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Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs The NodeZero Platform comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 15, 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)
The NodeZero Platform
Ranking in Vulnerability Management
33rd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
5.5
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Penetration Testing Services (4th), Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS) (4th)
 

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 5.1%, up from 5.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of The NodeZero Platform is 1.2%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Vulnerability Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud5.1%
Zafran Security1.0%
The NodeZero Platform1.2%
Other92.7%
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.
Brian W. - PeerSpot reviewer
Effectively prioritizes vulnerabilities and has been one of the most transformative technologies
Prioritization is really key; it's a massive differentiator. The prioritization aspect is crucial. The ability to capture or crack credentials and then use that to move laterally and identify additional vulnerabilities is significant. Their password-cracking capability is a distinct function that is very helpful. Additionally, when a new vulnerability, such as a zero-day exploit, is identified, they review your previous scans to determine if you might be vulnerable to it, and they proactively notify you. That's a huge benefit. Also, the fact that they provide fixes alongside all their identified vulnerabilities means you don’t have to search for fixes yourself. They give you specific actions to take, which is incredibly helpful and saves a lot of time.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We are able to see the real risk of a vulnerability on our environment with our security tools."
"Zafran is an excellent tool."
"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."
"Zafran has become an indispensable tool in our cybersecurity arsenal."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is its ability to assess an environment and give us a clear idea of what security components are lacking and which are not."
"Defender is user-friendly and provides decent visibility into threats."
"The scalability of Microsoft Defender for Cloud is very good."
"The most valuable feature is the hunting feature, which integrates well into the entire Microsoft ecosystem."
"One important security feature is the incident alerts. Now, with all these cyberattacks, there are a lot of incident alerts that get triggered. It is very difficult to keep monitoring everything automatically, instead our organization is utilizing the automated use case that we get from Microsoft. That has helped bring down the manual work for a lot of things."
"The notification process of Microsoft Defender for Cloud has been the most valuable feature. The notification process is effortless, as it can tell me right there and then locate issues pretty fast, saving us a lot of time by not having to dig through all the warnings."
"The tool's most valuable feature is its support for cloud-native services like Kubernetes, containers, managed storage, and databases. Protecting these without Microsoft Defender for Cloud would be extremely challenging. For threat protection specifically, I find the signature-based detection and heuristic detection features very effective."
"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."
"I rate the stability of the NodeZero Platform a ten out of ten."
"We experienced a threat that could have severely crippled us, but we were able to shut it down before it escalated, thanks to internal vulnerability testing and addressing critical vulnerabilities using their tool."
"The NodeZero Platform's real attack capabilities help in identifying vulnerabilities on our on-prem systems because it provides actual vulnerabilities by attacking our systems."
"The NodeZero Platform is amazing; what I love most about it is that it's automated and comparable to the manual pen testing we did with a third-party company, but with the added benefit of unlimited retesting to validate fixes."
"Overall, I'd rate NodeZero at nine to 9.5 out of ten."
"Honestly, it's one of the most transformational technologies we've implemented in our company."
"Penetration testing and scans are useful features."
"For us, The NodeZero Platform is literally the single best security solution we have because the way that it works is we're able to scan every part of our network, both internally and externally, and then get completely actionable feedback that doesn't matter if it's for an application developer or a network admin."
 

Cons

"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 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."
"However, some Copilot features aren't available in the GCP environment. This is something we hope will be addressed in the future."
"I recommend that they extend the scope for legacy infra assets."
"While we are satisfied with Defender for Cloud's features, an AI enhancement could potentially provide better advice and adapt more effectively to our environment."
"I would like to see more connectors and plugins with other platforms."
"I recommend that they extend the scope for legacy infra assets."
"For improvements, I'd like to see more use cases integrated with Microsoft Sentinel and support for multi-cloud environments beyond just Azure."
"I've heard there might be issues with scalability for larger enterprises."
"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."
"You need to be cautious about what it scans, as it could potentially cause issues."
"The reports are quite useless."
"They've added a chatbot which isn't particularly useful, but when it can't answer questions, it forwards messages to human support."
"The only issue we’ve encountered is that sometimes the scans take a long time to complete."
"One of the areas where improvement is needed is in the visibility and reporting for large enterprises."
"The areas for improvement for The NodeZero Platform involve integration and automation. It would be beneficial if it could integrate directly with vulnerability management tools that would allow the platform to automatically import data, identify vulnerable systems, and test targets immediately, potentially even enabling automated feedback loops for rescanning since the process is currently manual."
"I think The NodeZero Platform could improve by leveraging GPUs for password cracking, which would be pretty good."
"I encountered challenges with patch management, as we struggled to test and implement patches due to time constraints. This led to our patch management process being ineffective."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The product's pricing policy is generally favorable."
"I rate Microsoft Defender a three out of ten for affordability. The price could be a little lower."
"Microsoft's licensing and pricing are sometimes complicated. If someone is new to Microsoft's licensing, they might have difficulty with it."
"There are two different plans. We're using the secure basic plan, but we have used the end security plan as well. There are additional costs, but it gives us more functionalities compared to the basic plan."
"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."
"I am not involved much with the pricing but the bundle offering is good."
"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."
"This is a worldwide service and depending on the country, there will be different prices."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
5%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
11%
Educational Organization
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

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 Business5
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise4
 

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 do you like most about Horizon3.ai?
Penetration testing and scans are useful features.
What needs improvement with Horizon3.ai?
One significant area to focus on is external vulnerabilities, particularly in the web application space. This often r...
What is your primary use case for Horizon3.ai?
The primary use case that we have for The NodeZero Platform is for scanning the environment and identifying vulnerabi...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Microsoft Azure Security Center, Azure Security Center, Microsoft ASC, Azure Defender
Horizon3.ai
 

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.
Government agencies, Defense Industrial Base organizations, and enterprises in regulated industries such as finance, healthcare, manufacturing, and criticalinfrastructure rely on NodeZero to meet rigorous security and compliance requirements with continuous, scheduled, and on-demand testing.
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender for Cloud vs. The NodeZero Platform and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
872,778 professionals have used our research since 2012.