Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs Microsoft Purview Audit comparison

Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. Microsoft Purview Audit

Download the complete report

Helped 850,028 peers since 2012

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 Cloud

Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite

4th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Vulnerability Management (7th), Container Management (9th), Container Security (4th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (2nd), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (4th), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (4th), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (3rd), Compliance Management (3rd)

Microsoft Purview Audit

Ranking in Microsoft Security Suite

31st

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

8.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Log Management (45th)

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Microsoft Security Suite category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is 6.4%, down from 11.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Purview Audit is 0.6%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Microsoft Security Suite

Featured Reviews

Vibhor Goel

Senior Cloud Platform Engineer at Deutsche Börse

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.

Read full review

Nagendra Nekkala

Senior Manager ICT & Innovations at Bangalore International Airport Limited

Enables us to create a user in the cloud and give them access to resources through a single workflow

The PAM for Active Directory is good. ActiveOps is quite useful as a feature. The One Identity active role enables us to create a user in the cloud and give them access to resources through a single workflow. We can create rules-based access. It helps us control audit management and IT access management. We can decide what people can access and detect job functions. It enables zero trust security with hybrid AD, find delegation, and role-based access control. It provides all certificates and provides secure authentication, call-based access control, et cetera. It's really important for my critical applications. We can see who's using what, whether they are authorized, and other information to decide what access to offer. With the active role console, I can find out the obvious issues and also perform a decent setup. The One Identity active roles enable us to reduce password reset times. We can handle tasks in a matter of a minute. It simplifies AD and Azure AD management, efficiency, and security overall. The password manager is very secure and is a self-service password manager solution. It is considerably decreasing my help desk tasks. Our engineering users can reset forgotten passwords, and it can implement a stronger password. The management around access to enterprise resources keeps my data and systems secure. We're easily saving at least one hour per day using this solution. The migration from AD to Azure AD is very easy. There are simple configurations, and the migration goes rather smoothly. We use the solution support for SaaS apps through Cloud Delivered SCIM connectors. There are controls that can be configured and we can add and set permissions easily.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I would rate Microsoft Defender for Cloud a ten out of ten."

"Microsoft Defender for Cloud monitors our entire cloud environment. It enables conditional access and incorporates features like number matching and single sign-on for all our cloud apps. It is great for protecting against ransomware and various security threats."

"The solution is quite good and addresses many security gaps."

"The valuable features include the ability to manage devices and the fact that Defender can replace other security tools like SCCM."

"The dashboard is very good. It gives our clients a lot of information and allows them to have a complete overview of the system. Everything is visible in one glance."

"The most valuable features of this solution are the remote workforce capabilities and the general experience of the remote workforce."

"Microsoft Defender for Cloud has significantly enhanced our overall security posture by approximately 20 to 25 percent."

"My favorite part of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is the compliance features. Defender covers a wide range of workloads, on par with competing products on the market."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud pros

"The platform has significantly enhanced our operational insight into the overall Microsoft 365 environment."

"We're easily saving at least one hour per day using this solution."

Cons

"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."

"The solution's portal is very easy to use, but there's one key component that is missing when it comes to managing policies. For example, if I've onboarded my server and I need to specify antivirus policies, there's no option to do that on the portal. I will have to go to Intune to deploy them. That is one main aspect that is missing and it's worrisome."

"They could always work to make the pricing a bit lower."

"Consistency is the area where the most improvement is needed. For example, there are some areas where the UI is not uniform across the board."

"Microsoft Defender for Cloud is not compatible with Linux machines."

"Features like code scanning and pipeline scanning are not included in the solution."

"Defender is occasionally unreliable. It isn't 100% efficient in terms of antivirus detection, but it isn't an issue most of the time. It's also somewhat difficult to train new security analysts to use Defender."

"The product's advanced analytics and reporting features could be improved."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud cons

"Areas for product improvement include enhancing customization options and integrating more comprehensive compliance features."

"We do have a Denial of Access happening."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of the solution is good for the features we receive and there is an additional cost for Microsoft premier support. However, some of my potential customers have found it to be expensive and have gone on to choose another solution."

"Defender for Cloud is pretty costly for a single line. It's incredibly high to pay monthly for security per server. The cost is considerable for an enterprise with 500-plus virtual machines, and the monthly bill can spike."

"The solution is expensive, and I rate it a five to six out of ten."

"I'm not privy to that information, but I know it's probably close to a million dollars a year."

"This solution is more cost-effective than some competing products. My understanding is that it is based on the number of integrations that you have, so if you have fewer subscriptions then you pay less for the service."

"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."

"They have a free version, but the license for this one isn't too high. It's free to start with, and you're charged for using it beyond 30 days. Some other pieces of Defender are charged based on usage, so you will be charged more for a high volume of transactions. I believe Defender for Cloud is a daily charge based on Azure's App Service Pricing."

"Pricing is difficult because each license has its own metrics and cost."

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud pricing and cost advice

Information not available

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Microsoft Security Suite solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

850,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

17%

Computer Software Company

13%

Educational Organization

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

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 Microsoft Defender for Cloud?

The cost is generally reasonable. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Plan 2 costs $15 per server, per month. For a normal customer with ten to twenty servers, the cost is about $300 per month, which is a...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Purview Audit?

I'm not aware of the pricing of licensing terms.

What needs improvement with Microsoft Purview Audit?

Areas for product improvement include enhancing customization options and integrating more comprehensive compliance features.

What is your primary use case for Microsoft Purview Audit?

We utilize Microsoft Purview Audit for monitoring security and compliance aspects.

AWS GuardDuty vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Comparisons

Compared 20% of the time

Wiz vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 14% of the time

Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 11% of the time

Microsoft Defender XDR vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 5% of the time

Orca Security vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Compared 3% of the time

More Microsoft Defender for Cloud Competitors

Splunk Enterprise Security vs Microsoft Purview Audit

Compared 14% of the time

Datadog vs Microsoft Purview Audit

Compared 13% of the time

Splunk Cloud Platform vs Microsoft Purview Audit

Compared 13% of the time

Microsoft Purview eDiscovery vs Microsoft Purview Audit

Compared 11% of the time

Microsoft Sentinel vs Microsoft Purview Audit

Compared 10% of the time

More Microsoft Purview Audit Competitors

Product Reports

Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Download Microsoft Defender for Cloud product report

Log Management

Download Microsoft Purview Audit product report

Also Known As

Microsoft Azure Security Center, Azure Security Center, Microsoft ASC, Azure Defender

No data available

Interactive Demo

Demo not available

Overview

Microsoft Defender for Cloud is a comprehensive security solution that provides advanced threat protection for cloud workloads. It offers real-time visibility into the security posture of cloud environments, enabling organizations to quickly identify and respond to potential threats. With its advanced machine learning capabilities, Microsoft Defender for Cloud can detect and block sophisticated attacks, including zero-day exploits and fileless malware.

The solution also provides automated remediation capabilities, allowing security teams to quickly and easily respond to security incidents. With Microsoft Defender for Cloud, organizations can ensure the security and compliance of their cloud workloads, while reducing the burden on their security teams.

The unified auditing functionality in Microsoft 365 provides organizations with visibility into many types of audited activities across many different services in Microsoft 365. Advanced Audit helps organizations to conduct forensic and compliance investigations by increasing audit log retention required to conduct an investigation, providing access to crucial events that help determine scope of compromise, and faster access to Office 365 Management Activity API.

Sample Customers

Microsoft Defender for Cloud is trusted by companies such as ASOS, Vatenfall, SWC Technology Partners, and more.

Information Not Available

Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. Microsoft Purview Audit