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Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 6, 2025

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
Organizations gain significant returns from Microsoft Defender for Cloud through improved security, cost savings, and enhanced productivity.
Sentiment score
7.5
Nutanix Cloud Manager offers swift ROI with reduced costs, increased efficiency, and quicker recovery through enhanced scalability and automation.
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 varies, with premium users receiving better service, while others face repetitive explanations and variable expertise.
Sentiment score
8.3
Nutanix Cloud Manager's support is highly praised for responsiveness, expertise, quick issue resolution, and personalized service despite time zone challenges.
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.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.8
Microsoft Defender for Cloud is praised for scalability, seamless integration, and adaptability across environments, despite potential cost implications.
Sentiment score
7.9
Nutanix Cloud Manager offers scalable, centralized management with seamless expansion, predictive planning, and extensive automation for diverse enterprise sizes.
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.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.7
Microsoft Defender for Cloud is stable and reliable, with minor issues in response times, connectivity, and update-related downtimes.
Sentiment score
8.1
Nutanix Cloud Manager is praised for stability, reliability, and support, making it a dependable choice for infrastructure management.
Defender's stability has been flawless for us.
Microsoft Defender for Cloud is very stable.
Microsoft sometimes changes settings or configurations without transparency.
I would rate the stability a nine out of ten.
 

Room For Improvement

Users desire improved automation, integration, transparency, controls, and documentation for better management and protection in Microsoft Defender for Cloud.
Nutanix Cloud Manager users desire enhanced UI, VM organization, integration, automation, transparent pricing, and improved stability and support.
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.
Quick resolution of disconnection issues and errors in plugins is crucial.
 

Setup Cost

Microsoft Defender for Cloud offers competitive pricing, but complex models and hidden costs can be concerns for enterprise buyers.
Nutanix Cloud Manager provides competitive pricing and rapid ROI, enabling flexible scaling and value with customizable tiers and discounts.
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.
It is not cheap or expensive.
 

Valuable Features

Microsoft Defender for Cloud enhances security through advanced threat protection, multi-cloud integration, AI capabilities, and automated incident responses.
Nutanix Cloud Manager simplifies IT with centralized management, automation, quick recovery, predictive analytics, and improved productivity and flexibility.
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.
The file server is the best feature because it supports different vendors such as Microsoft Hyper-V and VMware without locking with a specific vendor.
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Ranking in Data Security Posture Management (DSPM)
3rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
76
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), Microsoft Security Suite (4th), Compliance Management (3rd)
Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM)
Ranking in Data Security Posture Management (DSPM)
5th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
88
Ranking in other categories
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Suites (3rd), Cloud Management (2nd), Virtualization Management Tools (2nd), Cloud Cost Management (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is 12.7%, down from 15.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) is 0.3%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Security Posture Management (DSPM)
 

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.
Kyle Naidoo - PeerSpot reviewer
Nutanix gave us three and a half hours back
Recently, I have had quite a few issues with Nutanix Guest Tools (NGT). When you do a full update from LCM, your NGT doesn't automatically install on your VMs. You need to go back to Prism Central and select a list of VMs, then install NGT. You need to go to each of those VMs, then restart them to get the NGT installed. Also, there are some VMs that we have on our system that we used to run on an old environment, which was Hyper-V. Previously, we had VMware, so some of our VMs are Windows 7 32-bit and Windows 7 64-bit. However, the NGT no longer allows for installations on those. We constantly get packet drops. We are actually looking at upgrading them in the future. While Windows 7 is not supported anymore from a Microsoft perspective, Nutanix could allow NGT to still be installed since people still use Windows 7. I have five VMs currently running on Windows 7. This is not a major issue. The VMs still work, but you get an alert in the mornings, saying, "Hey, NGT is not installed." When we go there, we try to install NGT, but it won't allow us since Windows 7 is not allowed anymore.
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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
37%
Educational Organization
15%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
4%
 

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 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...
Which set of Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) features do you find to be the most useful?
For me, the features related to cost savings are the best part of NCM. Of course, the whole product is worth using and when it comes to cloud management, there is a reason why it is favored by so m...
Are the setup process and further maintenance of Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) difficult?
When I came into my current organization, NCM was already set up. According to the team that dealt with it, the product was fairly easy to set up. Compared to other products, our IT rates are set u...
Is Nutanix Cloud Manager’s Intelligent Operations feature effective?
Yes, this is a highly effective feature and the rebranding only made things better as they introduced more improvements. You can benefit from Zero coding task automation Automated optimization Tic...
 

Also Known As

Microsoft Azure Security Center, Azure Security Center, Microsoft ASC, Azure Defender
Nutanix Cloud Manager Intelligent Operations, Nutanix Cloud Manager Self-Service, Nutanix Cloud Management Cost Governance, Nutanix Cloud Manager Security Central
 

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.
JetBlue, International Speedway Corporation, Volkswagen SAIC, Brighton and Hove City Council, Foresters Financial, Janus International Group, Cloud Comrade, Serco
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.