ESET Cloud Apps Protection vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud comparison

ESET and Microsoft are both solutions in the Vulnerability Management category. ESET is ranked #40 with an average rating of 9.0, while Microsoft is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.1. ESET holds a 0.1% mindshare in VM, compared to Microsoft’s 5.3% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of ESET users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of Microsoft users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 13, 2025

Microsoft Defender for Cloud and ESET Cloud Apps Protection focus on cloud security. Microsoft Defender for Cloud stands out in cost-effectiveness and customer support.

Features: Microsoft Defender for Cloud offers integration with Azure services, threat intelligence, and security recommendations. ESET Cloud Apps Protection provides advanced email security, anti-spam, and phishing protection.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Microsoft Defender for Cloud ensures seamless deployment within Azure with significant support resources. ESET Cloud Apps Protection highlights straightforward deployment with dedicated support.

Pricing and ROI: Microsoft Defender for Cloud is budget-friendly and offers strong ROI integrated within Azure subscriptions. ESET Cloud Apps Protection can be more expensive with higher initial costs but provides exclusive email security benefits.

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

Buyer's Guide

ESET Cloud Apps Protection 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

Zafran Security

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Vulnerability Management category, the mindshare of Zafran Security is 1.0%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ESET Cloud Apps Protection is 0.1%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is 5.3%, up from 5.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Vulnerability Management Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud	5.3%
Zafran Security	1.0%
ESET Cloud Apps Protection	0.1%
Other	93.6%

Vulnerability Management

Featured Reviews

Israel Cavazos Landini

Associate Director IT Security Operations at a pharma/biotech company with 10,001+ employees

Weekly insights and risk analysis facilitate informed security decisions

I appreciate the weekly insights Zafran provides, which include critical topics for networks and IT security, allowing us to evaluate which insights apply to our environment. The organization score feature is valuable to keep the leadership team updated on how our infrastructure fares security-wise. The applicable risk level versus base risk level feature is beneficial because prior to Zafran, we only used the base risk level, but now understand that risk depends on the asset itself. Zafran is an excellent tool.

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LeonardoAguilera

Team Manager at JJ soluciones

Great protection, good privacy, and helpful support

The only thing I would like is a way to open the email that is going to quarantine. Based on the level of security, they cannot open the email to check the message. Even for the administrator, you have to create a security copy to be sent, which will lock the log support. It's not easy for an admin to check and decide if the email is good or not. That is the only thing that I'm seeing could be improved. Basically, ESET doesn't have the ability to let the administrator release an email showing the message on the email. It's not possible. If you want to have an email review, you have to select an option to send a copy. In the way that they designed the system, for security, they are not letting anyone even have the admin privileges to make this happen. Privacy is at a really high level.

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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

"We are able to see the real risk of a vulnerability on our environment with our security tools."

"Overall, we have seen about eighty-seven percent reduction of the number of vulnerabilities that require urgency to remediate, specifically the number of criticals."

"We saw benefits from Zafran Security almost immediately after deploying it."

"Zafran has become an indispensable tool in our cybersecurity arsenal."

"Zafran is an excellent tool."

"We are close to having 99% or 98% detection."

"The most valuable features are the precision of detection and the level of customization of the policy."

"Microsoft Defender for Cloud can find potential phishing links and malicious code in data at rest."

"I have not experienced any difficulties or issues with the stability of Microsoft Defender for Cloud."

"It helps you to identify the gaps in your solution and remediate them. It produces a compliance checklist against known standards such as ISO 27001, HIPAA, iTrust, etc."

"Microsoft Defender for Cloud has significantly enhanced our overall security posture by approximately 20 to 25 percent."

"It has seamless integration with any of the services I mentioned, on Azure, such as IaaS platforms, virtual machines, applications, or databases, because it's an in-house product from Microsoft within the Azure ecosystem."

"The most valuable features of this solution are the vulnerability assessments and the glossary of compliance."

"The entire Defender Suite is tightly coupled, integrated, and collaborative."

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

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud pros

Cons

"Initially, we were somewhat concerned about the scalability of Zafran due to our large asset count and the substantial amount of information we needed to process."

"The dashboarding and reporting functionality of Zafran Security is an area that definitely could use some improvements."

"I think the ability to have some enhanced reporting capabilities is something they can improve on, as they have good reports but we have asked for some specific reporting enhancements."

"It's not easy for an admin to check and decide if the email is good or not."

"The specific domain file for Apache needs to be well-defined."

"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."

"The vulnerabilities are duplicated many times."

"I rate Microsoft support five out of 10. It gets better once you're escalated past the first and second levels. It's difficult to get the necessary support when tickets are first opened."

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

"Microsoft Graph needs improvement."

"Support needs to be highly responsive, especially in large enterprise environments."

"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."

"The documentation and implementation guides could be improved."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

"The solution provides affordable pricing for medium sized industries."

"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."

"I am not involved much with the pricing but the bundle offering is good."

"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."

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

"The pricing model for most plans is generally good, but the cost of the new Defender for Storage plan is high and should be revisited, as it could lead to disabling desirable security features due to cost."

