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Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs Nucleus Security comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 23, 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

Qualys TotalCloud
Sponsored
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
11th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
Container Security (11th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (7th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (8th), SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) (1st), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (6th)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
89
Ranking in other categories
Container Management (6th), Container Security (4th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (3rd), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (4th), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (4th), Microsoft Security Suite (7th), Compliance Management (4th), Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) (3rd)
Nucleus Security
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
40th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Application Security Tools (28th), Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (14th), Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) (13th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Vulnerability Management category, the mindshare of Qualys TotalCloud is 1.1%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is 2.8%, down from 4.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nucleus Security is 1.0%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Vulnerability Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud2.8%
Qualys TotalCloud1.1%
Nucleus Security1.0%
Other95.1%
Vulnerability Management
 

Featured Reviews

RO
IT Security Expert at Alior Bank S.A.
Unified risk scoring has improved our cloud visibility and simplifies remediation priorities
Qualys TotalCloud provides unified vulnerability and threat assessment across both IAS and SaaS. This solution provides a single prioritized view of risk, which helps reduce the work I would have to do. We are no longer based on CVSS; we are based on Qualys risk scoring, which is based on CVSS plus internal findings made by Qualys, and then assigns its own score. The TruRisk insight feature has found a small number of assets with high vulnerability scores, though I am cautious since some information is classified. Qualys TotalCloud has positively impacted our bank's performance, and we have definitely seen benefits after implementing this solution.
RW
Head Of IT at Cirrus Response
Cloud security has cut investigation time and now reveals threats faster but needs simpler oversight
When deploying AI applications, my key security concerns with Microsoft Defender for Cloud are data loss, leakage of data, and guardrails around the actual AI, and I am hoping that this is going to help me put those guardrails in place and identify data exfiltration. Microsoft Defender for Cloud has not helped me manage and secure multi-cloud environments, as we are 100 percent Microsoft and have not really got it in any other environment at all. I am not yet using the unified AI-powered security feature offered by Microsoft Defender for Cloud, but that is coming. I am not yet using the integrated XDR feature of Microsoft Defender for Cloud, but that is coming. I am not yet utilizing the GenAI threat protection features of Microsoft Defender for Cloud. That is also coming and a lot of that will come from learning it here. I have enabled the agentless scanning in my cloud environment with Microsoft Defender for Cloud. Assessing the impact on my workload protection without needing to install agents with Microsoft Defender for Cloud makes it a lot easier, but it also identifies a lot more, which puts more load on me sometimes. I would advise another organization considering Microsoft Defender for Cloud that it is the most logical route to follow if their whole ecosystem is Microsoft. It is easy to implement and it is very self-explanatory when doing it, making sense to just follow the steps as it is too simple, really. I would rate this review a 7.5 out of 10.
VK
manager at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
