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Cisco Secure Workload vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 25, 2026

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...
Sponsored
Ranking in Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
4th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
116
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (4th), Cloud and Data Center Security (3rd), Container Security (3rd), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (3rd), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (3rd), Compliance Management (2nd), AI Software Development (1st), AI Observability (2nd)
Cisco Secure Workload
Ranking in Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
14th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Cloud and Data Center Security (8th), Microsegmentation Software (4th), Cisco Security Portfolio (7th)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Ranking in Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
1st
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 Security Posture Management (CSPM) (4th), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (4th), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (5th), Microsoft Security Suite (7th), Compliance Management (4th), Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) category, the mindshare of SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security is 3.8%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Secure Workload is 2.5%, down from 3.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is 16.7%, up from 14.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud16.7%
SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security3.8%
Cisco Secure Workload2.5%
Other77.0%
Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
 

Featured Reviews

SC
Information Security Engineer at DataVigilant Infotech
Enables us to prioritize and effectively address critical security issues
Evidence-based reporting helps us to prioritize and solve critical security issues. The new visualization feature demonstrates how an attacker can enter the system, highlighting the potential path that can be exploited and outlining all the steps the attacker could take. With that visibility, we can ensure the perimeter is strong and attackers cannot enter, thus reducing the risk. It has helped us prioritize issues. The visibility into how an attack could happen is valuable. For example, it highlights the system vulnerability and outlines where an attack could propagate. The visualization helps me to prioritize remediation, and if I don't know where to start, I can check to see the score that enables me to prioritize issues. I am using infrastructure-as-code scanning, and it's one of the useful features. In pre-production, it identifies embedded secrets and misconfigurations, including issues with Kubernetes or some privileged containers. This feature allows us to pass the audit and secure IaC code so that it isn't easily exploitable by attackers. We can more proactively work to identify and resolve vulnerabilities by using the dashboard and the alerting system that SentinelOne provides. It helps us with audits and compliance. We can show the compliance in percentage. We can confidently say that our company or infrastructure is very secure. It has improved our security posture by 30% to 35%. It has reduced our false positives by 30%. It has helped teams collaborate better. The security team manages SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security, and when it flags vulnerabilities, they are forwarded to DevOps for remediation. Previously, we needed to identify and report the issues, but there would be lapses in communication. Now, there is a centralized dashboard that anyone can look at and see the open issues and work on them.
Raj Metkar - PeerSpot reviewer
Director, Head of Networks at MUFG, EMEA
Discover internal application dependencies and create a dependency map
We actively seek improvements in integrating the Infoblox DDI platform with Cisco Secure Workload. This integration allows Cisco Secure Workload to learn about our networks and network tags, providing valuable insights into vulnerabilities related to the operating system and various applications installed on our servers. Recently, Cisco announced a new product called HyperShield, an AI-based autonomous micro-segmentation solution. While Cisco has not stated that HyperShield will replace Cisco Secure Workload, it represents a natural evolution for the company. HyperShield features dynamic policy discovery and enforcement; however, once policies are enforced, they do not change until a discovery occurs, requiring a re-enforcement process. This new platform operates autonomously, minimizing the need for user or security engineer intervention. I would have expected Cisco to incorporate