"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."

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

"The licensing cost per server is $15 per month."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

11%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Comms Service Provider

15%

Computer Software Company

14%

Consumer Goods Company

Media Company

Financial Services Firm

13%

Computer Software Company

13%

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	8
Large Enterprise	44

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zafran Security?

Since we stood Zafran Security up in our private cloud, we handle the maintenance on our side. As we opted not to use...

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What needs improvement with Zafran Security?

In terms of areas for improvement, Zafran Security is doing a really great job as a new and emerging company. Oftenti...

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What is your primary use case for Zafran Security?

My use cases for Zafran Security revolve around two primary areas. One is around vulnerability management and priorit...

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What do you like most about ESET Mail Security?

The most valuable features are the precision of detection and the level of customization of the policy.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ESET Mail Security?

The solution provides affordable pricing for medium sized industries.

See all answers

What needs improvement with ESET Mail Security?

The specific domain file for Apache needs to be well-defined.

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

Wiz Code vs Zafran Security

Compared 37% of the time

Vulcan Cyber vs Zafran Security

Compared 16% of the time

Tenable Vulnerability Management vs Zafran Security

Compared 9% of the time

Nucleus vs Zafran Security

Compared 7% of the time

Qualys VMDR vs Zafran Security

Compared 7% of the time

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Microsoft Defender for Office 365 vs ESET Cloud Apps Protection

Compared 30% of the time

Vade for M365 vs ESET Cloud Apps Protection

Compared 27% of the time

Fortinet FortiMail vs ESET Cloud Apps Protection

Compared 20% of the time

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AWS GuardDuty vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 27% of the time

Wiz vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 12% of the time

Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 8% 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

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Zafran Security

August 2025

Download Zafran Security product report

Buyer's Guide

Email Security

August 2025

Download ESET Cloud Apps Protection product report

Buyer's Guide

Microsoft Defender for Cloud

August 2025

Download Microsoft Defender for Cloud product report

Also Known As

No data available

ESET Mail Security

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

Interactive Demo

Demo not available

Zafran Security

Demo not available

ESET

Microsoft

Overview

Zafran Security integrates with existing security tools to identify and mitigate vulnerabilities effectively, proving that most critical vulnerabilities are not exploitable, optimizing threat management.

Zafran Security introduces an innovative operating model for managing security threats and vulnerabilities. By leveraging the threat exposure management platform, it pinpoints and prioritizes exploitable vulnerabilities, reducing risk through immediate remediation. This platform enhances your hybrid cloud security by normalizing vulnerability signals and integrating specific IT context data, such as CVE runtime presence and internet asset reachability, into its analysis. No longer reliant on patch windows, Zafran Security allows you to manage risks actively.

What are the key features of Zafran Security?

Threat Exposure Management: Utilizes existing tools to prioritize vulnerabilities and manage threats.
Integrative Analysis: Combines security data with IT context for precise vulnerability management.
Real-time Risk Reduction: Enables immediate risk management without waiting for patches.
Hybrid Cloud Compatibility: Functions across diverse cloud environments for comprehensive security.

What benefits can users expect from Zafran Security?

Improved Security: Enhances protection by efficiently identifying and mitigating risks.
Cost Efficiency: Reduces unnecessary patching expenses by confirming non-exploitable vulnerabilities.
Time Savings: Frees developers to focus on root causes by handling immediate threats.
Comprehensive Insight: Offers a holistic view of security threats and vulnerabilities.

In industries where security is paramount, such as finance and healthcare, Zafran Security provides invaluable protection by ensuring that only exploitable vulnerabilities are addressed. It allows entities to maintain robust security measures while allocating resources efficiently, fitting seamlessly into existing security strategies.

Zafran Security

ESET PROTECT Complete offers a complete multilayered protection for endpoints, cloud applications & email, the #1 threat vector.

ESET PROTECT Complete is the ultimate cybersecurity solution that offers top-tier endpoint protection against ransomware and zero-day threats, backed by robust data security measures. It employs a sophisticated multilayered approach that combines multiple cutting-edge technologies to strike the perfect balance between performance optimization, threat detection, and minimizing false positives. With automated malware removal and mediation, it ensures uninterrupted business operations by providing advanced protection for data across general servers, network file storage including OneDrive, and multi-purpose servers. This comprehensive package also features powerful native encryption, enhancing data security to meet stringent compliance regulations.

Furthermore, ESET PROTECT Complete offers proactive cloud-based threat defense, particularly against emerging threat types like ransomware, and safeguards Microsoft 365 applications from malware, spam, and phishing attacks via an intuitive cloud management console. With additional layers of security covering spam, phishing, malware, and threats from outdated systems and applications, this solution includes automated scanning, patching, and customizable policies for organizations. It empowers organizations to fortify their defenses and maintain a secure environment, offering centralized management and a comprehensive range of protective measures for businesses of all sizes. ESET PROTECT Complete is your all-encompassing cybersecurity solution for a safe and resilient digital landscape.

ESET

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

ESET Cloud Apps Protection vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud

September 2025

Free Report: ESET Cloud Apps Protection vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud

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

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