Cisco Secure Workload vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud comparison

Cisco and Microsoft are both solutions in the Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) category. Cisco is ranked #14 with an average rating of 9.5, while Microsoft is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.1. Cisco holds a 2.6% mindshare in CWPP, compared to Microsoft’s 15.4% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 19, 2025

Cisco Secure Workload and Microsoft Defender for Cloud are competing in the cybersecurity solutions category. While Cisco Secure Workload impresses with its user-friendly interfaces and strong customer support, Microsoft Defender for Cloud has the upper hand in advanced threat detection features, making it a favored option.

Features: Cisco Secure Workload focuses on application-centric micro-segmentation and efficient policy discovery, streamlining security processes through automation. It provides strong telemetry coverage and end-to-end visibility. Microsoft Defender for Cloud is recognized for its comprehensive security analytics, multi-cloud support, dynamic networking, and threat intelligence capabilities.

Room for Improvement: Cisco Secure Workload could enhance its integration capabilities and adaptability to rapid modifications. It may also benefit from reducing initial costs and refining automated micro-segmentation. Microsoft Defender for Cloud could improve in simplifying its deployment processes, enhancing its intuitive usability, and extending its prevention features beyond detection.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Cisco Secure Workload is known for straightforward deployment and exceptional customer support, making it highly user-friendly. Meanwhile, Microsoft Defender for Cloud integrates seamlessly with Azure services, though it may require more initial setup effort. Cisco's superior ease of use in both deployment and support provides it an advantage in customer service.

Pricing and ROI: Cisco Secure Workload can have higher initial costs but offers a strong value proposition over time. Microsoft Defender for Cloud is more cost-effective, providing robust features at competitive pricing, leading to excellent ROI. This makes Microsoft Defender for Cloud appealing due to its extensive integration and feature set, which enhances its value against cost.

To learn more, read our detailed Cisco Secure Workload vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Secure Workload vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud

September 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 November 2025, in the Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) category, the mindshare of SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security is 3.6%, up from 1.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Secure Workload is 2.6%, down from 2.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is 15.4%, up from 15.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud	15.4%
SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security	3.6%
Cisco Secure Workload	2.6%
Other	78.4%

Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)

Featured Reviews

Chetan Yelve

Software Engineer at Cateina Technologies

Enhancing workflow with automation and comprehensive security monitoring

Since I have been using it, I have seen many improvements. SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security is an excellent CSSPM tool, but the CSC CWPP features need improvement. There is scope for more application security posture management features and other than that, there are not many ASPM solutions on the market, and existing ones are more costly. I would prefer to see SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security develop into a single pane of glass for ASPM and CSPM, and I would also appreciate runtime protection highlighted immediately if I'm changing anything in my environment. The dashboard needs more widgets added so that customers or users can see everything on the dashboard itself without needing to go too deep.

Read full review

Raj Metkar

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

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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

"It is very straightforward. It is not complicated. For the information that it provides, it does a pretty good job."

"The multi-cloud support is valuable. They are expanding to different clouds. It is not restricted to only AWS. It allows us to have different clouds on one platform."

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

"The ease of use of the platform is very nice."

"I rate SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security ten out of ten."

"We mostly use alerts. That has been pretty good. If we use the alert system from Amazon, it is much costlier to us, so we use SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security."

"The UI is very good."

"SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security's integration is smooth. They are highly customer-oriented, and the integration went well for us."

More SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security pros

"Instead of proving that all the access control lists are in place and all the EPGs are correct, we can just point the auditor to a dashboard and point out that there aren't any escaped conversations. It saves an enormous, enormous amount of time."

"The most valuable feature of the solution is that we don't have to do packet captures on the network."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is security."

"Scalability is its most valuable feature."

"A complete and powerful micro-segmentation solution."

"The product provides multiple-device integration."

"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."

"It's stable."

More Cisco Secure Workload pros

"The most valuable feature is the comprehensive overview across different workloads. It allows us to see protection not just across one workload, such as virtual machines, containers, infrastructure, or data, but across all our workloads. This overall visibility is really helpful."

"The pricing is good."

"The most valuable features of the solution are the insights, meaning the remediation suggestions, as well as the incident alerts."

"It's got a lot of great features."

