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Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs Symantec Cloud Workload Protection comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 25, 2026

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

SentinelOne Singularity Clo...
Sponsored
Ranking in Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
4th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
124
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (4th), Cloud and Data Center Security (5th), Container Security (3rd), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (3rd), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (3rd), Compliance Management (1st), AI Observability (3rd)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Ranking in Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
1st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
89
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (5th), Container Management (6th), Container Security (5th), 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 (4th), Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) (3rd)
Symantec Cloud Workload Pro...
Ranking in Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
29th
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) category, the mindshare of SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security is 4.9%, up from 2.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is 14.0%, up from 13.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Cloud Workload Protection is 0.7%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud14.0%
SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security4.9%
Symantec Cloud Workload Protection0.7%
Other80.4%
Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP)
 

Featured Reviews

Sreeraj Mohandas - PeerSpot reviewer
Security Engineer at HashXpert
Consolidated cloud security has reduced manual work and has automated vulnerability remediation
I elaborate on my rating of SentinelOne support by mentioning that there was some time where the troubleshooting took a longer time. In fact, there were many meetings going on. The availability of the document on the internet is on a lesser side because as an engineer, I would want to know about the troubleshooting aspects of this particular tool. When I am facing a customer, I do not prefer to bring the vendor to every call and try to resolve it, as it takes months and months. It would be better to have a training session with the engineer on site to explain and train properly. This is not the case with SentinelOne, so this is the only thing I have a complaint about. I do not have any other room for improvement to suggest within SentinelOne itself. However, I would really want the AI assistant for the threat hunting part to be more accessible. They have it, but they are making it licensed, so it is a bit on the higher end.
RW
Head Of IT at Cirrus Response
Cloud security has cut investigation time and now reveals threats faster but needs simpler oversight
When deploying AI applications, my key security concerns with Microsoft Defender for Cloud are data loss, leakage of data, and guardrails around the actual AI, and I am hoping that this is going to help me put those guardrails in place and identify data exfiltration. Microsoft Defender for Cloud has not helped me manage and secure multi-cloud environments, as we are 100 percent Microsoft and have not really got it in any other environment at all. I am not yet using the unified AI-powered security feature offered by Microsoft Defender for Cloud, but that is coming. I am not yet using the integrated XDR feature of Microsoft Defender for Cloud, but that is coming. I am not yet utilizing the GenAI threat protection features of Microsoft Defender for Cloud. That is also coming and a lot of that will come from learning it here. I have enabled the agentless scanning in my cloud environment with Microsoft Defender for Cloud. Assessing the impact on my workload protection without needing to install agents with Microsoft Defender for Cloud makes it a lot easier, but it also identifies a lot more, which puts more load on me sometimes. I would advise another organization considering Microsoft Defender for Cloud that it is the most logical route to follow if their whole ecosystem is Microsoft. It is easy to implement and it is very self-explanatory when doing it, making sense to just follow the steps as it is too simple, really. I would rate this review a 7.5 out of 10.
Mahadi Ma - PeerSpot reviewer
Engineer at M.Tech
Has a good active directory feature and good technical support
One area for improvement in Symantec Cloud Workload Protection is integration. Other features that could be improved are defense control and encryption, particularly in the USB. For example, users should be able to control the USB and have the capability of blocking and allowing USB reading and writing. Having a USB encryption feature in Symantec Cloud Workload Protection would also be very useful. An additional feature I'd like to see in the next release of Symantec Cloud Workload Protection is more advanced defense on mobile devices such as iOS and Android. For example, even offline or with no internet connection, it would be good if the solution could defend devices against malware and ransomware.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"With SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security, it's easy to onboard new accounts."
"The remediation process is good."
"The most valuable feature of SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security is its integration with most of our technology stack, specifically all of our cloud platforms and ticketing software."
"The single-touch, agentless deployment is number one."
"The key strength of Singularity Cloud Security lies in its ability to pinpoint vulnerabilities in our cloud accounts and identify suspicious activity that warrants further investigation."
"It's helped free up staff time so that they can work on other projects."
"There's real-time threat detection. It can show threats and find issues based on their severity and helps us with real-time monitoring."
"The cloud misconfiguration is the most valuable feature."
"The solution has improved our organization in terms of benchmarking, our Secure Score has improved a lot, and we're compliant with particular benchmarks."
"Microsoft Defender for Cloud can find potential phishing links and malicious code in data at rest."
"No doubt it is useful as per the log analysis and threat protection analysis."
"Defender gave us more substantial visibility into our security, helping us increase our overall security posture and manage risks throughout the entire organization."
"It is very intuitive when it comes to policy administration, alerts and notifications, and ease of setting up roles at different hierarchies. It has also been good in terms of the network technology maps. It provides a good overview, but it also depends on the complexity of your network."
"This solution is stable, it's 100% guaranteed and I've never had any problems with it other than some planned IT downtime."
"The biggest benefit of Microsoft Defender for Cloud for us is specifically around being able to identify threats very quickly and being able to shut them down."
"It takes very little effort to integrate it, and it also gives very good visibility into what exactly is happening."
"The most valuable features in Symantec Cloud Workload Protection are endpoint protection and active directory features. The active directory features in the product are very good, and in terms of security, the most valuable feature in Symantec Cloud Workload Protection is threat defense or threat protection."
"Symantec Cloud Workload Protection is a stable solution and it offers very good protection for organizations."
"This is a very good tool for cloud protection."
"It will read various logs, diagnose what is wrong, and then alert you."
 