Unified vulnerability workflows have transformed how our teams prioritize and resolve critical risks
While the platform is incredibly powerful, the initial configuration curve of Nucleus Security can be a bit steep. When first setting up complex, multi-layered automation rules and asset groupings, the interface can feel a little overwhelming. Having more intuitive step-by-step visualized wizards or guided templates for building complex triage workflows would make the onboarding process much smoother for new team members. Dashboard customization and reporting would definitely be on my wish list. While the default dashboards are great for a general overview, it can take a bit of manual tweaking when building highly tailored workspace views for different engineering groups. Having a more flexible drag-and-drop widget system where individual teams can prioritize exactly what metrics they see first on their layout would be a huge quality of life update. On the reporting side, the data it generates is solid, but I would like to see more granular control over formatting within the platform itself. Sometimes leadership wants data tailored in very specific ways, and currently, we occasionally have to export the data and clean it up externally to meet those exact visual preferences.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We were able to realize its benefits within 24 to 48 hours."
"One of the features I appreciate is the ability to generate daily reports without relying on anyone else."
"TotalCloud has been excellent in providing us with immediate access to all the products and features we need, such as CSPM, TruRisk Insights, and compliance reports, including CIS and HIPAA."
"One of the most valuable features of Qualys TotalCloud is FlexScan, which is specifically for internet-facing VMs. We found this feature to be very useful. It was a key differentiator for us."
"In my opinion, this is the best tool."
"The scalability is good as well. I would rate it ten out of ten."
"Qualys TotalCloud provides a single, prioritized view based on requirements such as identifying the most vulnerable assets and calculating the average time to remediate vulnerabilities."
"The best feature would be the ability to create policies. It is easy to control and update policies as required."
"The solution has improved our organization in terms of benchmarking, our Secure Score has improved a lot, and we're compliant with particular benchmarks."
"I would rate Microsoft Defender for Cloud a ten out of ten."
"The strong point of Defender, especially when using Azure Arc to bring in on-premises systems, is that it doesn't matter where these systems are; they're just resources in the portal."
"The security alerts and correlated alerts are most valuable. It correlates the logs and gives us correlated alerts, which can be fed into any security information and event management (SIEM) tool. It is an analyzed correlation tool for monitoring security. It gives us alerts when there is any kind of unauthorized access, or when there is any malfunctioning in multifactor authentication (MFA). If our Azure is connected with Azure Security Center, we get to know what types of authentication are happening in our infra."
"Overall, Azure Security Center has greatly improved our company's security posture."
"One of the features that I like about the solution is it is both a hybrid cloud and also multi-cloud. We never know what company we're going to buy, and therefore we are ready to go. If they have GCP or AWS, we have support for that as well. It offers a single-panel blast across multiple clouds."
"One important security feature is the incident alerts. Now, with all these cyberattacks, there are a lot of incident alerts that get triggered. It is very difficult to keep monitoring everything automatically, instead our organization is utilizing the automated use case that we get from Microsoft. That has helped bring down the manual work for a lot of things."
"Microsoft Defender for Cloud has improved our security poster by at least 100 percent."
"The best features that Nucleus Security offers in my experience are the unified integrations with all of the different vulnerability management platforms."
"Nucleus Security has fundamentally changed how we manage our vulnerability lifecycle and made our entire incident response process much more proactive, organized, and reliable."
 

