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Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 13, 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

Zafran Security
Sponsored
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
18th
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) (2nd)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
78
Ranking in other categories
Container Management (8th), Container Security (7th), 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), Microsoft Security Suite (7th), Compliance Management (5th)
Microsoft Defender Vulnerab...
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
12th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (16th), Microsoft Security Suite (20th), Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Vulnerability Management category, the mindshare of Zafran Security is 0.8%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is 5.7%, up from 4.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management is 3.0%, up from 3.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Vulnerability Management
 

Featured Reviews

Israel Cavazos Landini - PeerSpot reviewer
Weekly insights and risk analysis facilitate informed security decisions
I appreciate the weekly insights Zafran provides, which include critical topics for networks and IT security, allowing us to evaluate which insights apply to our environment. The organization score feature is valuable to keep the leadership team updated on how our infrastructure fares security-wise. The applicable risk level versus base risk level feature is beneficial because prior to Zafran, we only used the base risk level, but now understand that risk depends on the asset itself. Zafran is an excellent tool.
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.
NaySan @ Suraj Verma - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides actionable vulnerability insights and recommendations with notable efficiency
They may need to improve the portal refresh rate for Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management because it takes time for recommendations to disappear after mitigation; sometimes, it takes one week, when it should ideally take only one to two hours. Overall, everything is good with Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management, but the portal refresh rate can take up to seven days in some cases and three or four days in others to reflect changes.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Zafran has become an indispensable tool in our cybersecurity arsenal."
"Zafran is an excellent tool."
"We saw benefits from Zafran Security almost immediately after deploying it."
"We are able to see the real risk of a vulnerability on our environment with our security tools."
"Overall, we have seen about eighty-seven percent reduction of the number of vulnerabilities that require urgency to remediate, specifically the number of criticals."
"Microsoft Defender for Cloud has definitely helped us manage and secure our multi-cloud environment by providing ease of use."
"Using Security Center, you have a full view, at any given time, of what's deployed, and that is something that is very useful."
"When you have commissioned Defender, you have these things visible already on your dashboard. This gives the efficiency to the people to do their actual work rather than bothering about the email, sorting out the email, or looking at it through an ITSM solution, whey they have to look at the description and use cases. Efficiency increases with this optimized, ready-made solution since you don't need to invest in something externally. You can start using the dashboard and auditing capability provided from day one. Thus, you have fewer costs with a more optimized, easier-to-use solution, providing operational efficiency for your team."
"Threat protection is comprehensive and simple."
"The solution is up-to-date with the latest updates and identified threats."
"With respect to improving our security posture, it helps us to understand where we are in terms of compliance. We can easily know when we are below the standard because of the scores it calculates."
"Some of the most valuable features of Microsoft Defender for Cloud include its effectiveness in threat detection through unsupervised machine learning, CTI, and advanced sandboxing."
"The solution's robust security posture is the most valuable feature."
"The recommendations, scores, and steps to remediate actions are highly useful."
"The solution helps identify threats and vulnerabilities."
"Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management provides regular advisories and recommendations that help improve our security posture."
"The solution is highly scalable."
"Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management is versatile and assesses vulnerabilities, providing detailed information on CVEs, their categories, and exploit statuses."
"Overall, I would rate Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management a nine out of ten."
"The integration with Sentinel has been one of the most valuable features for my organization."
"The product's stability is very high...The scalability of the product is amazing."
 

