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Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 29, 2025

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 Vulnerability Management
5th
Ranking in Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
4th
Ranking in Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)
3rd
Ranking in Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP)
3rd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
115
Ranking in other categories
Cloud and Data Center Security (2nd), Container Security (3rd), Compliance Management (2nd)
Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto N...
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
34th
Ranking in Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
19th
Ranking in Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)
22nd
Ranking in Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP)
16th
Average Rating
10.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.7
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (13th), Software Supply Chain Security (14th), Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM) (7th), Application Security Posture Management (ASPM) (9th), Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) (8th)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
7th
Ranking in Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
1st
Ranking in Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)
4th
Ranking in Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP)
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
79
Ranking in other categories
Container Management (9th), Container Security (7th), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (4th), Microsoft Security Suite (8th), Compliance Management (5th), Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) (2nd)
 

Featured Reviews

Mike Bulyk - PeerSpot reviewer
Custom correlation searches enhance threat detection efficiency
Singularity Cloud Security significantly reduced our organization's threat detection time by providing immediate data visibility. This allows our team to analyze telemetry in real-time, query it, and identify anomalies or potential threats using the Singularity platform. We can create rules that automatically trigger alerts based on this real-time data, enabling immediate response. This instant threat detection and response capability is a major improvement over our previous reliance on multiple tools with delayed data flows. Singularity Cloud Security eliminates those delays, saving valuable time in incident response scenarios. MTTR and MTTD are critical metrics for incident response processes. They measure the time it takes to fully address an incident, from initial detection to complete remediation. Minimizing these times is crucial to limit damage, as attackers can quickly exploit vulnerabilities and compromise additional systems. Rapid detection and response are essential to disrupt attackers and prevent further progression within the attack chain. Singularity Cloud helps reduce false positives by allowing engineers direct access to data. This access enables querying, validation, and the creation of correlation searches for improved data analysis. Instead of a black box approach, Singularity provides full visibility into the code and syntax used, increasing confidence in the results. Ultimately, Singularity offers greater control over correlation searches, detection rules, and response scenarios due to the enhanced engagement and control it provides. Singularity's ability to create custom correlation searches significantly reduces noise by avoiding reliance on generic, pre-built searches that often lead to false positives in diverse organizational environments. This targeted approach results in a high positive rate and efficacy, allowing for focused detection and response. By designing and running custom searches, Singularity minimizes the need to sift through irrelevant alerts, unlike systems using default rules that inundate analysts with noise. This translates to a very low noise-to-efficacy ratio, enabling efficient and accurate incident response. Singularity Cloud offers valuable data and capabilities extending beyond security, benefiting various business units. For example, it helped troubleshoot a newly introduced service with limited telemetry. My team created custom correlation searches to track specific event types, confirming the software's functionality. This success garnered positive feedback throughout the company, reaching even the CIO and CSR, as it enabled the business to showcase the software's effectiveness in a way that was previously impossible. SentinelOne improves our regulatory compliance by fulfilling the endpoint detection and response requirements of various frameworks. Many federal regulations require businesses to meet specific security standards, including those related to endpoint, identity, and cloud security. SentinelOne enables us to meet these requirements and assure potential partners that we have a robust security posture. This strengthens our partnerships and streamlines procurement processes, demonstrating how SentinelOne contributes to our compliance efforts. SentinelOne's evidence-based reporting, particularly the CNS reports, fosters trust due to the transparency of the data source and the ability to understand the underlying mechanisms. Knowing the search criteria, data types, and information gathering process, especially when customized for detection engineering, creates confidence in the product and the relationship with SentinelOne. This transparency and customization allow users to delve into the mechanics of the reporting, understand its functionality, and ultimately trust the evidence provided. AI is a crucial consideration for security strategies. While some view AI as a potential replacement for human analysts, others see it as a powerful tool to enhance their capabilities. The latter approach emphasizes AI's ability to accelerate incident response, improve threat detection, and provide valuable insights to analysts. This perspective suggests that AI should be used to augment human expertise, enabling analysts to make faster and more informed decisions, particularly in prioritizing threats and developing a sixth sense for identifying malicious activity. By integrating AI as an enabler, organizations can empower their security teams to become more efficient and effective, ultimately strengthening their overall security posture.
PG
Identifies vulnerabilities and enables proactive remediation through AI/ML capabilities
The solution helps me to understand misconfigurations in AWS or Azure cloud environments. It detects misconfigurations, suggests remedial actions, and helps identify vulnerabilities across cloud platforms. It provides action recommendations for CVEs against particular vulnerabilities The tool…
Vibhor Goel - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"For Singularity, the task capability is easy to use and it has a very intuitive dashboard, which streamlines the processes."
"The UI and the widgets are what I personally appreciate. I find it easy to use."
"It's helped free up staff time so that they can work on other projects."
"The features that stand out are threat detection using advanced artificial intelligence and machine learning, helping to identify and respond to threats in real-time."
"We noted immediate benefits from using the solution."
