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Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs Qualys CyberSecurity Asset Management comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 27, 2025

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

Zafran Security
Sponsored
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
17th
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) (1st)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
79
Ranking in other categories
Container Management (9th), Container Security (7th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (4th), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (4th), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (4th), Microsoft Security Suite (8th), Compliance Management (5th), Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) (2nd)
Qualys CyberSecurity Asset ...
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
8th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
Patch Management (5th), Cyber Asset Attack Surface Management (CAASM) (3rd), Attack Surface Management (ASM) (3rd), Software Supply Chain Security (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Vulnerability Management category, the mindshare of Zafran Security is 1.0%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is 5.2%, up from 5.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Qualys CyberSecurity Asset Management is 1.2%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Vulnerability Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud5.2%
Qualys CyberSecurity Asset Management1.2%
Zafran Security1.0%
Other92.6%
Vulnerability Management
 

Featured Reviews

Israel Cavazos Landini - PeerSpot reviewer
Weekly insights and risk analysis facilitate informed security decisions
I appreciate the weekly insights Zafran provides, which include critical topics for networks and IT security, allowing us to evaluate which insights apply to our environment. The organization score feature is valuable to keep the leadership team updated on how our infrastructure fares security-wise. The applicable risk level versus base risk level feature is beneficial because prior to Zafran, we only used the base risk level, but now understand that risk depends on the asset itself. Zafran is an excellent tool.
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.
Nicki Møller - PeerSpot reviewer
Enables automation and quick access to necessary information
One of the significant challenges Qualys is discovery, which I know Microsoft excels at. I can't recall how well Qualys performs this function; it seems I might be missing some details. However, if there's one key aspect to focus on, it's discovery—the ability to identify assets that you are not aware of, even when you can see they are present. Understanding what those assets are is crucial. With Qualys CyberSecurity Asset Management, it was very difficult to extract detections from the system. The features within Qualys are limited to what they have developed. Sometimes a complete overview is needed to push to a Power BI dashboard, Splunk, ServiceNow, or other platforms. The export process is incredibly challenging. We needed a developer to write a hundred-line Python script that would loop over certain assets due to export limitations. Qualys CyberSecurity Asset Management could improve its integration capabilities. While it generates substantial data, correlating it with other data sources can be challenging. The export process is difficult, and pre-built integrations with other tools could be enhanced for better process implementation.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Zafran is an excellent tool."
"Zafran has become an indispensable tool in our cybersecurity arsenal."
"We are able to see the real risk of a vulnerability on our environment with our security tools."
"Overall, we have seen about eighty-seven percent reduction of the number of vulnerabilities that require urgency to remediate, specifically the number of criticals."
"We saw benefits from Zafran Security almost immediately after deploying it."
"With respect to improving our security posture, it helps us to understand where we are in terms of compliance. We can easily know when we are below the standard because of the scores it calculates."
"Defender for Cloud provides a prioritized list of remediations for security issues, reducing risk and improving security operations."
"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."
"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."
"When you have commissioned Defender, you have these things visible already on your dashboard. This gives the efficiency to the people to do their actual work rather than bothering about the email, sorting out the email, or looking at it through an ITSM solution, whey they have to look at the description and use cases. Efficiency increases with this optimized, ready-made solution since you don't need to invest in something externally. You can start using the dashboard and auditing capability provided from day one. Thus, you have fewer costs with a more optimized, easier-to-use solution, providing operational efficiency for your team."
"The most valuable feature is the recommendations provided on how to improve security. It has made the cloud environment more secure, thanks to all the recommendations we can get."
"The feature of Microsoft Defender for Cloud that I have found most valuable is the alerts, which are pretty standard for security."
"The UX and UI are very good. Users have more of a taste for Microsoft UI."
"I would rate Qualys CyberSecurity Asset Management ten out of ten."
"The scanning results are pretty good, and some of the insights are quite valuable."
"I recommend Qualys CyberSecurity Asset Management due to its superior asset information collection capabilities, including comprehensive hardware and software inventorying."
"The end-of-life and end-of-service software and hardware are some of my favorite features."
"We have had zero attacks since we enabled all the features in Qualys CSAM."
"Qualys CSAM helps find all the assets. It categorizes information based on various criteria such as host and tenant version. It provides in-depth visibility into both hardware and software."
"The main thing I appreciate about Qualys CyberSecurity Asset Management is the cloud environment while tracking software and zero-day vulnerability risk, alongside asset discovery and tagging, as well as attack surface management."
"When you implement a dynamic tag using a query, you do not need to manually tag all the servers. It categorizes all the servers that come under that query. The tagging part is automatically done within a few minutes. It reduces the effort."
 