Cons

"Initially, we were somewhat concerned about the scalability of Zafran due to our large asset count and the substantial amount of information we needed to process."
"I think the ability to have some enhanced reporting capabilities is something they can improve on, as they have good reports but we have asked for some specific reporting enhancements."
"The dashboarding and reporting functionality of Zafran Security is an area that definitely could use some improvements."
"Agent features need to be improved. They support agents through Azure Arc or Workbench. Sometimes, we are not able to get correct signals from the machines on which we have installed these agents. We are not able to see how many are currently reporting to Azure Security Center, and how many are currently not reporting. For example, we have 1,000 machines, and we have enrolled 1,000 OMS agents on these machines to collect the log. When I look at the status, even though at some places, it shows that it is connected, but when I actually go and check, I'm not getting any alerts from those. There are some discrepancies on the agent, and the agent features are not up to the mark."
"Microsoft Defender for Cloud is not compatible with Linux machines."
"Customer service and support from Microsoft are very poor. Even for high-severity cases, response or resolution time can extend to three or four weeks."
"The customer service at Microsoft has room for improvement. The first line of support is not technically adept and often requires engaging higher-level technicians to resolve issues."
"I felt that there was disconnection in terms of understanding the UI. The communication for moving from the old UI to the new UI could be improved. It was a bit awkward."
"An area where Microsoft Defender for Cloud could be improved is in getting away from having multiple menus that do the same thing, which seems imposing when looking at it."
"Defender could improve how data is represented. It can be unstructured or slow to load. The recent update allowing policy grouping into control groups is beneficial, but further enhancements for speed and clarity are needed."
"I recommend that they extend the scope for legacy infra assets."
"They may need to improve the portal refresh rate for Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management because it takes time for recommendations to disappear after mitigation; sometimes, it takes one week, when it should ideally take only one to two hours."
"Probably my only criticism would be the cost. It is expensive."
"There is a good solution from Microsoft, however, there is a gap between Windows and Linux management."
"It is expensive."
"It is challenging to extract and customize reports from the system."
"We have experienced some logging issues, including a few hours of downtime initially. Despite this, I would rate the overall stability as an eight."
"Sometimes the stability of the agents could be improved."
"The automated remediations can be more specific."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"Understanding the costs of cloud services can be complicated at first. As with a lot of things in the cloud, it can be quite hard to understand the end cost, but it becomes clearer over time. Early on, the lack of transparency is a challenge. Microsoft does not tell you the cost when they launch something. It is clever marketing, and there is room for improvement there. There should be clarity from the start."
"This is a worldwide service and depending on the country, there will be different prices."
"It has global licensing. It comes with multiple licenses since there are around 50,000 people (in our organization) who look at it."
"Pricing is difficult because each license has its own metrics and cost."
"Pricing depends on your workload size, but it is very cheap. If you're talking about virtual machines, it is $5 or something for each machine, which is minimal. If you go for some agent-based solution for every virtual machine, then you need to pay the same thing or more than that. For an on-premises solution like this, we were paying around $30 to $50 based on size. With Defender, Microsoft doesn't bother about the size. You pay based on the number of machines. So, if you have 10 virtual machines, and 10 virtual machines are being monitored, you are paying based on that rather than the size of the virtual machine. Thus, you are paying for the number of units rather than paying for the size of your units."
"I am not involved much with the pricing but the bundle offering is good."
"Although I am outside of the discussion on budget and costing, I can say that the importance of security provided by this solution is of such importance that whatever the cost is, it is not a factor."
"I rate Microsoft Defender a three out of ten for affordability. The price could be a little lower."
"I rate the product's price a three on a scale of one to ten, where one is a low price, and ten is a high price."
"The licensing costs are reasonable."
"The product’s pricing is medium."
"The tool is a bit costly."
"The licensing model follows a per-user per-month structure."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Healthcare Company
6%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
12%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zafran Security?
Since we stood Zafran Security up in our private cloud, we handle the maintenance on our side. As we opted not to use...
What needs improvement with Zafran Security?
In terms of areas for improvement, Zafran Security is doing a really great job as a new and emerging company. Oftenti...
What is your primary use case for Zafran Security?
My use cases for Zafran Security revolve around two primary areas. One is around vulnerability management and priorit...
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.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management?
I would rate the price as a three for us due to the partnership discounts. For non-partners, however, the cost could ...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management?
I have not thought about improvements for Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management as of now, but this is typicall...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Microsoft Azure Security Center, Azure Security Center, Microsoft ASC, Azure Defender
No data available
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Microsoft Defender for Cloud is trusted by companies such as ASOS, Vatenfall, SWC Technology Partners, and more.
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
863,901 professionals have used our research since 2012.