Cons

"After closing an alert in Cloud Native Security, it still shows as unresolved."
"SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security is an excellent CSPM tool, but its CWPP features need improvement, and there is scope for more application security posture management features."
"I would prefer to see SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security develop into a single pane of glass for ASPM and CSPM."
"A vulnerability alert would appear, and we'd fix it, but then the same alert would return the next day."
"SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security has limited legacy system support and may not fully support older operating systems or legacy environments."
"One of the issues with the product stems from the fact that it clubs different resources under one ticket."
"I would like additional integrations."
"To enhance the notification system's efficiency, resolved issues should be promptly removed from the portal."
"An area where Microsoft Defender for Cloud could be improved is in getting away from having multiple menus that do the same thing, which seems imposing when looking at it."
"Microsoft has much room for improvement regarding the support for Microsoft Defender for Cloud. Their competitors are much better regarding support."
"The product must improve its UI."
"The solution could extend its capabilities to other cloud providers."
"The range of workloads is broad, but we'd love to add more workloads and make it a single security solution that covers all those workloads. Covering more would allow us to see and protect more workloads from a single pane of glass. Additional features should include protection for more AI workloads as it currently focuses primarily on OpenAI."
"The solution is quite complex. A lot of the different policies that actually get applied don't pertain to every client."
"To improve Microsoft Defender for Cloud, I think pricing-wise, the license price is a little bit higher from an ingestion cost perspective."
"Azure is a complex solution. You have so many moving parts."
"One area for improvement in Symantec Cloud Workload Protection is integration. Other features that could be improved are defense control and encryption, particularly in the USB. For example, users should be able to control the USB and have the capability of blocking and allowing USB reading and writing. Having a USB encryption feature in Symantec Cloud Workload Protection would also be very useful."
"One area for improvement in Symantec Cloud Workload Protection is integration."
"In the future, we may need to use features that are only available in one of the competing products."
"In the future, we may need to use features that are only available in one of the competing products."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is a little expensive. I would rate it a four out of ten for pricing."
"We have an enterprise license. It is affordable. I'm not sure, but I think we pay 150,000 rupees per month."
"PingSafe is less expensive than other options."
"The cost for PingSafe is average when compared to other CSPM tools."
"PingSafe's primary advantage is its ability to consolidate multiple tools into a single user interface, but, beyond this convenience, it may not offer significant additional benefits to justify its price."
"It's not cheap, but it is worth the price."
"Singularity Cloud Workload Security's pricing is good."
"PingSafe is cost-effective for the amount of infrastructure we have. It's reasonable for what they offer compared to our previous solution. It's at least 25 percent to 30 percent less."
"The product's pricing policy is generally favorable."
"I'm not privy to that information, but I know it's probably close to a million dollars a year."
"Defender's basic version is free, which is good. Many of our teams are evaluating the paid version against third-party products."
"I am not involved in this area. However, I believe its price is okay because even small customers are using Azure Security Center. I don't think it is very expensive."
"This solution is more cost-effective than some competing products. My understanding is that it is based on the number of integrations that you have, so if you have fewer subscriptions then you pay less for the service."
"There are improvements that have to be made to the licensing. Currently, for servers, it has to be done by grouping the servers on a single subscription... We don't have an option whereby, if all those resources are in one subscription, we can have each of the individual servers subject to different planning."
"Defender for Cloud is pretty costly for a single line. It's incredibly high to pay monthly for security per server. The cost is considerable for an enterprise with 500-plus virtual machines, and the monthly bill can spike."
"The pricing and licensing of Microsoft Defender for Cloud have been good for us. We appreciate the licensing approach based on employee count rather than a big enterprise license."
"The licensing cost for Symantec Cloud Workload Protection is paid yearly."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
5%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business52
Midsize Enterprise23
Large Enterprise58
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business30
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise49
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about PingSafe?
The dashboard gives me an overview of all the things happening in the product, making it one of the tool's best featu...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for PingSafe?
My experience with the pricing, setup costs, and licensing of SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security is that the pric...
What needs improvement with PingSafe?
Integration could be improved because not all solutions can be integrated with SentinelOne Singularity Cloud Security...
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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Defender for Cloud?
My experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing was that the license cost was the only consideration. Setup an...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Defender for Cloud?
To improve Microsoft Defender for Cloud, I think pricing-wise, the license price is a little bit higher from an inges...
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Also Known As

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

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Microsoft Defender for Cloud is trusted by companies such as ASOS, Vatenfall, SWC Technology Partners, and more.
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Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. Symantec Cloud Workload Protection and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,244 professionals have used our research since 2012.