Docker vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud comparison

Docker and Microsoft are both solutions in the Container Management category. Docker is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.9, while Microsoft is ranked #9 with an average rating of 8.1. Docker holds a 2.6% mindshare in CM, compared to Microsoft’s 1.0% mindshare. Additionally, 98% of Docker users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

Docker

Read 56 Docker reviews

1,212 Views
724 Comparison Views

98% willing to recommend

Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Read 78 Microsoft Defender for Cloud reviews

228 Views
221 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

Docker

Microsoft Defender for Cloud

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 6, 2025

Microsoft Defender for Cloud and Docker compete in the cloud security and containerization category. Microsoft Defender seems to have the upper hand in security and integration with Azure, while Docker excels in ease of use and container management.

Features: Microsoft Defender for Cloud offers features such as robust security recommendations, compliance management, and multi-cloud capabilities. It also provides integration with Azure services for alerts and inventory management. Docker is favored for its containerization technology, allowing easy application deployment and scalability. Its open-source nature and ease of use make it ideal for developers.

Room for Improvement: Microsoft Defender for Cloud users seek improved consistency, fewer false positives, and enhanced policy management. There is also a desire for more transparent pricing and better support for legacy systems. Docker users report a need for better documentation, increased stability, and enhanced security features. They also wish for more intuitive interfaces and improvements in complex orchestration handling.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Microsoft Defender for Cloud's deep integration with Azure supports deployment across public, private, and hybrid environments. Support quality varies, with some users praising prompt service and others noting delays. Docker is praised for its simple deployment but relies heavily on community resources for customer support.

Pricing and ROI: Microsoft Defender for Cloud provides a comprehensive security solution with a pricing model that varies by usage, and while some consider it expensive, its integration with Azure contributes to ROI. Docker offers a free version that attracts smaller enterprises, though Docker Enterprise entails costs. Its ROI is notable for reduced development and deployment times.

To learn more, read our detailed Docker vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Docker vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud

June 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

Docker

Ranking in Container Management

5th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Development Platforms (1st), Software Supply Chain Security (5th)

Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Ranking in Container Management

9th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Vulnerability Management (7th), Container Security (6th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (2nd), 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 (5th)

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Container Management category, the mindshare of Docker is 2.6%, down from 3.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is 1.0%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Container Management

Featured Reviews

Rikin Parekh

Backend Engineer at Northeastern University

Useful to create sandbox environments to run applications and makes it easy to test them

Overall, setting up the Docker environment is quite easy. Many methods exist, such as using Docker Compose and Docker networks to communicate between containers. The main challenge lies in designing the architecture and integrating different frameworks and microservices. I would rate the ease of setting up the tool at around nine out of ten. The time it takes to deploy depends on the scale of the system. For the early-stage startup I'm currently working with, it doesn't take much time. It's just me handling the deployment. In our early-stage startup, we have a couple of teams with around four to five backend APIs and two front-end services. Deploying these doesn't take much time. My focus is more on minimizing costs due to our lean startup structure.

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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.

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

"We use Docker to facilitate deployment, updates, and management."

"The solution is easy to deploy for clients so it saves a lot of hassle."

"The ability to use an image with the software built into it, rather than just the software, is beneficial."

"It is a quite mature technology."

"The current version is quite good with our application."

"The deployment is quite fast, which is beneficial."

"Docker is convenient and easy to use."

"The stability is excellent."

More Docker pros

"The dashboard is very good. It gives our clients a lot of information and allows them to have a complete overview of the system. Everything is visible in one glance."

"Defender is user-friendly and provides decent visibility into threats."

"The most valuable feature is that it's intuitive. It's very intuitive."

"The notification process of Microsoft Defender for Cloud has been the most valuable feature. The notification process is effortless, as it can tell me right there and then locate issues pretty fast, saving us a lot of time by not having to dig through all the warnings."

"The most valuable feature is the hunting feature, which integrates well into the entire Microsoft ecosystem."

"The pricing is good."

"Defender lets you orchestrate the roll-out from a single pane. Using the Azure portal, you can roll it out over all the servers covered by the entire subscription."

"We saw improvement from a regulatory compliance perspective due to having a single dashboard."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud pros

Cons

"I want to see if new architectures have been incorporated in Docker or if we have to wait for another release."

"I would like to see a more UI-based tool so that students can easily understand it rather than memorizing all of the Docker commands."

"The solution is not easy to manage and it is one of the reasons why people introduce orchestration tools to manage it."

"We'd like knowledge transfer to be easier."

"Unfortunately, base images are not currently available."

"Management can be improved with the necessary tools for orchestration."

"I would like to see better management layers."

"In terms of communication between services, perhaps the configuration within networks between containers could be improved."

More Docker cons

"Defender could improve how data is represented. It can be unstructured or slow to load. The recent update allowing policy grouping into control groups is beneficial, but further enhancements for speed and clarity are needed."

