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Digital Guardian vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 1, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
4.9
Digital Guardian improved data protection, reduced breach risks, ensured compliance, saved money, and enhanced security and operational efficiency.
Sentiment score
7.2
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps enhances security, reduces costs, and optimizes resources with seamless integration and proactive monitoring.
The biggest return on investment so far has been visibility, knowing what we have in our environment.
Cloud and data protection engineer at a university with 10,001+ employees
As a small team, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps allowed us to manage systems with just one or two people.
Manager, Information Technology Security Compliance at a manufacturing company with 201-500 employees
We have at least saved the costs we had from the Netskope solution this year.
Security and Continuity Manager at Rolinco NV
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.1
Digital Guardian customer support efficiency varies; users praise global help but note inconsistency in response time and technical understanding.
Sentiment score
6.6
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps support has mixed reviews, with high technical proficiency but inconsistent responsiveness and communication delays.
For vendor support, such as Fortra support, I would rate it a seven because all the support comes from different parts that sometimes have challenges meeting time zones, and sometimes they reroute to distributors and rely on partners.
Cyber Security Researcher at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Their customer service is pretty good, but it's frustrating to go through three or four channels before reaching the right person.
Cloud and data protection engineer at a university with 10,001+ employees
The support is excellent, and the speed of response is commendable.
Solutions Architect at a university with 51-200 employees
There were instances where the engineers were knowledgeable and helpful, but at other times it felt like a ping pong game, with unnecessary transfers until the right person was found.
Manager, Information Technology Security Compliance at a manufacturing company with 201-500 employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
Digital Guardian excels in scalability, managing large deployments smoothly despite cloud storage limits and occasional regional replication issues.
Sentiment score
7.5
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps offers scalable, cloud-native security but may require extra resources for large-scale policy management.
Regarding scalability, it is a 10 out of 10.
Cyber Security Researcher at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
For what I know about the log collector and how much data it can take in, it is super scalable and capable of handling high workloads.
Cloud and data protection engineer at a university with 10,001+ employees
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is very scalable, provided you have the right subscription.
Solutions Architect at a university with 51-200 employees
In my experience, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is good enough for small to medium businesses.
Manager, Information Technology Security Compliance at a manufacturing company with 201-500 employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
Digital Guardian is stable and reliable, outperforming competitors but may face compatibility issues, needing maintenance and adherence to guidelines.
Sentiment score
8.0
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is stable and reliable, with minimal downtime and continuous improvements praised by users.
I would rate it a ten because I have not experienced any stability issues so far with Defender for Cloud Apps.
Head of Security Operations at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
I would assess the stability and reliability of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps as stable
Network Engineer at Apexon
My impression on the stability and reliability of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is that it is very stable.
Security and Continuity Manager at Rolinco NV
 

Room For Improvement

Digital Guardian needs to enhance partner programs, policy simplicity, cross-platform features, resource efficiency, cloud integration, and technical support.
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps needs improvements in pricing, interface, integrations, alert precision, documentation, and multi-cloud support.
The issue is that it works only with users or companies with more than 500 users.
Cyber Security Researcher at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Digital Guardian can generate false positives initially, which can be significantly reduced through proper policy tuning and data classification.
Sr.Technical Support Executive at Digitaltrack Solution Private Limited
For data loss prevention, it would be useful to be able to drill down into the kind of data being transferred over CloudApp.
Head of Security Operations at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
Defender typically connects to Entra ID, but we have local users on the cloud for database access, SSH, or RDS, and there is nothing produced by Defender regarding those local IAM users.
Network Engineer at Apexon
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps would benefit if Microsoft allows users to fine-tune false positives, enabling us to dismiss alerts or make adjustments so that such things don't trigger multiple times in the future.
Security delivery analyst at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Setup Cost