"The most valuable features are the monitoring of users, endpoint detection and response, and the adaptability of the AI threat intelligence engine, which quickly adapts to customizations."

"The solution is used for risks, vulnerabilities, and compliance."

"Provides a very good view of the entire security setup of your organization."

"If you are a Microsoft organization and most of your organization uses Microsoft, Microsoft Defender for Cloud will be the best approach as it provides the easiest implementation to the most robust solution for a Microsoft suite."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud pros

Cons

"Crafting customized policies can be tricky."

"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."

"In version 2, a lot of rules have been deployed for Kubernetes security and CDR, which makes a lot of issues of critical severity, whereas they are not critical or of high severity. There is a mismatch of severities. They need to work on severity management."

"Maybe container runtime security could be improved."

"The price is on the higher side. The dashboard can be more detailed."

"The area of improvement is the cost, which is high compared to other traditional endpoint protections."

"The documentation could be better."

"It does not bring much threat intel from the outside world. All it does is scan. If it can also correlate things, it will be better."

More SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security cons

"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."

"It is highly scalable, but there is a limitation that it is only available on Cisco devices."

"The integration could be better, especially with different types of solutions."

"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."

"It is not so easy to use and configure. It needs a bunch of further resources to work, which is mainly the biggest downside of it. The deployment is huge."

"The product must be integrated with the cloud."

"The multi-tenancy, redundancy, backup and restore functionalities, as well as the monitoring aspects of the solution, need improvement. The solution offers virtually no enterprise-grade possibility for monitoring."

"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."

More Cisco Secure Workload cons

"It's hard to reach someone who understands my problems. I haven't had many issues, so I haven't called them."

"I've heard there might be issues with scalability for larger enterprises."

"Azure Security Center takes a long time to update, compared to the on-premises version of Microsoft Defender."

"The remediation process could be improved."

"Microsoft Graph needs improvement."

"The pricing could be improved, as it is somewhat high for smaller companies."

"The product was a bit complex to set up earlier, however, it is a bit streamlined now."

"However, some Copilot features aren't available in the GCP environment. This is something we hope will be addressed in the future."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is cost-effective."

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

"Pricing is based on modules, which was ideal for us."

"The price depends on the extension of the solution that you want to buy. If you want to buy just EDR, the price is less. XDR is a little bit more expensive. There are going to be different add-ons for Singularity."

"As a partner, we receive a discount on the licenses."

"I would rate the cost a seven out of ten with ten being the most costly."

"The pricing is fair. It is not inexpensive, and it is also not expensive. When managing a large organization, it is going to be costly, but it meets the business needs. In terms of what is out there on the market, it is fair and comparable to what I have seen, so I do not have any complaints about the cost"

"The features included in PingSafe justify its price point."

More SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security pricing and cost advice

"It is not cheap and pricing may limit scalability."

"The price is based on how many computers you're going to install it on."

"The pricing is a bit higher than we anticipated."

"The cost for the hardware is around 300k."

"Pricing depends on the scope of the application and the features. Larger installations save more."

"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 outrageous. If you have money to throw at the product, then do it."

"They have a free version, but the license for this one isn't too high. It's free to start with, and you're charged for using it beyond 30 days. Some other pieces of Defender are charged based on usage, so you will be charged more for a high volume of transactions. I believe Defender for Cloud is a daily charge based on Azure's App Service Pricing."

"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."

"The solution is expensive, and I rate it a five to six out of ten."

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

"Understanding the costs of cloud services can be complicated at first. As with a lot of things in the cloud, it can be quite hard to understand the end cost, but it becomes clearer over time. Early on, the lack of transparency is a challenge. Microsoft does not tell you the cost when they launch something. It is clever marketing, and there is room for improvement there. There should be clarity from the start."

"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."

"It is bundled with our enterprise subscription, which makes it easy to go for it. It is available by default, and there is no extra cost for using the standard features."

"This solution is more cost-effective than some competing products. My understanding is that it is based on the number of integrations that you have, so if you have fewer subscriptions then you pay less for the service."

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

10%

Government

Computer Software Company

20%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Government

Financial Services Firm

13%

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	46
Midsize Enterprise	20
Large Enterprise	53

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	5
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	8

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	26
Midsize Enterprise	7
Large Enterprise	45

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 think the pricing of SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security is a bit high.