more automatic discovery and enforcement features within the existing Cisco Secure Workload product. Instead of enhancing the current product, they have introduced a new solution. Cisco plans to honor existing Tetration licenses, allowing users to transition to HyperShield without additional costs, reflecting the investment enterprises have already made. From Cisco’s perspective, this represents a natural progression in their product line. While the product name changes, it seems more of a rebranding effort. The enhancements are greater autonomy, improved discovery, and automatic enforcement, which are now being introduced in HyperShield. Cisco Secure Workload offers automatic policy enforcement but cannot adjust policies dynamically as the application needs to change. Having used the platform for the past five years, the recent announcement has been reassuring. Cisco has confirmed that our investment in the platform will not go to waste. They will honor our existing licenses, providing a natural migration path to the new solution without any disruption
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I like CSPM the most. It captures a lot of alerts within a short period of time. When an alert gets triggered on the cloud, it throws an alert within half an hour, which is very reasonable. It is a plus point for us."
"The cooperative nature of SentinelOne has influenced our decision not to shift."
"For Singularity, the task capability is easy to use and it has a very intuitive dashboard, which streamlines the processes."
"The UI is responsive and user-friendly."
"SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security offers comprehensive security posture management."
"SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security's integration is smooth. They are highly customer-oriented, and the integration went well for us."
"Cloud Native Security's best feature is its ability to identify hard-coded secrets during pull request reviews."
"As a frequently audited company, we value SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security's compliance monitoring features. They give us a report with a compliance score for how well we meet certain regulatory standards, like HIPAA. We can show our compliance as a percentage. It's also a way to show that we are serious about security."
"It's stable."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is security."
"The only use case I can see that makes sense is micro-segmentation. I think there are other use cases for it. The main purpose of the product is to do micro-segmentation by collecting IP. That could be done by installing an agent, and then you have all the communication coming in and out. You could also use some flow sensors installed in the network that receive a copy of the traffic and then report that back to the system."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is that we don't have to do packet captures on the network."
"The most valuable feature is micro-segmentation, which is the most important with respect to visibility."
"The product provides multiple-device integration."
"A complete and powerful micro-segmentation solution."
"By using Tetration insight, we are able to get the latency on our level accounts and we can determine whatever the issue is with the application latency itself."
"The most valuable feature is the recommendations provided on how to improve security."
"The tool's most valuable feature is its support for cloud-native services like Kubernetes, containers, managed storage, and databases. Protecting these without Microsoft Defender for Cloud would be extremely challenging. For threat protection specifically, I find the signature-based detection and heuristic detection features very effective."
"Microsoft Defender for Cloud helps in improving our overall security posture. We have a nice overview of what is missing where and what can be improved."
"Defender for Cloud provides a complete DevOps security package for cloud services."
"Using Security Center, you have a full view, at any given time, of what's deployed, and that is something that is very useful."
"The feature of Microsoft Defender for Cloud that I appreciate most is the ability to view logs of applications, as I find it much clearer to understand what is running."
"The security alerts and correlated alerts are most valuable. It correlates the logs and gives us correlated alerts, which can be fed into any security information and event management (SIEM) tool. It is an analyzed correlation tool for monitoring security. It gives us alerts when there is any kind of unauthorized access, or when there is any malfunctioning in multifactor authentication (MFA). If our Azure is connected with Azure Security Center, we get to know what types of authentication are happening in our infra."
"I would rate Microsoft Defender for Cloud a ten out of ten."
 