Cons

"The price is very expensive, actually."
"The onboarding process is a bit difficult. In the initial phase, it is very difficult to understand the features, what the dashboard contains, and what criteria they are using."
"The vulnerability part is good, but the policy compliance module needs improvement because it involves a lot of manual work. Specifically, the remediation part of the controls requires enhancements."
"Their customer support needs improvement."
"Overall, we are satisfied with it. However, the response part of the Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) module can be improved. It is not yet in place according to requirements; it is not completely available even though the module has been released."
"We would like to see Windows-based sensors available in Qualys, as this would make the platform more versatile and support a broader range of environments."
"The main area needing improvement is integration. Although the team is strengthening TotalCloud, integration can be enhanced with SIEM, SOAR, ITSM, and other sources."
"In TotalCloud, I would suggest improvements in policy checks to cater to various inventory types like VPCs, subnets, S3 buckets, or IAMs. There is a lack of data segregation according to criticality or inventory."
"Sometimes, it's very difficult to determine when I need Microsoft Defender for Cloud for a special resource group or certain kinds of products. That's not an issue directly with the product, though."
"The solution could extend its capabilities to other cloud providers."
"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."
"There needs to be improvement in the security recommendations, particularly in attack path mapping. Sometimes, it misleads users about the real exposure of external-facing assets."
"The initial setup is not actually so complex but it feels complex because there are many add-ons. There are many options and my team needs to be aware of all of these changes happening on the backend which is a distraction."
"Azure Security Center takes a long time to update, compared to the on-premises version of Microsoft Defender."
"For Kubernetes, I was using Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS). To see that whatever is getting deployed into AKS goes through the correct checks and balances in terms of affinities and other similar aspects and follows all the policies, we had to use a product called Stackrox. At a granular level, the built-in policies were good for Kubernetes, but to protect our containers from a coding point of view, we had to use a few other products. For example, from a programming point of view, we were using Checkmarx for static code analysis. For CIS compliance, there are no CIS benchmarks for AKS. So, we had to use other plugins to see that the CIS benchmarks are compliant. There are CIS benchmarks for Kubernetes on AWS and GCP, but there are no CIS benchmarks for AKS. So, Azure Security Center fell short from the regulatory compliance point of view, and we had to use one more product. We ended up with two different dashboards. We had Azure Security Center, and we had Stackrox that had its own dashboard. The operations team and the security team had to look at two dashboards, and they couldn't get an integrated piece. That's a drawback of Azure Security Center. Azure Security Center should provide APIs so that we can integrate its dashboard within other enterprise dashboards, such as the PowerBI dashboard. We couldn't get through these aspects, and we ended up giving Reader security permission to too many people, which was okay to some extent, but when we had to administer the users for the Stackrox portal and Azure Security Center, it became painful."
"While the platform is incredibly powerful, the initial configuration curve of Nucleus Security can be a bit steep."
"Nucleus Security needs a better view into exposure management, as exposure management and attack path management are missing."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"TotalCloud's price is about right where I would expect it to be."
"It isn't cheap, but it's reasonable. It helps us to manage things with very few resources."
"Qualys TotalCloud offers good pricing that is affordable and competitive with the market. Our partnership also provides us with additional benefits."
"Its price seems higher compared to other tools, but it is worth it. If they could adjust the pricing and make it comparable with other tools, that would be great."
"Qualys TotalCloud offers cost-effective licensing flexibility."
"Although Qualys TotalCloud is relatively expensive due to its unique automation features, its cost-effectiveness is rated an eight out of ten, with ten being the most costly."
"Qualys TotalCloud is cost-efficient and was selected for its value compared to other products."
"I am not sure about the pricing. From what I understand, it is a bit on the higher side, but I do not have the exact numbers."
"Pricing is a consideration, but we strive to keep costs low by enabling only necessary services."
"Pricing is difficult because each license has its own metrics and cost."
"Azure Defender is a bit pricey. The price could be lower."
"There are improvements that have to be made to the licensing. Currently, for servers, it has to be done by grouping the servers on a single subscription... We don't have an option whereby, if all those resources are in one subscription, we can have each of the individual servers subject to different planning."
"The tool is pretty expensive."
"There is a helpful cost-reducing option that allows you to integrate production subscriptions with non-production subscriptions."
"Microsoft Defender for Cloud is pricey, especially for Kubernetes clusters."
"It is bundled with our enterprise subscription, which makes it easy to go for it. It is available by default, and there is no extra cost for using the standard features."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Construction Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Construction Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise29
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise49
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Qualys TotalCloud?
Areas that need improvement in every solution include the remediation part. The remediation steps should be simple en...
What is your primary use case for Qualys TotalCloud?
Our use case involves the assets that we have under cloud, the assets exposed to the internet, and the internal appli...
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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender for Cloud?
My experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing was that the license cost was the only consideration. Setup an...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for Cloud?
To improve Microsoft Defender for Cloud, I think pricing-wise, the license price is a little bit higher from an inges...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Nucleus Security?
I have a good experience with that, so we don't have much problem dealing with pricing, setup, and licensing.
What needs improvement with Nucleus Security?
Nucleus Security needs a better view into exposure management, as exposure management and attack path management are ...
What is your primary use case for Nucleus Security?
My main use case for Nucleus Security is unifying the vulnerability management landscape, providing a single source o...
 

Also Known As

Qualys TotalCloud with FlexScan
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 Wiz, Qualys, Tenable and others in Vulnerability Management. Updated: June 2026.
903,933 professionals have used our research since 2012.