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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...
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Ranking in Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
4th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
115
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 (2nd)
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 (6th), 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 (9th), Container Security (7th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (4th), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (4th), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (4th), Microsoft Security Suite (8th), Compliance Management (5th), Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) category, the mindshare of SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security is 3.7%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Illumio is 6.4%, up from 6.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is 14.8%, down from 15.8% 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 Cloud14.8%
SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security3.7%
Illumio6.4%
Other75.1%
Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
 

Featured Reviews

Ritesh P. - PeerSpot reviewer
It's more scalable and flexible than our previous solution because we don't need to install any agents
The reporting works well, but sometimes the severity classifications are inaccurate. Sometimes, it flags an issue as high-impact, but it should be a lower severity. For example, it might highlight an exposed AWS encryption key, a critical compliance issue, but it isn't tagged as a high-risk problem. That only happens about 10 percent of the time. It shows a true positive 80-90 percent of the time.
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

"SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security can integrate all your cloud accounts and resources you create in the AWS account, We have set it up to scan the AWS transfer services, EC2, security groups, and GitHub."
"I would definitely recommend this product to other members, vendors, or users, as it covers security posture management, auditing, documentation, and compliance management."
"Singularity Cloud Security offers autonomous response capabilities, automatically remediating threats and restoring affected files without manual intervention."
"The compliance monitoring feature of SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security gives us a report with a compliance score to ensure we meet certain regulatory standards."
"It is advantageous in terms of time-saving and cost reduction."
"It's helped free up staff time so that they can work on other projects."
"SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security released a new security graph tool that helps us identify the root issue. Other tools give you a pass/fail type of profile on all misconfigurations, and those will run into the thousands. SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security's graphing algorithm connects various components together and tries to identify what is severe and what is not. It can correlate various vulnerabilities and datasets to test them on the back end to pinpoint the real issue."
"I would rate SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security a ten out of ten."
"The solution helps to maintain logs and monitor activities. It also helps us with access management. The tool helps us to secure organizational data that include files."
"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 Explorer allows you to know the traffic between source and destination."
"The tool helps with my company's security posture."
"Customer support is excellent."
"The solution is easy to use."
"It has helped us to understand internal network visibility and firewall policy implementation. We use the product to simplify firewall policy implementation."
"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."
"Defender is user-friendly and provides decent visibility into threats."
"It works seamlessly on the Azure platform because it's a Microsoft app. Its setup is similar, so if you already have a Microsoft account, it just flows into it."
"I find Microsoft Defender for Cloud's KQL very flexible and powerful. It's really easy to search through with KQL queries to find the security breaches and incidents and to track down the breach itself."
"I have not experienced any difficulties or issues with the stability of Microsoft Defender for Cloud."
"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 solution is very easy to deploy."
"The most valuable feature is the recommendations provided on how to improve security. It has made the cloud environment more secure, thanks to all the recommendations we can get."
"The feature of Microsoft Defender for Cloud that I have found most valuable is the alerts, which are pretty standard for security."
 

Cons

"A vulnerability alert would appear, and we'd fix it, but then the same alert would return the next day."
"SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security filtering has some areas that cause problems, and to achieve single sign-on functionality, a break-glass feature, which is currently unavailable, is necessary."
"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."
"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."
"From my personal experience, the alerting system needs to be faster. If something happens in our infrastructure, the alert appears on the dashboard, but I have to log in to the dashboard and refresh it."
"The dashboard can be more detailed."
"SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security is an excellent CSPM tool, but its CWPP features need improvement, and there is scope for more application security posture management features."
"We recently adopted a new ticket management solution, so we've asked them to include a connector to integrate that tool with Cloud Native Security directly. We'd also like to see Cloud Native Security add a scan for personally identifying information. We're looking at other tools for this capability, but having that functionality built into Cloud Native Security would be nice. Monitoring PII data is critical to us as an organization."
"The product’s agents don't work very well in OT environments."
"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."
"It requires a low-level re-architecting of the product."
"There should be an option to upgrade from the console to the latest version instead of performing manual upgrades."
"The interaction we've had with the support team hasn't been ideal. Technical support should be improved."
"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."
"There should be an option to upgrade from the console to the latest version instead of performing manual upgrades. This would be more helpful to streamline processes."
"I would like to see better data security in the product."
"Features like code scanning and pipeline scanning are not included in the solution."
"There are challenges with the licensing policies, which are quite complicated."
"The user interface of Microsoft Defender for Cloud, like many Microsoft portals, undergoes frequent changes and feature relocation."
"Microsoft Graph needs improvement."
"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 for Cloud is not compatible with Linux machines."
"With the new Copilot functionality available everywhere, it is challenging to pinpoint areas for improvement. If I put in a lot of thought, I might identify things, but right now, nothing significant pops into my mind, but there is always room for more transparency, especially in pricing."
"Another thing is that Defender for Cloud uses more resources than CrowdStrike, which my current company uses. Defender for Cloud has two or three processes running simultaneously that consume memory and processor time. I had the chance to compare that with CrowdStrike a few days ago, which was significantly less. It would be nice if Defender were a little lighter. It's a relatively large installation that consumes more resources than competitors do."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We found it to be fine for us. Its price was competitive. It was something we were happy with. We are not a Fortune 500 company, so I do not know how pricing scales at the top end, but for our cloud environment, it works very well."
"PingSafe is priced reasonably for our workload."
"PingSafe is less expensive than other options."
"SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security is on the costlier side."
"Singularity Cloud Workload Security's licensing and price were cheaper than the other solutions we looked at."
"For pricing, it currently seems to be in line with market rates."
"PingSafe falls within the typical price range for cloud security platforms."
"SentinelOne is relatively cheap. If ten is the most expensive, I would rate it a seven."
"The product's pricing is around 10,000-15,000 USD. The pricing is on a yearly basis."
"There is a subscription needed to use Illumio Adaptive Security Platform and we pay every three years. Overall the solution is expensive."
"Pricing is a consideration, but we strive to keep costs low by enabling only necessary services."
"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."
"Azure Defender is a bit pricey. The price could be lower."
"Microsoft's licensing and pricing are sometimes complicated. If someone is new to Microsoft's licensing, they might have difficulty with it."
"The cost is fair. There aren't any costs in addition to the standard licensing fee."
"While we pay for any additional features, the pricing seems competitive, though I am not involved in the specific cost details."
"Defender's basic version is free, which is good. Many of our teams are evaluating the paid version against third-party products."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
5%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Insurance Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business45
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise54
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise7
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 think the pricing of SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security is a bit high.
What needs improvement with PingSafe?
One area that could be improved in SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security is their policies; the way they have config...
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: September 2025.
869,832 professionals have used our research since 2012.