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Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs Sysdig Falco 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

Qualys TotalCloud
Sponsored
Ranking in Container Security
11th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
46
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (11th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (8th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (8th), SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) (2nd), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (7th)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud
Ranking in Container Security
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
89
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (6th), Container Management (6th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (4th), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (4th), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (6th), Microsoft Security Suite (7th), Compliance Management (4th), Cloud Detection and Response (CDR) (3rd)
Sysdig Falco
Ranking in Container Security
19th
Average Rating
10.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.3
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Container Security category, the mindshare of Qualys TotalCloud is 1.7%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is 4.8%, down from 6.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sysdig Falco is 1.3%, down from 1.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Container Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud4.8%
Qualys TotalCloud1.7%
Sysdig Falco1.3%
Other92.2%
Container Security
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2859021 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr Security Engineer at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees
Risk-based triage has transformed container security and now prioritizes high-impact threats
The best features Qualys TotalCloud offers currently include managing cloud infrastructure and container security while facing major challenges such as alert fatigue. Traditional vulnerability scanners flag hundreds of CVEs on short-lived Kubernetes containers, some of which have no internet exposure or are gone before we can even triage them. I leverage Qualys TotalCloud to move beyond static CVSS. I use it to implement runtime exposure, correlation risk reprioritization, and shift-left integration. This notifies developers to fix a base image upstream rather than patching live ephemeral instances. In my work with cloud and container security, the biggest operational hurdle was alert fatigue. I use Qualys to shift left from static CVSS severity to context-aware risk prioritization. I correlated raw vulnerability data with real-time risk factors such as public network exposure, active runtime execution, or overly permissive IAM roles. This allows us to immediately drop the priority of isolated containers and escalate lower-severity CVEs that sit on an exposed, high-risk path. We can map these findings directly back to our CI/CD pipelines so developers can patch the root base images upstream. We have drastically cut down the signal-to-noise ratio, saved a lot of manual hours doing triage work, and ensured engineering effort goes directly towards high-impact risk reduction.
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.
Patrik Gunnersten - PeerSpot reviewer
Pre-Sales Manager at Conoa AB
Has delivered real-time insights for detecting runtime vulnerabilities and improving response speed
The runtime security part of Sysdig Falco has been the most valuable over the years. They do extensive monitoring, and you can get many insights and an overview and drill down into connections, but it's the runtime security that sets them apart from the competition. Sysdig Falco's real-time monitoring feature for anomaly detection is very high quality. They lean on the Falco project, which is an open-source project that is an excellent source of finding vulnerabilities. They have AI capabilities to set a baseline of the traffic that the client usually has, and then they find anomalies where things start to deviate from the baseline, and they do that exceptionally. The flexibility of Sysdig Falco's rule-driven engine for meeting security policies for customers is very good because you can have the standard features that are already out-of-the-box ready, and then you can tailor your own rules freely and create any type of rules desired.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The biggest strengths of Qualys TotalCloud are that it is pretty good at cloud visibility, has easy integration, and also has multi-cloud compatibility."
"Qualys TotalCloud's most valuable features are its security capabilities that help identify and mitigate risk factors."
"TotalCloud provides the easiest and the best approach for cloud infrastructure management."
"I depend heavily on the reports that I have from this tool."
"I appreciate TotalCloud's real-time protection and remediation features. The remediation options include automated one-click remedies and custom changes that help manage vulnerabilities efficiently."
"Vulnerability and threat detection and assessment of the criticality of the vulnerabilities exposed are most valuable."
"The most valuable feature is extensibility."
"The best features in Qualys TotalCloud include the total asset management of the cloud environment. It is very easy to export the report and see the vulnerabilities related to the cloud specifically."
"The most valuable features of this solution are the vulnerability assessments and the glossary of compliance."
"The first valuable feature was the fact that it gave us a list of everything that users were surfing on the web. Having the list, we could make decisions about those sites."
"The most valuable features are the security recommendations provided by Defender for Cloud."
"The solution is up-to-date with the latest updates and identified threats."
"DSPM is the most valuable feature."
"Overall, Azure Security Center has greatly improved our company's security posture."
"The most valuable feature is the comprehensive overview across different workloads. It allows us to see protection not just across one workload, such as virtual machines, containers, infrastructure, or data, but across all our workloads. This overall visibility is really helpful."
"The integration with Logic Apps allows for automated responses to incidents."
"We've had incidents with clients where high-impact CVEs were published, and I know comparisons where one client said if they didn't have Sysdig Falco in place, what took them about a day would have probably taken one or two months to resolve."
 

