation: Automates responses to security incidents, reducing manual intervention.
Intuitive Interface: Simplifies management and enhances operational efficiency.
Posture Management: Maintains strong security posture through continuous assessment.

Organizations in finance, healthcare, and retail frequently implement Check Point CloudGuard CNAPP for compliance and security across cloud environments. It assists with workload protection, threat detection, and regulatory obligation fulfillment, proving effective for securing applications and monitoring API interactions.

Check Point Software Technologies

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is a comprehensive security solution that provides protection for cloud-based applications and services. It offers real-time threat detection and response, as well as advanced analytics and reporting capabilities. With Defender for Cloud Apps, organizations can ensure the security of their cloud environments and safeguard against cyber threats. Whether you're running SaaS applications, IaaS workloads, or PaaS services, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps can help you secure your cloud environment and protect your business from cyber threats.

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps Benefits:

Provides comprehensive security for cloud applications
Integrates with other Microsoft security tools
Easy to use and deploy
Provides real-time threat detection and response
Strong protection against phishing attacks and other common threats
Highly customizable to meet specific needs of different organizations

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps Use Cases:

Governance, authentication, security, and compliance.
Detects shadow IT and anomalous user behavior
Controls access to applications
Provides auditing and filtering setups
Used for end-user compute devices, file monitoring, user investigation, and activity
Used for data governance, threat detection, and getting visibility over cloud applications
Used to identify information about applications beyond organizational boundaries
Prevent exfiltration and data filtration of corporate data
Used to deal with spam emails and detect shadow IT

Reviews from Real Users

Ram-Krish, Cloud Security & Governance at a financial services firm, says that Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps "Integrates well and helps us in protecting sensitive information, but takes time to scan and apply the policies and cannot detect everything we need".

PeerSpot user, Senior Cloud & Security Consultant at a tech services, writes that Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps "Great for monitoring user activity and protecting data while integrating well with other applications".

Simon Burgess,Infrastructure Engineer at SBITSC, states that Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is "A fluid, intelligent product for great visibility, centralized management, and increased uptime".

Microsoft

Sample Customers

Information Not Available

Symantec, Citrix, Car and Driver, Virgin, Cloud Technology Partners

Customers for Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps include Accenture, St. Luke’s University Health Network, Ansell, and Nakilat.

Buyer's Guide

Vulnerability Management

August 2025

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