"Singularity Cloud Security's most valuable features are its ease of scalability and comprehensive security measures."
"With SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security, it's easy to onboard new accounts."
"The agentless vulnerability scanning is great."
"Overall, Cortex Cloud by Palo Alto Networks is a technically strong product, and I rate it ten out of ten."
"I have not experienced any difficulties or issues with the stability of Microsoft Defender for Cloud."
"It is very intuitive when it comes to policy administration, alerts and notifications, and ease of setting up roles at different hierarchies. It has also been good in terms of the network technology maps. It provides a good overview, but it also depends on the complexity of your network."
"Microsoft Defender for Cloud has improved our security poster by at least 100 percent."
"It isn't a highly complex solution. It's something that a lot of analysts can use. Defender gives you a broad overview of what's happening in your environment, and it's a great solution if you're a Microsoft shop."
"Most importantly, it's an integrated solution. We not only have Defender for Cloud, but we also have Defender for Endpoint, Defender for Office 365, and Defender for Identity. It's an integrated, holistic solution."
"Microsoft Defender for Cloud is a valuable tool that integrates seamlessly with Azure Policy and our Security SIEM, simplifying implementation and enhancing security posture."
"Microsoft Defender for Cloud is stable and reliable as advertised."
"One of the features that I like about the solution is it is both a hybrid cloud and also multi-cloud. We never know what company we're going to buy, and therefore we are ready to go. If they have GCP or AWS, we have support for that as well. It offers a single-panel blast across multiple clouds."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security is an excellent CSPM tool, but the CWPP features need to improve, and there is a scope for more application security posture management features. There aren't many ASPM solutions on the market, and existing ones are costly. I would like to see SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security develop into a single pane of glass for ASPM, CSPM, and CWPP. Another feature I'd like to see is runtime protection."
"There should be more documentation about the product."
"I would like to see the map feature improve. It's good, but it isn't fully developed. It lets us use custom resources and policies but does not allow us to perform some actions. I would also like more custom integration and runtime security for Kubernetes."
"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."
"One area for improvement could be the internal analysis process, specifically the guidance provided for remediation."
"SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security can improve by eliminating 100 percent of the false positives."
"Some aspects of the GUI can be confusing and make it difficult for me to find certain options or navigate where needed."
"Another thing that could be improved was that they could recommend processes on how to react to alerts, or recommend best practices based on how other organizations do things if they receive an alert about XYZ."
"You cannot create custom use cases."
"When you work with it, the only problem that we're struggling with is that we have 21 different subscriptions we're trying to apply security to. It's impossible to keep everything organized."
"My experience with Microsoft Defender for Cloud has been largely negative due to a poor user experience."
"There needs to be improvement in the security recommendations, particularly in attack path mapping. Sometimes, it misleads users about the real exposure of external-facing assets."
"If a customer is already using Okta as an SSO in its entire environment, they will want to continue with it. But Security Center doesn't understand that and keeps making recommendations. It would help if it let us resolve a recommendation, even if it is not implemented."
"Defender could provide more in-depth visibility into vulnerabilities and services. For instance, we wanted to scan Azure NetApp for sensitive data, but they didn't have that feature. It was only for storage accounts. I want Azure Defender features to cover all Azure resources rather than a few."
"Microsoft Graph needs improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"As a partner, we receive a discount on the licenses."
"I understand that SentinelOne is a market leader, but the bill we received was astronomical."
"We have an enterprise license. It is affordable. I'm not sure, but I think we pay 150,000 rupees per month."
"The licensing is easy to understand and implement, with some flexibility to accommodate dynamic environments."
"PingSafe is priced reasonably for our workload."
"It is a little expensive. I would rate it a four out of ten for pricing."
"PingSafe is fairly priced."
"It's a fair price for what you get. We are happy with the price as it stands."
Information not available
"Our clients complain about the cost of Microsoft Defender for Cloud."
"Security Center charges $15 per resource for any workload that you onboard into it. They charge per VM or per data-base server or per application. It's not like Microsoft 365 licensing, where there are levels like E3 and E5. Security Center is pretty straightforward."
"The tool is pretty expensive."
"The solution is expensive, and I rate it a five to six out of ten."
"Currently, Microsoft offers only one plan at the enterprise level which is $15 per machine."
"The pricing is very difficult because every type of Defender for Cloud has its own metrics and pricing. If you have Cloud for Key Vault, the pricing is different than it is for storage. Every type has its own pricing list and rules."
"We only use the free tier, so we haven't faced any pricing, setup costs, or licensing challenges."
"There is a helpful cost-reducing option that allows you to integrate production subscriptions with non-production subscriptions."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
6%
Performing Arts
15%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business44
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise53
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business26
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise45
 

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 don't handle the price part, but it isn't more expensive than Palo Alto Prisma Cloud. It's not cheap, but it is wor...
What needs improvement with PingSafe?
There is scope for more application security posture management features. Additionally, the runtime protection needs ...
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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 do you like most about Microsoft Defender for Cloud?
The entire Defender Suite is tightly coupled, integrated, and collaborative.
 

Also Known As

PingSafe
No data available
Microsoft Azure Security Center, Azure Security Center, Microsoft ASC, Azure Defender
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
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Overview

 

Sample Customers

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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 Microsoft, Wiz, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and others in Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP). Updated: August 2025.
868,706 professionals have used our research since 2012.