Cons

"Two areas for improvement in Qualys TotalCloud are the speed of the public cloud platform and vulnerability detection."
"In TotalCloud, I would suggest improvements in policy checks to cater to various inventory types like VPCs, subnets, S3 buckets, or IAMs. There is a lack of data segregation according to criticality or inventory."
"In my opinion, what can be improved in Qualys TotalCloud includes pricing and container scanning."
"The main area needing improvement is integration. Although the team is strengthening TotalCloud, integration can be enhanced with SIEM, SOAR, ITSM, and other sources."
"Qualys's ticketing system can be confusing when assigning tasks to individuals, and support could be improved by offering instant call solutions with engineers in addition to ticket replies."
"To be honest, I would move out from this tool because it does not give a full view of vulnerability."
"The cloud licensing unit system is unclear, especially since "units" aren't well-defined."
"We encountered challenges identifying the correct resource category for certain items, such as those in containers or storage."
"For Kubernetes, I was using Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS). To see that whatever is getting deployed into AKS goes through the correct checks and balances in terms of affinities and other similar aspects and follows all the policies, we had to use a product called Stackrox. At a granular level, the built-in policies were good for Kubernetes, but to protect our containers from a coding point of view, we had to use a few other products. For example, from a programming point of view, we were using Checkmarx for static code analysis. For CIS compliance, there are no CIS benchmarks for AKS. So, we had to use other plugins to see that the CIS benchmarks are compliant. There are CIS benchmarks for Kubernetes on AWS and GCP, but there are no CIS benchmarks for AKS. So, Azure Security Center fell short from the regulatory compliance point of view, and we had to use one more product. We ended up with two different dashboards. We had Azure Security Center, and we had Stackrox that had its own dashboard. The operations team and the security team had to look at two dashboards, and they couldn't get an integrated piece. That's a drawback of Azure Security Center. Azure Security Center should provide APIs so that we can integrate its dashboard within other enterprise dashboards, such as the PowerBI dashboard. We couldn't get through these aspects, and we ended up giving Reader security permission to too many people, which was okay to some extent, but when we had to administer the users for the Stackrox portal and Azure Security Center, it became painful."
"Microsoft Defender for Cloud is pricey, especially for Kubernetes clusters. It could be cheaper."
"Microsoft Graph needs improvement."
"There are challenges with the licensing policies, which are quite complicated."
"If they had an easier way to display all the vulnerabilities of the machines affected and remediation steps on one screen rather than having to dive deep into each of them, that would be a lot easier."
"It's hard to reach someone who understands my problems. I haven't had many issues, so I haven't called them."
"It's very expensive in terms of the need to maintain it actively."
"From a compliance standpoint, they can include some more metrics and some specific compliances such as GDPR."
"One area for improvement would be having predefined security standards for measuring compliance reports."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Its price seems higher compared to other tools, but it is worth it. If they could adjust the pricing and make it comparable with other tools, that would be great."
"Qualys TotalCloud offers competitive pricing given its comprehensive suite of features, including integration, assessment, remediation, and detection capabilities, all within a single platform."
"Qualys TotalCloud is expensive, but it offers a premier solution with no headaches."
"Qualys TotalCloud offers cost-effective licensing flexibility."
"TotalCloud's price is about right where I would expect it to be."
"It isn't cheap, but it's reasonable. It helps us to manage things with very few resources."
"As a middle management member, I do not have direct pricing knowledge, but based on the knowledge from our meetings, its pricing is competitive."
"Qualys TotalCloud offers good pricing that is affordable and competitive with the market. Our partnership also provides us with additional benefits."
"It is bundled with our enterprise subscription, which makes it easy to go for it. It is available by default, and there is no extra cost for using the standard features."
"There is a helpful cost-reducing option that allows you to integrate production subscriptions with non-production subscriptions."
"Currently, Microsoft offers only one plan at the enterprise level which is $15 per machine."
"We only use the free tier, so we haven't faced any pricing, setup costs, or licensing challenges."
"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."
"We are using the free version of the Azure Security Center."
"Microsoft Defender for Cloud is pricey, especially for Kubernetes clusters."
"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."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
16%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise34
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise49
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Qualys TotalCloud?
In terms of improvement, remediation still belongs to the cloud team, which is one of the issues we faced with Qualys...
What is your primary use case for Qualys TotalCloud?
My main use case for Qualys TotalCloud is regarding the cloud visibility that we were not having previously. Previous...
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...
What needs improvement with Sysdig Falco?
Sysdig Falco is probably the most complete security solution for container-type workloads today. One area for improve...
What is your primary use case for Sysdig Falco?
The primary use case for Sysdig Falco is to find vulnerabilities in real-time. It helps us find CVEs in the runtime p...
What advice do you have for others considering Sysdig Falco?
I work with many different products in the open-source world relating to containers and Kubernetes, not just Prisma C...
 

Also Known As

Qualys TotalCloud with FlexScan
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 Wiz, Palo Alto Networks, SentinelOne and others in Container Security. Updated: September 2026.
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