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Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps vs SonicWall Capture Advanced Threat Protection comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 2026

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

Microsoft Defender for Clou...
Ranking in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
16th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (5th), Microsoft Security Suite (8th)
SonicWall Capture Advanced ...
Ranking in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
28th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is 2.1%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SonicWall Capture Advanced Threat Protection is 2.0%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps2.1%
SonicWall Capture Advanced Threat Protection2.0%
Other95.9%
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
 

Featured Reviews

Abdulrahman Muhammadi - PeerSpot reviewer
information Security and IT Manager at Discover Dollar Technologies Pvt Ltd.
Integration with existing cloud workflows has simplified compliance and threat detection
Licensing cost is a significant concern. With Defender Plan 1, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps comes with a pay-per-use model. Each feature has its own pricing when activated on VMs. For example, the vulnerability assessment has separate pricing, the base model including encryptions has separate pricing, and the compliance features have separate pricing. This applies to each VM and Azure resource individually. It is not straightforward where you can take one license and apply it to everything. Each feature has its own pricing model which can be tedious, as the costs keep accumulating. The only lacking feature currently is XDR (extended detection and response). Apart from that, I have only positive experiences with the whole Microsoft suite, except for the pricing structure.
MA
Technical Manager, NOC at TEXUM JORDAN
Has a good configuration but the price should be more competitive
Our primary use case of this solution is for security.  It's a good solution but the price is high. It also has an easy configuration. The feedback that we get from our customers is that it's a good product. Our customers are mostly smaller enterprises.  The price should be more competitive.  I…

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Defender for Cloud Apps has given us good visibility regarding what we've allowed in our environment until now. It helps us to know our inventory, understand what our customers are using, and steer them toward safer practices."
"The feature that helps us in detecting the sensitive information being shared has been very useful. In addition, the feature that allows MCAS to apply policies with SharePoint, Teams, and OneDrive is being used predominantly."
"Everything from Microsoft is integrated. You receive regular reports on them all. You can push your reports, logs, and security alerts, which are all integrated. It is crucial that these solutions work natively together to deliver coordinated detection and response across our environment."
"The most valuable feature is its policy implementation."
"In summary, we have just begun using this product but so far, it works well and we are satisfied with it."
"From a security monitoring perspective, there is a productivity improvement and fewer human errors."
"I would rate it a ten because I have not experienced any stability issues so far with Defender for Cloud Apps."
"The ability to sanction unsanctioned apps using Secure Score benchmarking, included in Cloud, is also beneficial."
"They have a large database of commonly known things that they can catch automatically, then they have anything which is questionable go to the sandbox and be examined there before going into our network."
"I would recommend this solution, as a firewall product solution that has a similar sandboxing type of thing has become quite an essential part of a security footprint."
"We use it for protection against viruses and ransomware attacks."
"The most valuable feature is the alerting system."
"I like this setup for a firewall. You can set things up very easily and you can automate items as well. It's a very robust firewall solution for enterprise as well as small businesses."
"The most valuable features of the product are the application filters, application policies, that block certain websites and allow bandwidth for others, those kinds of things."
"It also has an easy configuration. The feedback that we get from our customers is that it's a good product."
"The stability of the solution is good. We haven't had any breaches or crashes. It's been very stable for us."
 

Cons

"I would like more customization of notifications. Currently, you either get everything or you get limited information. I would like to have something in between where we can customize the data that is included in notifications."
"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."
"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."
"There are some features, such as user navigation content filtering, that are disabled by default, and it probably makes sense to enable them by default."
"There are challenges with detection and there are challenges with false-positive rates."
"A significant improvement I would like to see is the integration into a single pane of glass, which would allow me to view everything in one place rather than having to switch between different areas."
"Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps’s technical support services needs improvement."
"There could be more granular roles that are out of the box included in the product."
"The setup needs improvement. It needs to be made more user-friendly."
"Could provide online training to allow customers to learn more about the product."
"If anything at all, it would be some very minor updates that need to be done, but in terms of changes, nothing comes to mind."
"It does fare well against enterprise products."
"Sometimes customers are not aware of which protection is best for their business and SonicWall doesn't provide them with information on security features."
"I would like to have better documentation before starting with deployment because the deployment is a bit complex."
"SonicWall should promote their roadmap and improve their marketing to customers."
"Having an on-premise solution as well would be an option for some people, but they'll want to use a cloud solution for their sandboxing. Certain sites would want to keep all the checks done on an on-premise appliance. All the checking, rather than sending that up into a cloud engine."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It has pretty good pricing."
"The pricing is in the middle. It isn't too cheap or expensive compared to other antivirus or security products. It is priced according to industry standards."
"We are an MST and we do not pay for the solution. However, the price of the solution could be better."
"It is a little bit expensive. When you want to have the complete package with Office 365, Defender, and everything else, it is expensive."
"We utilize the Microsoft E5 licensing, which encompasses the entire Microsoft suite; however, it is costly."
"I'm not totally involved in the pricing part, but I think its pricing is quite aggressive, and its price is quite similar to Netskope. Netskope has separate licensing fees or additional charges if you want to monitor certain SaaS services, whereas, with MCAS, you get 5,000 applications with their Office 365. It is all bundled, and there's no cost for using that. You only have the operational costs. In the country I am in, it is a bit difficult to get people with the required skill sets."
"The E5 license offers everything bundled. People are moving to Microsoft because you buy one license and it gives you everything."
"This product is not expensive."
"It's thirty dollars per user and we have 30 users."
"The best deal from SonicWall is to buy the HA pair. When you buy the initial one, you receive the second one at a significant discount. If there is an event and something happens to one firewall, then you have the second firewall to roll into. For the price, it's pretty to tough to beat and not a lot of other firewall vendors offer it. You battle for a discount on both. Where with SonicWall, if you buy one, the second one is at half price. It's pretty straightforward."
"We get our value for our money."
"When you compare it with other solutions, they are cheaper and more economical."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Manufacturing Company
17%
Comms Service Provider
14%
Construction Company
14%
Marketing Services Firm
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise19
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise3
 

Questions from the Community

Which is the better security solution - Cisco Umbrella or Microsoft Cloud App Security?
Cisco Umbrella is an integral component of the Cisco SASE architecture. It integrates security in a single, cloud-native solution, unifying multiple features like DNS-layer security, threat intelli...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Cloud App Security?
At the time of implementation, when the size of our organization was small, it was a more affordable product. Since all our productivity applications were on O365, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Cloud App Security?
The fidelity of the signal in Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps has been a challenge in some areas. There have been instances where the alerts generated have been false positives. A lot of work has...
What needs improvement with SonicWall Capture Advanced Threat Protection?
SonicWall Capture Advanced Threat Protection needs to reconsider the pricing, especially in the cloud environment. The product is good overall, but the GUI needs to be more stable. I chose nine out...
What is your primary use case for SonicWall Capture Advanced Threat Protection?
My main use case for SonicWall Capture Advanced Threat Protection is that it helps us with sandboxing for analyzing and inspecting unknown files and URLs. A quick specific example of how I've used ...
What advice do you have for others considering SonicWall Capture Advanced Threat Protection?
I advise others looking into using SonicWall Capture Advanced Threat Protection to consider that it is truly helpful and very important to have great sandboxing with advanced threat protection to s...
 

Also Known As

MS Cloud App Security, Microsoft Cloud App Security
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Customers for Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps include Accenture, St. Luke’s University Health Network, Ansell, and Nakilat.
Wonder Cement, Foster Clark Products
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps vs. SonicWall Capture Advanced Threat Protection and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.