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Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs Microsoft Entra ID Protection 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
7.3
Microsoft Defender for Cloud boosts security and efficiency, integrates with Azure, reduces costs, prevents breaches, and offers proactive defense.
Sentiment score
5.4
Microsoft Entra ID Protection offers full ROI in three years, with immediate efficiency, satisfaction, and time-saving 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.
There is a return on investment in terms of time-saving, control, and ease of manageability of the environment.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.5
Microsoft Defender for Cloud support is responsive at higher levels, but experiences vary with mixed satisfaction due to delays.
Sentiment score
6.3
Microsoft Entra ID Protection support receives mixed reviews, with varied satisfaction based on response times, support quality, and subscription level.
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.
They often refer to internal blogs, which doesn't offer much new information and can limit our capabilities in troubleshooting.
Tickets often bounce from person to person, requiring the sharing of information multiple times.
The response time can be affected based on the type of Azure subscription tier.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
Microsoft Defender for Cloud is scalable, integrating across environments effortlessly, suitable for all enterprise sizes with flexible performance.
Sentiment score
8.0
Microsoft Entra ID Protection effortlessly scales with customer needs, supported by licenses and cloud-native features, ensuring minimal scaling issues.
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.
Since it is a cloud computing product, it can accommodate a range of company sizes, from a few users to large businesses.
There are no issues with scalability up to your license limitations.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
Microsoft Defender for Cloud is stable and reliable, with minimal issues mainly during updates, ensuring strong user satisfaction.
Sentiment score
7.6
Microsoft Entra ID Protection is reliable, with occasional minor issues, but overall supports large-scale implementations smoothly.
Defender's stability has been flawless for us.
Microsoft Defender for Cloud is very stable.
Microsoft sometimes changes settings or configurations without transparency.
 

Room For Improvement

Microsoft Defender for Cloud users seek better automation, clarity, integration, AI features, and comprehensive analytics for improved security management.
Microsoft Entra ID Protection requires enhancements in identity management, scalability, documentation, pricing clarity, and third-party integration.
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 there was some level of backup mechanism available with quick restore functionality, that would be beneficial.
Microsoft has not offered control over how they calculate high or low-risk scenarios.
There is no write-back feature from the cloud to local, which would allow me to use my own credentials from the cloud tenant securely.
 

Setup Cost

Microsoft Defender for Cloud is scalable, offering free and paid versions with costs averaging $15 monthly per server.
Microsoft Entra ID Protection's pricing is competitive but confusing, with added value for enterprises using Azure subscriptions.
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.
Entra ID Protection is not badly priced, but some clients, especially in medium to smaller scale companies in third-world countries, find it quite expensive.
Microsoft Entra ID requires additional licensing components.
The pricing for Microsoft Entra ID protection is not expensive.
 

Valuable Features

Microsoft Defender for Cloud enhances security with AI-based threat detection, multi-cloud support, and a unified portal for comprehensive management.
Microsoft Entra ID Protection enhances security with multifactor authentication, seamless Azure integration, and advanced threat detection for businesses.
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.
Having a single sign-on feature with Entra ID ensures seamless access to various applications, even those with significant security constraints.
These features ease the job of security analysts, providing a better vision of user activities and potential risks.
We use automated remediation for logon purposes and error purposes. It remediates issues and provides just-in-time access when applicable.
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
8th
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 Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (4th), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (4th), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (4th), Compliance Management (5th), Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) (2nd)
Microsoft Entra ID Protection
Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite
9th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Identity Management (IM) (6th), Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Microsoft Security Suite category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is 6.0%, down from 8.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Entra ID Protection is 3.5%, down from 5.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Microsoft Security Suite Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud6.0%
Microsoft Entra ID Protection3.5%
Other90.5%
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.
Ankit Gupta. - PeerSpot reviewer
Comprehensive identity management enhances security and access controls with advanced integration
The monitoring from Microsoft Entra ID Protection provides great visibility at a granular level. It provides all the details, including IP address, username, and permission or error logs. This information is available in both the audit log and regular log. The alert functionality supports general day-to-day monitoring and any violation or trigger for errors. Microsoft Entra ID Protection's features are suitable for all sizes of companies. It's a must-have product because traditionally Active Directory was used for identity and authentication on computers. Now, with hybrid capabilities, every company of any size needs these features and tools. I rate Microsoft Entra ID Protection ten out of ten.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business26
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise45
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise4
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure Active Directory Identity Protection?
The pricing for Microsoft Entra ID protection is not expensive. It varies based on the company's size and quality.
What needs improvement with Azure Active Directory Identity Protection?
A potential area of improvement in Microsoft Entra ID Protection could include backup-level capability or snapshot capability. Currently, we are required to use third-party backups for the overall ...
 

Also Known As

Microsoft Azure Security Center, Azure Security Center, Microsoft ASC, Azure Defender
Azure Active Directory Identity Protection, Azure AD Identity Protection
 

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.
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. Microsoft Entra ID Protection and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
869,513 professionals have used our research since 2012.