Digital Guardian is costly but ideal for enterprises needing strong data loss prevention, especially in manufacturing.
Enterprise users find Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps affordable within bundles but expensive standalone, desiring more pricing transparency.
The pricing for Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is acceptable.
Solutions Architect at a university with 51-200 employees
My organization is currently revisiting pricing, but previously, the cost was a bit expensive, yet comparable to other solutions with similar functionalities and features.
Manager, Information Technology Security Compliance at a manufacturing company with 201-500 employees
It's not the cheapest, but also not the most expensive, placing it in the mid-level range.
IT Architect at a logistics company with 10,001+ employees
 

Valuable Features

Digital Guardian provides advanced DLP, forensic analysis, and adaptive inspection, offering comprehensive security and regulatory compliance.
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps offers seamless integration, real-time threat detection, and robust security features for comprehensive cloud protection.
The strong impact of Digital Guardian on my organization is in preventing sensitive data leaks to USB, email, and cloud, and in blocking unauthorized access in real time.
Sr.Technical Support Executive at Digitaltrack Solution Private Limited
Digital Guardian can easily integrate with this data classification solution and has a very granular level of configuration and policy tuning.
Cyber Security Researcher at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
It provides excellent suggestions and options for configuration; for example, it can track suspicious files getting uploaded to cloud resources on Azure based on their signatures, generating alerts for those files.
Security delivery analyst at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
The product recommends things that need to be blocked and allows for dynamic configuration, which cuts down on potential issues that might arise from going through lists and understanding what needs to be blocked.
Partner & Chief Executive Officer at a consultancy with 51-200 employees
The ability to sanction unsanctioned apps using Secure Score benchmarking, included in Cloud, is also beneficial.
Head of Security Operations at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
 

Categories and Ranking

Digital Guardian
Ranking in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
27th
Average Rating
6.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (18th), Endpoint Encryption (6th), Mobile Data Protection (3rd), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (56th)
Microsoft Defender for Clou...
Ranking in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
16th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (5th), Microsoft Security Suite (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) category, the mindshare of Digital Guardian is 2.2%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is 2.1%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps2.1%
Digital Guardian2.2%
Other95.7%
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
 

Featured Reviews

Syed Mubeen - PeerSpot reviewer
Cyber Security Researcher at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Enterprise data protection has supported regulatory compliance and integrates with classification tools
In terms of functionality, many features are valuable in Digital Guardian, as the first thing for most customers is that they are using solutions such as Boldon James and Titus, which fall under the classification side, and Digital Guardian can easily integrate with this data classification solution and has a very granular level of configuration and policy tuning. Digital Guardian's data protection policies are indeed useful for my clients. Regarding Digital Guardian, I find it to be a very good solution, and in fact, it is an enterprise-level solution that has very tight integration with most of the products, with Fortra but also with others.
Abdulrahman Muhammadi - PeerSpot reviewer
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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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Construction Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Large Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise19
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Digital Guardian?
In my experience, the area closest for improvement is the occurrence of strong false positives. Digital Guardian can generate false positives initially, which can be significantly reduced through p...
What is your primary use case for Digital Guardian?
My main use case for Digital Guardian is to prevent or stop sensitive data from being copied to USB, email, or cloud, with an example being the blocking of confidential files from being sent via em...
What advice do you have for others considering Digital Guardian?
Digital Guardian has significantly improved incident response time by providing real-time detection, instant alerts, and automatic policy enforcement to stop data leakage immediately, which is my s...
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-native solution, unifying multiple features like DNS-layer security, threat intelli...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Cloud App Security?
At the time of implementation, when the size of our organization was small, it was a more affordable product. Since all our productivity applications were on O365, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Cloud App Security?
The fidelity of the signal in Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps has been a challenge in some areas. There have been instances where the alerts generated have been false positives. A lot of work has...
 

Also Known As

No data available
MS Cloud App Security, Microsoft Cloud App Security
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

The Fifth Avenue Theatre, Jabil Circuit
Customers for Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps include Accenture, St. Luke’s University Health Network, Ansell, and Nakilat.
Find out what your peers are saying about Digital Guardian vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.