Cons

"For SentinelOne, improvements could be made in managing Internet dependency as cloud-based operations can pose challenges in environments with limited connectivity."
"If something happens in our infrastructure, the alert appears on the dashboard, but I have to log in to the dashboard and refresh it. I would prefer it to provide better alerting and notifications so that I can resolve issues on priority."
"I want SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security to integrate additional third-party resources. For example, SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security is compatible with Azure and AWS, but Azure AD isn't integrated with AWS. If SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security had that ability, it would enrich the data because how users interact with our AWS environment is crucial. All the identity-related features require improvement."
"One of the issues with the product stems from the fact that it clubs different resources under one ticket."
"While SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security offers robust protection, its cost could be a barrier for some users."
"In addition to the console alerts, I would like SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security to also send email notifications."
"There is room for improvement in the current active licensing model for SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security."
"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 should scale down the hardware a bit. The initial hardware investment is two million dollars so it's a price point problem. The issue with the price comes from the fact that you have to have it with enormous storage and enormous computes."
"The integration could be better, especially with different types of solutions."
"I'd like to see better documentation for advanced features. The documentation is fairly basic. I would also like to see better integration with other applications."
"The product must be integrated with the cloud."
"The interface is really helpful for technical people, but it is not user-friendly."
"There was a controversy when Cisco reduced the amount of data they kept, and the solution became quite cost-intensive, which made its adoption challenging….Although they have modified it now, I preferred the previous version, and I wish all the functionality were back under the same product."
"Secure Workload is a little complicated to use, and the dashboard isn't intuitive, so it takes a while to learn how to use it."
"There's room for improvement when it comes to Cisco Secure Workload. A couple of internal areas could be refined a little bit. They are trying to solve it, depending on where you suppose the agent is. Suppose you have the agent on both the server and the client, which could be the front-end server or web server connecting to the. In that case, if those two are communicating on RPC, the server can look into its configuration. It could go down and find the configuration file on the FTP server and then set the policies to it. But there are a lot of different FTP servers out there. It's also a complex case for the tool to support all FTP servers."
"Although Microsoft Defender for Cloud is based on security, I wish it went beyond providing assessments, reports, and generic steps. More detailed procedures would be helpful, especially for lower-level support staff."
"Sometimes it's very difficult to determine when I need Microsoft Defender for Cloud for a special resource group or a special kind of product."
"However, some Copilot features aren't available in the GCP environment. This is something we hope will be addressed in the future."
"I would like to see more connectors and plugins with other platforms."
"Microsoft sources most of their threat intelligence internally, but I think they should open themselves up to bodies that provide feel intelligence to build a better engine. There may be threats out there that they don't report because their team is not doing anything on that and they don't have arrangements with another party that is involved in that research."
"Microsoft Defender for Cloud could be improved by adding capabilities for NetApp files and more PaaS resources from other vendors, not just Microsoft."
"As an analyst, there is no way to configure or create a playbook to automate the process of flagging suspicious domains."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"PingSafe is cost-effective for the amount of infrastructure we have. It's reasonable for what they offer compared to our previous solution. It's at least 25 percent to 30 percent less."
"Its pricing is okay. It is in line with what other providers were providing. It is not cheap. It is not expensive."
"Singularity Cloud Security by SentinelOne is cost-efficient."
"We have an enterprise license. It is affordable. I'm not sure, but I think we pay 150,000 rupees per month."
"Its pricing was a little less than other providers."
"While SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security offers robust protection, its high cost may be prohibitive for small and medium-sized businesses."
"PingSafe's pricing is good because it provides us with a solution."
"It's not cheap, but it is worth the price."
"The pricing is a bit higher than we anticipated."
"It is not cheap and pricing may limit scalability."
"Regarding price, Cisco Secure Workload can be expensive if you don't have a budget. If you're not doing micro-segmentation, every extra security measure or enforcement you're putting on top of your existing environment will be an extra cost. It's not a cheap solution at all. But from my point of view, if you need to do micro-segmentation, this is one of the best tools I've seen for it. I can't compare that to Microsoft's solution because I haven't looked into it. I've looked into VMware and Cisco. Those are the only two that I know of. I didn't know that Microsoft could do micro-segmentation at all. Maybe they can, but I haven't heard anything about it."
"The price is based on how many computers you're going to install it on."
"The price is outrageous. If you have money to throw at the product, then do it."
"Pricing depends on the scope of the application and the features. Larger installations save more."
"The cost for the hardware is around 300k."
"Defender for Cloud is pretty costly for a single line. It's incredibly high to pay monthly for security per server. The cost is considerable for an enterprise with 500-plus virtual machines, and the monthly bill can spike."
"There are two different plans. We're using the secure basic plan, but we have used the end security plan as well. There are additional costs, but it gives us more functionalities compared to the basic plan."
"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."
"The licensing is straightforward but can become expensive if you cover everything. You must balance the cost against the importance of what needs covering."
"I rate Microsoft Defender a three out of ten for affordability. The price could be a little lower."
"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."
"We are using the free version of the Azure Security Center."
"The cost is fair. There aren't any costs in addition to the standard licensing fee."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
8%
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 Business48
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise54
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business27
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise49
 

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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for PingSafe?
I think the pricing of SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security is a bit high.
What needs improvement with PingSafe?
We did not try to use the threat investigations feature from SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security.Drift detection w...
What do you like most about Cisco Secure Workload?
The product provides multiple-device integration.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Secure Workload?
CloudStrike offers antivirus capabilities and firewall features for servers and VDI but lacks automatic policy discov...
What needs improvement with Cisco Secure Workload?
We actively seek improvements in integrating the Infoblox DDI platform with Cisco Secure Workload. This integration a...
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...
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...
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 Ze...
 

Also Known As

PingSafe
Cisco Tetration
Microsoft Azure Security Center, Azure Security Center, Microsoft ASC, Azure Defender
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
ADP, University of North Carolina Charlotte (UNCC)
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 Cisco Secure Workload vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.