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Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs Microsoft Defender for Identity comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
7.2
Microsoft Defender for Cloud enhances security, reduces costs, and boosts productivity with proactive threat detection and seamless integration.
Sentiment score
6.7
Microsoft Defender for Identity improves incident management, reduces costs, enhances ROI, and saves time despite unclear financial benefits.
Defender proactively indexes and analyzes documents, identifying potential threats even when inactive, enhancing preventative security.
Identifying potential vulnerabilities has helped us avoid costly data losses.
The biggest return on investment is the rapid improvement of security posture.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.6
Microsoft Defender for Cloud support is praised for expertise but criticized for delays, inconsistent service, and ticket handling issues.
Sentiment score
8.4
Microsoft Defender for Identity's support receives mixed feedback, with users praising premium service but noting poorer lower-tier support responses.
Since security is critical, we prefer a quicker response time.
The support team was very responsive to queries.
They understand their product, but much like us, they struggle with the finer details, especially with new features.
Generally, the support is more effective than other providers like Oracle.
The quality of support is very good, but troubleshooting can take time due to complex setups and the need to provide many logs.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.8
Microsoft Defender for Cloud is highly scalable, managing diverse environments smoothly, with seamless integration and flexible subscriptions despite cost concerns.
Sentiment score
8.6
Microsoft Defender for Identity is scalable, efficiently supports large networks, and integrates well into Microsoft-centric environments with minimal effort.
We are using infrastructure as a code, so we do not have any scalability issues with Microsoft Defender for Cloud implementation because our cloud automatically does it.
It has multiple licenses and features, covering infrastructures from a hundred to five hundred virtual machines, without any issues.
Defender won't replace our endpoint XDR, but it will likely adapt and support any growth in the Microsoft Cloud space.
In a Microsoft-centric organization, especially with Azure infrastructure and Office 365, Microsoft Defender for Identity is scalable.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
Microsoft Defender for Cloud provides a stable, reliable environment with minor performance issues primarily due to outdated systems.
Sentiment score
7.8
Microsoft Defender for Identity is stable and reliable, though occasional sensor restarts occur, generally scoring 6-9/10 in stability.
Defender's stability has been flawless for us.
Microsoft Defender for Cloud is very stable.
Microsoft sometimes changes settings or configurations without transparency.
Microsoft Defender for Identity is quite robust and built on Azure hyperscale infrastructure, with a 99% availability.
Having recently started using it, reliability is affirmed, but manual investigation is often performed to verify if alerts identified by auto-remediation are accurate.
 

Room For Improvement

Microsoft Defender for Cloud needs better automation, integration, user-friendliness, documentation, pricing, real-time monitoring, and legacy support.
Microsoft Defender for Identity needs better integration, usability, and support, with improved detection and cost efficiency highlighted by users.
Microsoft, in general, could significantly improve its communication and support.
It would be beneficial to streamline recommendations to avoid unnecessary alerts and to refine the severity of alerts based on specific environments or environmental attributes.
The artificial intelligence features could be expanded to allow the system to autonomously manage security issues without needing intervention from admins.
If Microsoft could develop a feature that indicates when impossible travel is caused by VPN connections, it would prevent unnecessary password resets and session disruptions, especially for VIP users in organizations.
One improvement I would recommend is the integration of an admin application within Teams, allowing easy access to attack information on a mobile platform.
Reducing false positives is something we've been working on with Microsoft.
 

Setup Cost

Microsoft Defender for Cloud provides flexible pricing with a free version; costs vary by features, region, and enterprise needs.
Microsoft Defender for Identity is cost-effective within E5, offering flexibility compared to standalone purchases or E3 add-ons.
Every time we consider expanding usage, we carefully evaluate the necessity due to cost concerns.
We appreciate the licensing approach based on employee count rather than a big enterprise license.
Microsoft Defender for Cloud is pricey, especially for Kubernetes clusters.
If they can reduce the costs, organizations will be happy, and it will compensate for using the Azure environment, which is more expensive on the infrastructure as a service side.
Ensuring a fair price according to market standards.
From an organization perspective, using E5 licenses is value for money, especially if Azure and Office 365 are already in use.
 

Valuable Features

Microsoft Defender for Cloud enhances security with AI detection, compliance, seamless Azure integration, and multi-cloud support for streamlined protection.
Microsoft Defender for Identity excels in integration, real-time detection, privilege management, AI analytics, and comprehensive security monitoring features.
The most valuable feature for me is the variety of APIs available.
This feature significantly aids in threat detection and enhances the user experience by streamlining security management.
The most valuable feature is the recommendations provided on how to improve security.
We receive an advance report of risky users, allowing us to take preemptive action before an attack causes damage to organization details.
The most valuable feature is its hybrid artificial intelligence, which gathers forensic data to track and counteract security threats, much like the CSI series in effect.
The advanced threat protection is one of the strengths of Microsoft Defender for Identity, as it utilizes user and entity analytics and can detect indicative attacks.
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
78
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (7th), Container Management (9th), Container Security (6th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (2nd), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (4th), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (4th), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (5th), Compliance Management (5th)
Microsoft Defender for Iden...
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
5th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (5th), Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Microsoft Security Suite category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is 6.4%, down from 10.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Identity is 7.1%, up from 6.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Microsoft Security Suite
 

Featured Reviews

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.
ROBERT-CHRISTIAN - PeerSpot reviewer
Integration within the ecosystem enhances collaboration and automates functionalities
The integration into the Microsoft Defender ecosystem is the most valuable feature of Microsoft Defender for Identity. It fits very nicely with all the other Defender tools, allowing for excellent collaboration among them. It also fits seamlessly into Microsoft Sentinel SIEM. Furthermore, Microsoft security solutions can save time as they allow the automation of numerous functionalities, and the reporting inside the Microsoft ecosystem is commendable.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Government
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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 across your ecosystem. It also has great remote workforce capabilities and supports a...
What do you like most about Microsoft Defender for Cloud?
The entire Defender Suite is tightly coupled, integrated, and collaborative.
What do you like most about Microsoft Defender for Identity?
Microsoft Defender for Identity provides excellent visibility into threats by leveraging real-time analytics and data intelligence.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for Identity?
In Microsoft Defender for Identity, I would appreciate improvements in providing information on conditional access. They have added more control that can be put in place, which was not present year...
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Defender for Identity?
The main use cases for Microsoft Defender for Identity involve working with security and signing risk aspects. I work with conditional access, though I have not implemented this task yet.
 

Also Known As

Microsoft Azure Security Center, Azure Security Center, Microsoft ASC, Azure Defender
Azure Advanced Threat Protection, Azure ATP, MS Defender for Identity
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft Defender for Cloud is trusted by companies such as ASOS, Vatenfall, SWC Technology Partners, and more.
Microsoft Defender for Identity is trusted by companies such as St. Luke’s University Health Network, Ansell, and more.
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. Microsoft Defender for Identity and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
857,162 professionals have used our research since 2012.