"The pricing could be better."

"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."

"For Kubernetes, I was using Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS). To see that whatever is getting deployed into AKS goes through the correct checks and balances in terms of affinities and other similar aspects and follows all the policies, we had to use a product called Stackrox. At a granular level, the built-in policies were good for Kubernetes, but to protect our containers from a coding point of view, we had to use a few other products. For example, from a programming point of view, we were using Checkmarx for static code analysis. For CIS compliance, there are no CIS benchmarks for AKS. So, we had to use other plugins to see that the CIS benchmarks are compliant. There are CIS benchmarks for Kubernetes on AWS and GCP, but there are no CIS benchmarks for AKS. So, Azure Security Center fell short from the regulatory compliance point of view, and we had to use one more product. We ended up with two different dashboards. We had Azure Security Center, and we had Stackrox that had its own dashboard. The operations team and the security team had to look at two dashboards, and they couldn't get an integrated piece. That's a drawback of Azure Security Center. Azure Security Center should provide APIs so that we can integrate its dashboard within other enterprise dashboards, such as the PowerBI dashboard. We couldn't get through these aspects, and we ended up giving Reader security permission to too many people, which was okay to some extent, but when we had to administer the users for the Stackrox portal and Azure Security Center, it became painful."

"I would like to see more connectors and plugins with other platforms."

"The solution's portal is very easy to use, but there's one key component that is missing when it comes to managing policies. For example, if I've onboarded my server and I need to specify antivirus policies, there's no option to do that on the portal. I will have to go to Intune to deploy them. That is one main aspect that is missing and it's worrisome."

"I would rate Microsoft Defender for Cloud a six out of 10 due to its lack of necessary features to operate as a standalone solution."

"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."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This is an open-source solution, so there are no licensing costs."

"The product is not expensive."

"It's free."

"Docker is a free-to-use solution. However, Docker Enterprise is not free."

"I would rate the pricing of Docker as ten out of ten"

"The product is a free open-source tool."

"Since Docker is an open-source solution, it is free of cost."

"Docker is a free tool."

More Docker pricing and cost advice

"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."

"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."

"I am not involved in this area. However, I believe its price is okay because even small customers are using Azure Security Center. I don't think it is very expensive."

"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."

"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."

"It has global licensing. It comes with multiple licenses since there are around 50,000 people (in our organization) who look at it."

"Pricing is difficult because each license has its own metrics and cost."

"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."

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

11%

Government

Insurance Company

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Docker?

We are using Docker to host applications.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Docker?

I consider Docker's pricing to be affordable.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Docker?

In terms of communication between services, perhaps the configuration within networks between containers could be improved.

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

VMware Tanzu Platform vs Docker

Compared 27% of the time

Mirantis Container Runtime vs Docker

Compared 13% of the time

Codespaces vs Docker

Compared 13% of the time

Rancher Labs vs Docker

Compared 11% of the time

AWS Cloud Development Kit (CDK) vs Docker

Compared 7% of the time

More Docker Competitors

AWS GuardDuty vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 20% of the time

Wiz vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 14% of the time

Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 10% of the time

Microsoft Defender XDR vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 5% 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

Docker

June 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Defender for Cloud

May 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

Docker

Microsoft

Overview

Docker is a versatile container platform used for running and deploying applications in isolated environments, ensuring consistency across development, testing, and production.

Docker offers solutions for containerizing applications, automating deployments, and managing infrastructure through its robust platform. It supports CI/CD workflows, provides a development platform for container management, and simplifies the setup by using streamlined tools. Organizations leverage Docker for building microservices, running UI applications, deploying web services, and setting up secure environments. It also facilitates managing containers via Kubernetes and creating development stacks for enhanced productivity.

What are Docker's key features?

Security: Offers containment and isolation of applications.
Easy Use: Simplifies the deployment and management of applications.
Documentation: Extensive resources to aid in understanding and implementation.
Customization: Flexible environment configurations.
Scalability: Efficiently handles applications irrespective of scale.
Internal DNS: Manages network configurations within the container ecosystem.
Overlay Networks: Facilitates seamless inter-container communication.
Resource Efficiency: Optimizes usage of system resources.

What benefits should users look for?

Consistency: Ensures homogeneous environments across development, testing, and production stages.
Portability: Allows applications to run consistently on any platform.
Cost-Effectiveness: Reduces overhead costs associated with application deployment.
Speed: Accelerates the build, test, and deployment cycles.
Flexibility: Supports various tools and integrations to adapt to different workflows.

Industries implement Docker for CI/CD pipelines, scaling services, and improving resource utilization. Tech companies use Docker for building and deploying their software in isolated environments. Finance and healthcare sectors deploy applications securely, ensuring compliance with regulatory standards. Educational institutions set up consistent development environments for coding labs and training students in advanced technologies.

Docker

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

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

Buyer's Guide

Docker vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud

June 2025

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