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Illumio vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 27, 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 Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
4th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
114
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (5th), Cloud and Data Center Security (2nd), Container Security (3rd), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (3rd), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (3rd), Compliance Management (1st)
Illumio
Ranking in Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
13th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Cloud and Data Center Security (7th), Microsegmentation Software (2nd)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Ranking in Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
79
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (7th), Container Management (8th), Container Security (7th), 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 September 2025, in the Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) category, the mindshare of SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security is 3.6%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Illumio is 6.4%, up from 6.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is 14.3%, down from 16.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud14.3%
SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security3.6%
Illumio6.4%
Other75.69999999999999%
Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
 

Featured Reviews

Andrew W - PeerSpot reviewer
Tells us about vulnerabilities as well as their impact and helps to focus on real issues
Looking at all the different pieces, it has got everything we need. Some of the pieces we do not even use. For example, we do not have Kubernetes Security. We are not running any K8 clusters, so it is good for us. Overall, we find the solution to be fantastic. There can be additional education components. This may not be truly fair to them because of what the product is going for, but it would be great to see additional education for compliance. It is not a criticism of the tool per se, but anything to help non-development resources understand some of the complexities of the cloud is always appreciated. Any additional educational resources are always helpful for security teams, especially those without a development background.
Alark Singh - PeerSpot reviewer
Visual traffic interface aids in network micro-segmentation while a streamlined update option enhances process efficiency
The strongest aspect of Illumio is the visual traffic interface, which allows us to see all traffic that communicates with our servers and allied companies. We can write rules that can be embedded into the IP table, making it easy to handle. Illumio enables us to see network flows, traffic sources, and destinations. The policy generation and enforcement capabilities are valuable, allowing for selective enforcement. Illumio helps in audit purposes by saving data and showing blocked traffic, ensuring no outside traffic is allowed.
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

"I recommend SentinelOne due to its high-security capabilities, which are essential to safeguard data and systems from potential threats."
"It saves time, makes your environment more secure, and improves compliance. SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security helps with audits, ensuring that you are following best practices for cloud security. You don't need to be an expert to use it and improve your security."
"The dashboard gives me an overview of all the things happening in the product, making it one of the tool's best features."
"SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security offers security solutions for both Kubernetes and CI/CD pipelines."
"SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security has a dashboard that can detect the criticality of a particular problem, whether it falls under critical, medium, or low vulnerability."
"The real-time detection and response capabilities overall are great."
"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."
"The compliance monitoring feature of SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security gives us a report with a compliance score to ensure we meet certain regulatory standards."
"The strongest aspect of Illumio is the visual traffic interface, which allows us to see all traffic that communicates with our servers and allied companies."
"The flexibility of the solution is its most valuable feature."
"The product provides visibility into how the applications communicate and how the network protocols are being used."
"The Explorer allows you to know the traffic between source and destination."
"The features that I have found most useful is the ability to centralize all the rules and then distribute them across various locations. However, I've encountered challenges related to tagging policies, which can be complex to devise. It's a matter that requires careful consideration and stakeholder involvement before implementing such policies."
"I would recommend Illumio to all sizes of companies."
"Customer support is excellent."
"The tool helps with my company's security posture."
"The most valuable feature is the hunting feature, which integrates well into the entire Microsoft ecosystem."
"Defender for Cloud provides a complete DevOps security package for cloud services."
"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."
"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."
"I've seen benefits since implementing Microsoft Defender for Cloud. It's easy to manage for our large organization as an endpoint security solution. It integrates well with Office 365 and Windows 11, which is better than before. Patching, updates, and threat protection are all handled together now. Its AI features help predict threats."
"I would rate Microsoft Defender for Cloud a ten out of ten."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is its ability to assess an environment and give us a clear idea of what security components are lacking and which are not."
"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."
 