See all answers

What needs improvement with PingSafe?

One area that could be improved in SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security is their policies; the way they have config...

See all answers

What do you like most about Cisco Secure Workload?

The product provides multiple-device integration.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Cisco Secure Workload?

We actively seek improvements in integrating the Infoblox DDI platform with Cisco Secure Workload. This integration a...

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 11% of the time

Wiz vs SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security

Compared 11% of the time

AWS GuardDuty vs SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security

Compared 8% of the time

Orca Security vs SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security

Compared 4% of the time

Aqua Cloud Security Platform vs SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security

Compared 4% of the time

More SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security Competitors

Cisco Hypershield vs Cisco Secure Workload

Compared 20% of the time

Akamai Guardicore Segmentation vs Cisco Secure Workload

Compared 15% of the time

Illumio vs Cisco Secure Workload

Compared 15% of the time

VMware NSX vs Cisco Secure Workload

Compared 10% of the time

Wiz vs Cisco Secure Workload

Compared 2% of the time

More Cisco Secure Workload Competitors

AWS GuardDuty vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 32% of the time

Wiz vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 11% of the time

Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 6% of the time

Microsoft Defender XDR vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 4% of the time

CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security 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

October 2025

SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security report

Download SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security product report

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Secure Workload

November 2025

Download Cisco Secure Workload product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Defender for Cloud

October 2025

Download Microsoft Defender for Cloud product report

Also Known As

PingSafe

Cisco Tetration

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

Interactive Demo

Demo not available

SentinelOne

Demo not available

Cisco

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

Cisco Secure Workload is a cloud and data security solution that offers a zero-trust policy of keeping an organization’s application workloads safe and secure throughout the entire on-premise and cloud data center ecosystems.

Cisco Secure Workload will consistently provide protection by discovering workload process anomalies, stopping threats immediately, minimizing the risk threat surface, and aborting any lateral movement.

Today’s ecosystems are very elastic, and in the application-focused dynamic of today’s aggressive marketplace, Cisco Secure Workload delivers a robust security solution that works effectively with today’s most popular applications. The solution uniquely surrounds each and every workload to ensure organizations are able to keep their data, network, and applications safe and secure at all times. Cisco Secure Workload ensures that enterprise organizations can maintain secure applications by consistently building firewalls around every workload level throughout the entire ecosystem. The solution can manage applications that are deployed on containers, virtual machines, or bare-metal servers.

Cisco Secure workload is able to meet an organization's busy needs and offers flexible options such as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and on-premises options. Using the Secure Workload SaaS options, users receive all the benefits of Cisco Secure Workload protection without the hassle of having to deploy and maintain the platform on premises. Users are responsible for acquiring the necessary software licensing and deploying software agents. Using SaaS, Secure Workload runs in the cloud and is operated and maintained by Cisco. This option offers the ability to scale easily and is a popular choice for SaaS-first and SaaS-only clients. Many organizations find they get the best TCO and achieve the best productivity and profitability using the SaaS options.

When choosing on-premises options, organizations choose between hardware-based appliance models (large or small form factors). Platform selection is dependent on scalability goals, the desired fidelity level of flow telemetry, and the actual number of workloads. When a user chooses to configure Cisco Secure Workload for a conversation-only flow telemetry for all workloads, each platform has the capability to scale up vertically twice the default platform scale. Additionally, with Secure Workload, it is possible for the platform to be scaled horizontally in order to satisfy the demands of extra large widely distributed enterprise environments using federation capabilities.

Cisco Secure Workload also provides a robust disaster recovery (DR) tool, which helps to make it a complete, comprehensive solution. The DR allows for continuous restore and backup capabilities that enable users to quickly remediate operations and data to a standby cluster in the event of a drastic failure or disaster.

Reviews from Real Users

“The solution offers 100% telemetry coverage. The telemetry you collect is not sampled, it's not intermittent. It's complete. You see everything in it, including full visibility of all activities on your endpoints and in your network. Other valuable features include vast support for annotations, flexible user applications, machine learning, automatic classification, and hierarchical policies.” - CTO at a tech vendor

Cisco

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

ADP, University of North Carolina Charlotte (UNCC)

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

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Secure Workload vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud

September 2025

Free Report: Cisco Secure Workload vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Secure Workload vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.

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