We performed a comparison between Microsoft Defender Cloud and Prisma Cloud according to four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Based on the parameters we compared, Microsoft Defender came ahead of Prisma Cloud because our reviewers found Prisma Cloud to be more difficult in terms of licensing.
"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."
"The solution is very user-friendly."
"Our most important features are those around entitlement, external exposure, vulnerabilities, and container security."
"The vulnerability management modules and the discovery and inventory are the most valuable features. Before using Wiz, it was a very manual process for both. After implementing it, we're able to get all of the analytics into a single platform that gives us visibility across all the systems in our cloud. We're able to correspond and understand what the vulnerability landscape looks like a lot faster."
"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."
"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."
"The first thing that stood out was the ease of installation and the quick value we got out of the solution."
"The automation roles are essential because we ultimately want to do less work and automate more. The dashboards are easy to read and visually pleasing. You can understand things quickly, which makes it easy for our other teams. The network and infrastructure teams don't know as much about security as we do, so it helps to have a tool that's accessible and nice to look at."
"Defender lets you orchestrate the roll-out from a single pane. Using the Azure portal, you can roll it out over all the servers covered by the entire subscription."
"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 product has given us more insight into potential avenues for attack paths."
"The main feature is the security posture assessment through the security score. I find that to be very helpful because it gives us guidance on what needs to be secured and recommendations on how to secure the workloads that have been onboarded."
"The solution is very easy to deploy."
"Technical support is helpful."
"Defender is a robust platform for dealing with many kinds of threats. We're protected from various threats, like viruses. Attacks can be easily minimized with this solution defending our infrastructure."
"Microsoft Defender has a lot of features including regulatory compliance and attaching workbooks but the most valuable is the recommendations it provides for each and every resource when we open Microsoft Defender."
"Prisma Cloud is quite simple to use. The web GUI is powerful. Prisma Cloud scans the overall architecture of the AWS network to identify open ports and other vulnerabilities, then highlights them."
"It has improved the overall collaboration between SecOps and DevOps. Now, instead of asking people to do something, it is a default offering in the CI/CD. There is less manual intervention and more seamless integration. It is why we don't have many dependencies across many teams, which is definitely a better state."
"We were pleased with Prisma's custom and built-in reports. We could go into the dashboard and see all these notifications telling us which subscriptions didn't have TLS 1.2 enabled. The security controls were the most valuable features."
"The application visibility is amazing. For example, sometimes we don't know what a particular custom port is for and what is running on it. The visibility enables us to identify applications, what the protocol is, and what service is behind it. Within Azure, it is doing a great job of providing visibility. We know exactly what is passing through our network. If there is an issue of any sort we are able to quickly detect it and fix the problem."
"Prisma Cloud helped us with compliance. Most of my deployments have been greenfield, so I don't have a benchmark to compare how the security posture has improved. I've always used this from day zero of the configuration. However, I can say that the compliance checks for PCI, DSS, HIPAA, etc., made my life simpler. I don't need to look at each of these standards and compare the rules I have in place."
"The most valuable feature is the continuous cloud compliance monitoring and alerting."
"The most valuable feature is the closed VPN connection, which provides better performance than traditional VPN boxes. For example, let's say a user in New York State normally connects in the East, but if they travel to the UK, they can connect to the same portal, which automatically redirects to any VPN gateway. We can control traffic based on Active Directory groups instead of the user's IP. That means a user in New York can access his application based on his user ID and AD group access when he travels to the UK or anywhere else."
"We found it to be easy and flexible. We could easily configure it for our needs, and we could spread the Prisma Cloud platform to 16 countries without encountering any kind of problem."
"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."
"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."
"Given the level of visibility into all the cloud environments Wiz provides, it would be nice if they could integrate some kind of mechanism to better manage tenants on multiple platforms. For example, let's say that some servers don't have an application they need, such as an antivirus. Wiz could include an API or something to push those applications out to the servers. It would be great if you could remedy these issues directly from the Wiz platform."
"One significant issue is that the searches are case-sensitive, so finding a misconfigured resource can become very challenging."
"The only small pain point has been around some of the logging integrations. Some of the complexities of the script integrations aren't supported with some of the more automated infrastructure components. So, it's not as universal. For example, they have great support for cloud formation and other services, but if you're using another type of management utility or governance language for your infrastructure-as-code automation components, it becomes a little bit trickier to navigate that."
"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 remediation workflow within the Wiz could be improved."
"The only thing that needs to be improved is the number of scans per day."
"You cannot create custom use cases."
"From my own perspective, they just need a product that is tailored to micro-segmentation so I can configure rules for multiple systems at once and manage it."
"After getting a recommendation, it takes time for the solution to refresh properly to show that the problem has been eliminated."
"I would suggest building a single product that addresses endpoint server protection, attack surface, and everything else in one solution. That is the main disadvantage with the product. If we are incorporating some features, we end up in a situation where this solution is for the server, and that one is for the client, or this is for identity, and that is for our application. They're not bundling it. Commercially, we can charge for different licenses, but on the implementation side, it's tough to help our end-customer understand which product they're getting."
"Microsoft sources most of their threat intelligence internally, but I think they should open themselves up to bodies that provide feel intelligence to build a better engine. There may be threats out there that they don't report because their team is not doing anything on that and they don't have arrangements with another party that is involved in that research."
"The most significant areas for improvement are in the security of our identity and endpoints and the posture of the cloud environment. Better protection for our cloud users and cloud apps is always welcome."
"Microsoft can improve the pricing by offering a plan that is more cost-effective for small and medium organizations."
"Azure is a complex solution. You have so many moving parts."
"Prisma Cloud supports generating CSV files, but I would also like it to generate PDF files for reporting."
"The first time I looked at Prisma Cloud, it took me a while to understand how to implement the integration or how to enable features by using the interface for integration. That portion can probably be improved."
"The security automation capabilities are average."
"The information presented in the UI sometimes doesn't look intuitive enough."
"We'd like to have more native integration with clouds and additional security checks in the future."
"They need to improve the API gateway."
"Prisma Cloud lags behind in terms of security automation capabilities."
"In terms of securing cloud-native development at build time, a lot of improvement is needed. Currently, it's more a runtime solution than a build-time solution. For runtime, I would rate it at seven out of 10, but for build-time there is a lot of work to be done."
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 44 reviews. Microsoft Defender for Cloud is rated 8.0, while Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Microsoft Defender for Cloud writes "Provides good recommendations and makes policy administration easy". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks writes "The magic happens with traffic passing through multiple zones and our data center, as we can quickly troubleshoot problems". Microsoft Defender for Cloud is most compared with Microsoft 365 Defender, AWS GuardDuty, Microsoft Sentinel, Trend Micro Cloud One and Check Point Harmony Email & Collaboration, whereas Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks is most compared with Aqua Cloud Security Platform, Snyk, Check Point CloudGuard Posture Management, AWS GuardDuty and Orca Security. 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 Security Posture Management (CSPM) vendors.
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