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Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs Rancher Labs 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
Microsoft Defender for Cloud enhances security, reduces costs, and boosts productivity with proactive threat detection and seamless integration.
Sentiment score
8.5
Rancher Labs provides efficient open-source solutions like OpenShift with significant cost savings and an eight out of ten rating.
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 is praised for expertise but criticized for delays, inconsistent service, and ticket handling issues.
Sentiment score
7.8
Rancher Labs' customer service and technical support are praised for responsiveness, with users valuing community forums for assistance.
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 highly scalable, managing diverse environments smoothly, with seamless integration and flexible subscriptions despite cost concerns.
Sentiment score
7.7
Rancher Labs offers robust scalability for small to large teams, with effective deployment and minor automation improvements suggested.
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Microsoft Defender for Cloud provides a stable, reliable environment with minor performance issues primarily due to outdated systems.
Sentiment score
8.7
Rancher Labs is praised for its stability and reliability, though users note complexity and upgrade challenges.
Defender's stability has been flawless for us.
Microsoft Defender for Cloud is very stable.
Microsoft sometimes changes settings or configurations without transparency.
 

Room For Improvement

Microsoft Defender for Cloud needs better automation, integration, user-friendliness, documentation, pricing, real-time monitoring, and legacy support.
Rancher Labs needs improved stability, integrations, user-friendly features, enhanced security, multicloud support, and better community and development resources.
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.
 

Setup Cost

Microsoft Defender for Cloud provides flexible pricing with a free version; costs vary by features, region, and enterprise needs.
Rancher Labs provides a cost-effective open-source container orchestration with optional paid support, seen as competitively mid-range priced.
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.
 

Valuable Features

Microsoft Defender for Cloud enhances security with AI detection, compliance, seamless Azure integration, and multi-cloud support for streamlined protection.
Rancher Labs offers user-friendly Kubernetes management, seamless integrations, and supports GitOps and virtual machine management with promising potential.
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.
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Ranking in Container Management
9th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
78
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (7th), Container Security (6th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (2nd), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (4th), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (4th), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (5th), Microsoft Security Suite (7th), Compliance Management (5th)
Rancher Labs
Ranking in Container Management
8th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
Data Storage for Kubernetes (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Container Management category, the mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is 1.0%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Rancher Labs is 8.4%, down from 9.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Container Management
 

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.
RyanVassallo - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers an open-source version along with a good UI
The product has multiple good features. One of the solution's good features is that it is the GitOps functionality known as Rancher fleet, which is used for continuous delivery. The tool's UI is very convenient enough to help you manage multiple clusters in the cloud or on-premises, making it a product with which you can manage different clusters and locations. The tool also has a feature that is still kind of maturing, but I think it has very good potential. This new feature is named Harvester, which is allows users to have virtual machines managed by Kubernetes engine. This is very new technology in the market. I think that Harvester needs to mature as a product, and I think that in the future, it will be very powerful. You have one tool that does many things for you.
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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Container Management solutions are best for your needs.
857,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
Manufacturing Company
37%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
5%
 

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 do you like most about Rancher Labs?
The tool's UI is very convenient enough to help you manage multiple clusters in the cloud or the company, making it a product with which you can manage different clusters and locations.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Rancher Labs?
The cost is reasonable since it's open-source. Rancher effectively addresses container orchestration trends, especially for those with some Kubernetes knowledge.
What needs improvement with Rancher Labs?
While Rancher Labs provides some level of security, it's not considered very robust. We found it to offer basic security features, which met some of our requirements, but we also relied on other op...
 

Also Known As

Microsoft Azure Security Center, Azure Security Center, Microsoft ASC, Azure Defender
No data available
 

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.
Albert Heijn, Bell, BMC, Samsung, WindStream, Johnson & Johnson
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. Rancher Labs and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
857,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.