CoreOS Clair vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud comparison

Red Hat and Microsoft are both solutions in the Container Security category. Red Hat is ranked #28 with an average rating of 9.0, while Microsoft is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.1. Red Hat holds a 0.6% mindshare in Container Security, compared to Microsoft’s 6.6% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Red Hat users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

CoreOS Clair

Read 2 CoreOS Clair reviews

513 Views
508 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Read 79 Microsoft Defender for Cloud reviews

20,047 Views
6,616 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

CoreOS Clair

Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 13, 2025

CoreOS Clair and Microsoft Defender for Cloud compete in security threat detection and vulnerability scanning. CoreOS Clair is preferred for pricing and deployment, but Microsoft Defender for Cloud is superior due to its extensive features.

Features: CoreOS Clair provides container vulnerability detection, environment integration, and focuses on container security. Microsoft Defender for Cloud offers platform threat protection, real-time detection, and integrated management tools, with comprehensive security features for network functions.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: CoreOS Clair features straightforward deployment and easy integration into containerized environments. Microsoft Defender for Cloud has a complex deployment model, but benefits from robust support systems.

Pricing and ROI: CoreOS Clair offers lower setup costs, appealing for budget-conscious container security. Microsoft Defender for Cloud involves higher costs upfront but offers significant ROI with a broad security suite.

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

Buyer's Guide

CoreOS Clair vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud

September 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 869,566 peers since 2012

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

CoreOS Clair

Ranking in Container Security

28th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Ranking in Container Security

7th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Vulnerability Management (7th), Container Management (9th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (4th), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (4th), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (4th), Microsoft Security Suite (8th), Compliance Management (5th), Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Container Security category, the mindshare of CoreOS Clair is 0.6%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is 6.6%, down from 7.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Container Security Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud	6.6%
CoreOS Clair	0.6%
Other	92.8%

Container Security

Featured Reviews

Felipe Giffu

Red Hat Solution Architect at Seprol Computadores e Sistemas

An operational system, similar to Linux where you can run your applications inside containers

With CoreOS, you can run your applications inside containers. For example, if you have an application that needs to run on Linux, you can create and install a container. However, it's important to note that you don't install CoreOS inside a container; CoreOS is the host operating system that manages containers. When you mentioned using Nacula as part of your CI/CD pipeline, it means your application is deployed and managed automatically through the CI/CD process. Containers are used to deploy your application within this pipeline, but CoreOS does not run inside these containers. Instead, CoreOS is the base operating system that supports and manages these containers.

Read full review

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"CoreOS Clair's best feature is detection accuracy."

"With CoreOS, you can run your applications inside containers. For example, if you have an application that needs to run on Linux, you can create and install a container. However, it's important to note that you don't install CoreOS inside a container; CoreOS is the host operating system that manages containers."

"The technical support is very good."

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

"DSPM is the most valuable feature."

"I would rate Microsoft Defender for Cloud a ten."

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

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

"The UX and UI are very good. Users have more of a taste for Microsoft UI."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud pros

Cons

"It can be improved in its support response. They usually take up to seven days to resolve the issue."

"An area for improvement is that CoreOS Clair doesn't provide information about the location of vulnerabilities it detects."

"I would suggest building a single product that addresses endpoint server protection, attack surface, and everything else in one solution. That is the main disadvantage with the product. If we are incorporating some features, we end up in a situation where this solution is for the server, and that one is for the client, or this is for identity, and that is for our application. They're not bundling it. Commercially, we can charge for different licenses, but on the implementation side, it's tough to help our end-customer understand which product they're getting."

"The range of workloads is broad, but we'd love to add more workloads and make it a single security solution that covers all those workloads. Covering more would allow us to see and protect more workloads from a single pane of glass. Additional features should include protection for more AI workloads as it currently focuses primarily on OpenAI."

"It needs to be simplified and made more user-friendly for a non-technical person."

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

"The solution could improve by being more intuitive and easier to use requiring less technical knowledge."

"The range of workloads is broad, but we'd love to add more workloads and make it a single security solution that covers all those workloads."

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

"Most customer teams need more training on this type of product."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"CoreOS Clair is open-source and free of charge."

"There are improvements that have to be made to the licensing. Currently, for servers, it has to be done by grouping the servers on a single subscription... We don't have an option whereby, if all those resources are in one subscription, we can have each of the individual servers subject to different planning."

"The price of the solution is good for the features we receive and there is an additional cost for Microsoft premier support. However, some of my potential customers have found it to be expensive and have gone on to choose another solution."

"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."

"Currently, Microsoft offers only one plan at the enterprise level which is $15 per machine."

"I'm not privy to that information, but I know it's probably close to a million dollars a year."

"Azure Defender is a bit pricey. The price could be lower."

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

"Pricing is a consideration, but we strive to keep costs low by enabling only necessary services."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Container Security solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

869,566 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Computer Software Company

11%

Performing Arts

Financial Services Firm

13%

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

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

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for CoreOS Clair?

If you work with CoreOS or OpenShift, you don't need to pay for CoreOS separately. When you pay for OpenShift, you get CoreOS included, so you don't need to pay for the operating system separately....

See all answers

What needs improvement with CoreOS Clair?

It can be improved in its support response. They usually take up to seven days to resolve the issue.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for CoreOS Clair?

We use the tool to manage and secure the event file system. CoreOS Clair is an operational system that is very similar to Linux and offers benefits to other Linux operating systems. One major advan...

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 across your ecosystem. It also has great remote workforce capabilities and supports a...

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

JFrog Xray vs CoreOS Clair

Compared 23% of the time

Trivy vs CoreOS Clair

Compared 16% of the time

Snyk vs CoreOS Clair

Compared 15% of the time

Qualys VMDR vs CoreOS Clair

Compared 13% of the time

Tenable.io Container Security vs CoreOS Clair

Compared 13% of the time

More CoreOS Clair Competitors

AWS GuardDuty vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 30% 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 7% of the time

Microsoft Defender XDR vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 4% of the time

Orca Security vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 3% of the time

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Container Security

October 2025

Download CoreOS Clair product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Defender for Cloud

September 2025

Download Microsoft Defender for Cloud product report

Also Known As

No data available

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

Interactive Demo

Demo not available

Red Hat

Microsoft

Overview

Clair is an open source project for the static analysis of vulnerabilities in appc and docker containers.

Vulnerability data is continuously imported from a known set of sources and correlated with the indexed contents of container images in order to produce lists of vulnerabilities that threaten a container. When vulnerability data changes upstream, the previous state and new state of the vulnerability along with the images they affect can be sent via webhook to a configured endpoint. All major components can be customized programmatically at compile-time without forking the project.

Red Hat

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

eBay, Veritas, Verizon, SalesForce

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

Buyer's Guide

CoreOS Clair vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud

September 2025

Free Report: CoreOS Clair vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud

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

DOWNLOAD NOW

869,566 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our CoreOS Clair vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud report.

See our list of best Container Security vendors.

We monitor all Container Security reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.