Cons

"With Cloud Native Security, we can't selectively enable or disable alerts based on our specific use case."
"The recommended actions aren't always specific, so it might suggest recommendations that don't apply to the particular infrastructure code I'm reviewing."
"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 could be improved with easier integrations to the Singularity Data Lake, particularly for various vendors."
"While SentinelOne offers robust security features, its higher cost may present a challenge for budget-conscious organizations."
"SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security has limited legacy system support and may not fully support older operating systems or legacy environments."
"Maybe container runtime security could be improved."
"We use SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security and also SentinelOne. If SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security integrated some of the endpoint security features of SentinelOne, it would be the perfect one-stop solution for everything. We wouldn't need to switch between the products. At my organization, I am responsible for endpoint security and vulnerability management. Integrating both functions into one application would be ideal because I could see all the alerts, heat maps, and reports in one console."
"The customer service is lagging a bit. It could be better."
"The solution is very basic and doesn't do anything other than the orchestration of layer four endpoint firewall rules."
"I would like to see better data security in the product."
"The product’s agents don't work very well in OT environments."
"Some of the features that can be improved is offer additional guidance on creating an effective and risk-free tagging policy would be highly beneficial."
"We need more details on areas where there is an error or a traffic blockage. I would like the tool to offer a more detailed view."
"Illumio Adaptive Security Platform could improve by supporting more operating systems. For example, Cisco and Apache appliances."
"It requires a low-level re-architecting of the product."
"For improvements, I'd like to see more use cases integrated with Microsoft Sentinel and support for multi-cloud environments beyond just Azure."
"Azure Security Center takes a long time to update, compared to the on-premises version of Microsoft Defender."
"Microsoft can improve the pricing by offering a plan that is more cost-effective for small and medium organizations."
"I would like to see more connectors and plugins with other platforms."
"After getting a recommendation, it takes time for the solution to refresh properly to show that the problem has been eliminated."
"From my own perspective, they just need a product that is tailored to micro-segmentation so I can configure rules for multiple systems at once and manage it."
"We haven't experienced issues with Microsoft Defender for Cloud for our company size of about five hundred people. However, I've heard there might be issues with scalability for larger enterprises."
"Microsoft Defender could be more centralized. For example, I still need to go to another console to do policy management."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is cost-effective."
"While I'm slightly out of touch with pricing, I know SentinelOne is much cheaper than other products."
"It's a fair price for what you get. We are happy with the price as it stands."
"Singularity Cloud Security by SentinelOne is cost-efficient."
"It is cost-effective compared to other solutions in the market."
"The features included in PingSafe justify its price point."
"I am not involved in the pricing, but it is cost-effective."
"PingSafe is cost-effective for the amount of infrastructure we have. It's reasonable for what they offer compared to our previous solution. It's at least 25 percent to 30 percent less."
"There is a subscription needed to use Illumio Adaptive Security Platform and we pay every three years. Overall the solution is expensive."
"The product's pricing is around 10,000-15,000 USD. The pricing is on a yearly basis."
"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."
"The pricing and licensing of Microsoft Defender for Cloud have been good for us. We appreciate the licensing approach based on employee count rather than a big enterprise license."
"While we pay for any additional features, the pricing seems competitive, though I am not involved in the specific cost details."
"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 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."
"I'm not privy to that information, but I know it's probably close to a million dollars a year."
"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."
"Its pricing is a little bit high in terms of Azure Security Center, but the good thing is that we don't need to maintain and deploy it. So, while the pricing is high, it is native to Azure which is why we prefer using this tool."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
7%
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 Business43
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise53
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business26
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise44
 

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 ...
What do you like most about Illumio Adaptive Security Platform?
The features that I have found most useful is the ability to centralize all the rules and then distribute them across...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Illumio Adaptive Security Platform?
I do not have specific knowledge about pricing details as it is handled by upper management. I know that Illumio is t...
What needs improvement with Illumio Adaptive Security Platform?
There should be an option to upgrade from the console to the latest version instead of performing manual upgrades. Th...
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
Illumio Adaptive Security Platform, Illumio ASP
Microsoft Azure Security Center, Azure Security Center, Microsoft ASC, Azure Defender
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Plantronics, NTT Innovation Institute Inc.
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 Illumio vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
867,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.