Prisma Cloud is commended for its competitive pricing, robust security features, and comprehensive compliance capabilities. Users appreciate the reliable customer service but suggest improvements in integration and documentation. On the other hand, Microsoft Defender receives positive feedback for its threat protection, seamless integration with Microsoft tools, and reasonable pricing options. Users value the automatic remediation capabilities but highlight the need for better third-party integrations and customization features.
The summary above is based on 134 interviews we conducted recently with Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks and Microsoft Defender for Cloud users. To access the review's full transcripts, download our report.
"The product supports out-of-the-box reporting with context about the asset and allows us to perform complex custom queries on UI."
"The first thing that stood out was the ease of installation and the quick value we got out of the solution."
"Out of all the features, the one item that has been most valuable is the fact that Wiz puts into context all the pieces that create an issue, and applies a particular risk evaluation that helps us prioritize when we need to address a misconfiguration, vulnerability, or any issue that would put our environment into risk."
"I like Wiz's reporting, and it's easy to do queries. For example, it's pretty simple to find out how many servers we have and the applications installed on each. I like Wiz's security graph because you can use it to see the whole organization even if you have multiple accounts."
"With Wiz, we get timely alerts for leaked data or any vulnerabilities already existing in our environment."
"The security baseline and vulnerability assessments is the valuable feature."
"The solution is very user-friendly."
"The CSPM module has been the most effective. It was easy to deploy and covered all our accounts through APIs, requiring no agents. Wiz provides instant visibility into high-level risks that we need to address."
"The integration with Logic Apps allows for automated responses to incidents."
"Defender for Cloud is a plug-and-play solution that provides continuous posture management once enabled."
"Threat protection is comprehensive and simple."
"We can create alerts that trigger if there is any malicious activity happening in the workflow and these alerts can be retrieved using the query language."
"Everything is built into Azure, and if we go for cross-cloud development with Azure Arc, we can use most of the features. While it's possible to deploy and convert third-party applications, it is difficult to maintain, whereas Azure deployments to the cloud are always easier. Also, Microsoft is a big company, so they always provide enough support, and we trust the Microsoft brand."
"We saw improvement from a regulatory compliance perspective due to having a single dashboard."
"The vulnerability reporting is helpful. When we initially deployed Defender, it reported many more threats than we currently see. It gave us insight into areas we had not previously considered, so we knew where we needed to act."
"The security policy is the most valuable feature for us. We can go into the environment settings and attach any globally recognized framework like ISO or any benchmark."
"I was looking for a vulnerability scanner and I was looking for one place in which I could find everything. This tool not only does vulnerability scanning, but it also gives me an asset management tool."
"It provides insights into potential vulnerabilities in our code, helping us identify and rectify issues before they can be exploited."
"It provides good visibility and control regardless of the complexity."
"The first aspect that is important is the fact that Prisma Cloud is cloud-agnostic. It's actually available for the five top cloud providers: AWS, GCP, Azure, Oracle, and Alibaba Cloud. The second aspect is the fact that we can write our own rules to try to detect misconfigurations in those environments."
"The container and serverless security is most valuable. It is quite a new technology for this region. Even though containers have been there for a long time, the adoption of containers is very minimal in this region. When it comes to using Kubernetes containers in a complex architecture, there is a lack of security in the market. People aren't aware of the security controls or the process for governance. Container security provided by Prisma Cloud is quite good at filling that gap."
"It has a feature for customized security policy. I implement it in banking, health insurance, and other sectors, and every organization has its own customized policies and procedures. In Prisma Cloud, you can customize policies, and based on that, you can do monitoring."
"What I like most about Prisma Cloud is its zero-day signatures, maximum security, minimal downtime, cloud visibility, control, and ease of deployment."
"I've been really pleasantly surprised with how Prisma Cloud is, over time, covering more and more of the topics I care about, and listening to customer feedback and growing the product in the right directions."
"The remediation workflow within the Wiz could be improved."
"We wish there were a way, beyond providing visibility and automated remediation, to wait on a given remediation, due to a critical aspect, such as the cost associated with a particular upgrade... We would like to see preventive controls that can be applied through Wiz to protect against vulnerabilities that we're not going to be able to remediate immediately."
