We compared Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps (MDA) and Qualys VM across several parameters based on our users' reviews. After reading the collected data, you can find our conclusion below:
Comparison Results: Qualys VMDR is commended for its prioritization mechanism, comprehensive monitoring, and vulnerability management, while Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is valued for its threat detection capabilities and integration with other Microsoft solutions. Both products require improvements in various areas like user experience, integration, reporting, pricing, visibility, and policy management. The pricing for both products is considered fair but expensive. Customer support for both products has received mixed reviews, with room for improvement in response time and consistency.
"The protection offered by the product is the most valuable feature. It detects vulnerabilities or traps on our users' phones and then prompts them to clean up their devices. Tools we used previously would only discover, which required us to gather information on the backend, so Lookout is a welcome upgrade."
"The solution is stable."
"The most valuable features are the antivirus as a whole, the anti-malware, and all of the protection features that scan our enterprise devices."
"On the outside, the main differentiation is because Lookout ingest. They have ingested basically all of the apps for the last ten years and all the versions of all the apps, and we have that in a corporate database that allows us to do very large-scale machine learning and analysis on that data set. That's not something that any of the competitors really have the capability to do because they don't have access to the data set. A lot of the apps you can no longer get them because that version of the app is five or six years old, and it just doesn't exist anywhere anymore, except within our infrastructure. So, the ability to have that very rich dataset and learn from that dataset is a real differentiator."
"The product helps us with privileged identity management to control who has access to what and for how long."
"The product’s most valuable feature is SQL database."
"Defender helps us control which applications are being used and gain more security insight into remote and hybrid users based on user identity and log in location. You can also integrate Defender for Cloud Apps with Defender for Endpoint to extend its capabilities."
"I like the alert policies because they are quite robust. It has some built-in templates that we can easily pick up. One of them is the alert for mass downloads, when a particular user is running a massive download on your SharePoint site."
"The solution does not affect a user's workflow."
"I like the web GUI/the management interface. I also like the security of Microsoft. As compared to other manufacturers, it's less complex and easy to understand and work with."
"The most valuable feature is the alerting system."
"If your business requirements are relatively simple, it can get the job done."
"The biggest benefit is from a security operations perspective, where we are able to drive our security posture upwards by remediating any discovered vulnerabilities."
"The most recent is VMDR, which provides a comprehensive overview of how to detect, patch, and remediate specific vulnerabilities."
"Qualys VM's best feature is vulnerability management."
"Performs automated, regular scans in the network."
"Detects new hosts along with vulnerabilities."
"The prioritization feature is great. I think it has all of the advanced features that we need."
"I am impressed with the VMDR feature."
"The most valuable feature of Qualys Container Security is the detailed information in the reports and the remediation. This is done to make sure there are no vulnerabilities."
"Lookout was moving into the SSE space. And so their work on SecureWeb Gateway and SD-WAN is still sort of evolving."
"We just submitted an enhancement request reflecting the main area we want to see improvement in; the APIs. Currently, we're able to build dashboards, but it's somewhat backward because we use our MDM API to create them. Lookout should provide API to customers so we can query our data and use it in our cloud, and this is the only outstanding area for improvement with the product right now."
"From the analysis that we've done, they do seem to be maybe a step behind in trying to enter the market with a new solution. But when they do pick up, they do come out with some good products."
"The stability depends on the service from where you access it. Because sometimes, the place you are in, you have Gateway. You don't have Gateway. The gateway is overutilized. At the end, you need to go through their gateways. And this is the key point here. You have a tracking point. If it's not well orchestrated, and it scales up as you add more to the existing team, you will suffer"
"We sometimes get errors when we create policies, which is somewhat annoying because some policies stop working due to misconfigurations. We find this challenging because it limits our options for troubleshooting an issue."
"There could be more granular roles that are out of the box included in the product."
"The technical support team has room for improvement."
"They should continue integration with all other Microsoft security-related products. The integration with all the other products is still ongoing."
"The integration with macOS operating systems needs to be better."
"In the future, I would like to see more plug-and-play capabilities that use AI to tell you what needs to be done. It would be helpful if it scanned our devices and made security suggestions, on a configuration basis."
"I believe it's only set to be integrated with Microsoft Defender for identity and identity protection. I would like to see it available for use with something like Office 365 Defender. I don't think it's integrated with that yet."
"Defender for Cloud Apps could come with more configured policies out of the box. Also, integration could be easier. Integration is moderately difficult because Microsoft hasn't developed a solution that unifies device onboarding and management. You have to use Intune to manage devices and Defender for Endpoint to enforce policies. They need to fix their integration, but I believe they will straighten it out by the end of the year."
"I would like to see more accuracy in detections, better reporting capabilities, and better dashboard download capabilities."
"The reporting needs improvement. It should generate much more stuff like field reports."
"They have integrated with other third parties, but it is still not viable."
"I would like to see this solution simplified to work more easily in a multi-cloud environment."
"Improve the API speed."
"The tool needs to improve the adding assets and report generation features. I would like to see the policy scan of offline appliances in the product's future releases."
"I would like to have CSPM, a continuous scan-like cloud added to the solution."
"It is a struggle to be able to pull our report and to be able to do onboarding using automated tools."
More Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps Pricing and Cost Advice →
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is ranked 2nd in Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) with 30 reviews while Qualys VMDR is ranked 3rd in Risk-Based Vulnerability Management with 76 reviews. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is rated 8.4, while Qualys VMDR is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps writes "Integrates well and helps us in protecting sensitive information, but takes time to scan and apply the policies and cannot detect everything we need". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Qualys VMDR writes "Good visibility but expensive and needs better support". Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is most compared with Zscaler Internet Access, Cisco Umbrella, Netskope , Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks and Forcepoint CASB, whereas Qualys VMDR is most compared with Tenable Nessus, Tenable Security Center, Rapid7 InsightVM, Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management and Tanium.
We monitor all Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