Cons

"The dashboarding and reporting functionality of Zafran Security is an area that definitely could use some improvements."
"Initially, we were somewhat concerned about the scalability of Zafran due to our large asset count and the substantial amount of information we needed to process."
"I think the ability to have some enhanced reporting capabilities is something they can improve on, as they have good reports but we have asked for some specific reporting enhancements."
"The overview provides you with good information, but if you want more details, there is a lot more customization to do, which requires knowledge of the other supporting solutions."
"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."
"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."
"Microsoft Defender for Cloud is not compatible with Linux machines."
"The pricing could be improved, as it is somewhat high for smaller companies."
"I would like to see more connectors and plugins with other platforms."
"If a customer is already using Okta as an SSO in its entire environment, they will want to continue with it. But Security Center doesn't understand that and keeps making recommendations. It would help if it let us resolve a recommendation, even if it is not implemented."
"I've heard there might be issues with scalability for larger enterprises."
"All required features are available in Qualys CSAM. However, it would be helpful if Qualys CSAM started incorporating AI models. An inclusion of threat details for AI and LLM-related risks would be beneficial."
"The UI needs improvement as it can become overwhelming after prolonged use."
"In our reporting, we faced a challenge syncing with cloud devices."
"In my opinion, the area that needs improvement is the role-based access control (RBAC). The access privilege management needs to be more robust and streamlined to enhance user access management. Additionally, improvements to the user interface could be beneficial."
"Currently, whenever the agent is running, it consumes over ten percent of my CPU, indicating that CPU consumption is another area Qualys needs to address."
"There can be further simplification to reduce the overall noise and provide ESAM-related data."
"Further research and development are needed to enhance integration with other cloud agents and products, particularly improving communication with external products and vendors."
"The main aspect that needs improvement is the user interface, which should be more intuitive."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The solution is expensive, and I rate it a five to six out of ten."
"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."
"The pricing model for most plans is generally good, but the cost of the new Defender for Storage plan is high and should be revisited, as it could lead to disabling desirable security features due to cost."
"The product's pricing policy is generally favorable."
"While we pay for any additional features, the pricing seems competitive, though I am not involved in the specific cost details."
"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."
"The licensing cost per server is $15 per month."
"There is a helpful cost-reducing option that allows you to integrate production subscriptions with non-production subscriptions."
"The pricing is market-competitive."
"The pricing is reasonable relative to the features provided, as it collects all module data and operates as a main, centralized inventory, making it a cost-effective solution."
"The pricing for Qualys CSAM is nominal."
"Though the solution is considered expensive, if bundled with other services such as VMDR or cloud agents, its value would significantly increase. It is currently a bit costly, but with bundling, it could become attractive to more customers."
"The pricing is fair. I would love to see the price come down a little bit, but we do get a lot of value out of it. We are squeezing every ounce of value we can out of the tool."
"The Qualys Cybersecurity Asset Management pricing is well-aligned with our usage."
"Qualys is competitively priced for its features. Its pricing is suitable for large organizations with more than 4,000 assets, but for smaller organizations with few assets, such as banks, the costs might be high. They should come up with packages that are suitable for small organizations."
"Qualys offers excellent value for money."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business26
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise45
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise16
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zafran Security?
Since we stood Zafran Security up in our private cloud, we handle the maintenance on our side. As we opted not to use...
What needs improvement with Zafran Security?
In terms of areas for improvement, Zafran Security is doing a really great job as a new and emerging company. Oftenti...
What is your primary use case for Zafran Security?
My use cases for Zafran Security revolve around two primary areas. One is around vulnerability management and priorit...
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 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 Qualys CyberSecurity Asset Management?
We are currently using a cheaper solution, and I sometimes get the feeling that our solution is less stable. When thi...
What needs improvement with Qualys CyberSecurity Asset Management?
One of the significant challenges Qualys is discovery, which I know Microsoft excels at. I can't recall how well Qual...
What is your primary use case for Qualys CyberSecurity Asset Management?
We are using Qualys CyberSecurity Asset Management for daily activities such as identifying new assets through networ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
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 Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. Qualys CyberSecurity Asset Management and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
869,760 professionals have used our research since 2012.