"The reporting isn't that great. They have executive summaries, but it's only a compliance report that maps all current issues to specific controls. Whether you look at one subscription or project, regardless of the size, you will get a multipage report on how the issues in that account map to that control. Our CSO isn't going to read through that. He won't filter that out or show that to his leadership and say, "Here's what we're doing." It isn't a helpful report. They're working on it, but it's a poor executive summary."
"The solution's container security could be improved."
"The only thing that needs to be improved is the number of scans per day."
"We're looking at some of the data compliance stuff that they've got Jon offer. I know they're looking at container security, which we gonna be looking at next."
"Wiz's reporting capabilities could be refined a bit. They are making headway on that, but more executive-style dashboards would be nice. They just implemented a community aspect where you can share documents and feedback. This was something users had been requesting for a while. They are listening to customer feedback and making changes."
"One significant issue is that the searches are case-sensitive, so finding a misconfigured resource can become very challenging."
"The remediation process could be improved."
"Microsoft Defender could be more centralized. For example, I still need to go to another console to do policy management."
"I would like to see better automation when it comes to pushing out security features to the recommendations, and better documentation on the step-by-step procedures for enabling certain features."
"When you work with it, the only problem that we're struggling with is that we have 21 different subscriptions we're trying to apply security to. It's impossible to keep everything organized."
"Sometimes it's very difficult to determine when I need Microsoft Defender for Cloud for a special resource group or a special kind of product."
"Azure Security Center takes a long time to update, compared to the on-premises version of Microsoft Defender."
"There is no perfect product in the world and there are always features that can be added."
"The solution could extend its capabilities to other cloud providers. Right now, if you want to monitor a virtual machine on another cloud, you can do that. However, this cannot be done with other cloud platform services. I hope once that is available then Defender for Cloud will be a unified solution for all cloud platform services."
"It would be ideal if they could somehow reduce the deployment time."
"It would be nice Prisma Cloud merged its modules for CSPM and infrastructure as code. It would simplify the pricing and make it easier for customers to evaluate the solution because there are different modules, and you need to add it to your subscription separately."
"The deployment and onboarding are plug-and-play, but somewhat hard to handle in terms of integration with external operations tools. The product design isn't up to the current standard. I would recommend having higher standards in terms of integration with other tools, especially operationalized tools."
"Prisma Cloud supports generating CSV files, but I would also like it to generate PDF files for reporting."
"The challenge that Palo Alto and Prisma have is that, at times, the instructions in an event are a little bit dated and they're not usable. That doesn't apply to all the instructions, but there are times where, for example, the Microsoft or the Amazon side has made some changes and Palo Alto or Prisma was not aware of them. So as we try to remediate an alert in such a case, the instructions absolutely do not work. Then we open up a ticket and they'll reply, "Oh yeah, the API for so-and-so vendor changed and we'll have to work with them on that." That area could be done a little better."
"When it comes to compliance, the issue is that when we are exporting the reports, there is only a single compliance option. If I need to report on multiple compliance requirements, that feature isn't available. For example, I made a single report for ISO 27000 but I can't correlate it with GDPR."
"The pricing for the solution needs improvement."
"I have some challenges customizing and personalizing some of the capabilities in the CSPM in terms of new policies and services. We have to reconfigure and rebuild the CSPM."
More Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks Pricing and Cost Advice →
Microsoft Defender for Cloud is ranked 3rd in Container Security with 22 reviews while Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks is ranked 1st in Container Security with 57 reviews. Microsoft Defender for Cloud is rated 8.0, while Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Microsoft Defender for Cloud writes "The portal provides you auditing and logging capabilities". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks writes "The dashboard is very user-friendly and can be used to generate custom RQL based on user requirements". Microsoft Defender for Cloud is most compared with AWS GuardDuty, Microsoft Defender XDR, Microsoft Sentinel, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint and Azure Firewall, whereas Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks is most compared with Aqua Cloud Security Platform, AWS Security Hub, CrowdStrike Falcon Cloud Security, AWS GuardDuty and Snyk. See our Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks report.
See our list of best Container Security vendors, best CWPP (Cloud Workload Protection Platforms) vendors, and best Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) vendors.
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